Abstract
Queer theory is increasingly used in New Zealand studies of early childhood education to understand persistent issues of gender and sexuality inequality. Replete with normative expectations about gender, sexuality, and the family form, early childhood provides a multitude of entry points for understanding the repetitive impositions of heterosexual hegemony and associated heteronormative thinking and practice. Furthermore, children sometimes say and do the queerest things, asserting different possibilities for who and how individuals might claim or know themselves to be. This chapter examines how the astute educator can engage with queer theory to inform thinking and practice in early childhood education and beyond.