The article discusses the way the queer is deployed in the work of Elvira Willman (1875-1925), an early 20th century Finnish working-class playwright. It is argued that the queer as a constitutive outside and as the Other is of vital importance for both Willman's poetics and politics. Furthermore, he article argues that queer analysis is not only of relevance for those interested in sexual minorities: it has the potential to challenge the way the mainstream and the majorty understands its own genealogy as it illustrates what kind of forces remain unacknowledged when the normative tries to represent itself as the only version of reality there is.