Tender Gestures in heteronormative spaces. Displaying affection in public by families of choice in Poland.

This article discusses the ways in which non-heterosexual people living in Poland understand and navigate displaying affection in public. I trace how LGBTQ people negotiate and develop their strategies of (in)visibility. I investigate the landscape of queer visibility outside 'the West' and in particular discuss concepts developed in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I argue that the geographies of sexualities should pay more attention to public displays of affection (PDA) from the perspective of agentic queer subjects. I propose an approach based on tenderness to capture and understand the ambiguity and complexity of strategies of (in)visibility. The paper draws on research on the intimate life of non-heterosexual people living in Poland that included 53 individual in-depth narrative interviews and a monthly ethnographic study conducted with 21 non-heterosexual families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]