What is Latinidad? What is machismo? What does it mean to be a man, never mind a queer man? By its own admission, the book doesn’t have all the answers, but it makes a compelling case that they will come from the razor-sharp queers living in the margins.' -John Paul Brammer, The New York Times Book Review High-Risk Homosexual deals with some titanic questions. An exciting debut from an author with a rare point of view. Gomez’s voice is equal parts warmth and acid wit, like a good friend you’re slightly afraid of. Times of India, A Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of the Year The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year

Named a Best Book of the Year by BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, and Publishers Weekly

His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy. With vulnerability, humor, and quick-witted insights into racial, sexual, familial, and professional power dynamics, Gomez shares a hard-won path to taking pride in the parts of himself he was taught to keep hidden. Readers follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.”

In a world desperate to erase us, queer Latinx men must find ways to hold on to pride for survival, but excessive male pride is often what we are battling, both in ourselves and in others.Ī debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man, High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: Edgar Gomez’s uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at thirteen years old to become a man. I’ve always found the definition of machismo to be ironic, considering that pride is a word almost unanimously associated with queer people, the enemy of machistas. This witty memoir traces a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing a gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo-from a cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.-and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who help redefine pride Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/BiographyĪn Honor Book for the 2023 Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book Award

High risk homosexual book