Being gay is not a given. Through a rigorous ethnographic inquiry into the material foundations of sexual identity, The Struggle to Be Gay makes a compelling argument for the centrality of social class in gay life—in Mexico, for example, and by extension in other places as well.   Known for his writings on the construction of sexual identities, anthropologist and cultural studies scholar Roger N. Lancaster ponders four decades of visits to Mexican cities. In a brisk series of reflections combining storytelling, ethnography, critique, and razor-edged polemic, he shows, first, how economic inequality affects sexual subjects and subjectivities in ways both obvious and subtle, and, second, how what it means to be de ambiente —“on the scene” or “in the life”—has metamorphosed under changing political-economic conditions. The result is a groundbreaking intervention into ongoing debates over identity politics—and a renewal of our understanding of how identities are constructed, struggled for, and lived. "For the nonspecialist, the book’s more fundamental strength lies in Lancaster’s compassion, which any ordinary reader can perceive. This compassion underpins his insistence on viewing his subjects as fully-fledged people with rich inner lives and his concomitant refusal to reduce them to political props or set pieces of gender performance. The Struggle to Be Gay reveals that the particular dilemmas of the queer scene in a particular country revolve, after all, around matters of the heart." ― Compact "Roger Lancaster has written an important challenge to queer studies. . . .He encourages scholars to attend less to differences and focus more on the commonalities that connect people, whether gay or straight, rural or urban, or indigenous or mestizo, and to find ways to build broader solidarities." ― Current Anthropology "Roger Lancaster is among our most astute observers of sexuality and power, and  The Struggle to be Gay—in Mexico, for Example  continues his work documenting the intimacies of power in the Americas. Wonderfully clear in its analytical points, courageous in going against popular trends in queer theory, and moving in its description of love and loss, Lancaster’s book is an indispensable guide to how half a century of neoliberalism has made, unmade, and remade gay life in Mexico." — Greg Grandin, Yale University   "In  The Struggle to be Gay—in Mexico, for Example,  Roger Lancaster situates gay identity brilliantly within Mexican political economy and historically specific social structures, particularly class as lived concretely. The way he blends empirical and historical analysis, ethnography, and reflexive personal narrative is inspired. In the course of demonstrating that sexual orientation, like other identities, is always constituted within evolving social relations, he also provides a substantive critique of, and alternative to, the taxonomic fetishism that characterizes much of highly theorized academic sex/gender studies. This beautifully written, deeply sophisticated, and informative book further underscores Lancaster’s standing as one of the most important scholars of our era working on sex/gender studies and culture and political economy."—Adolph Reed, Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania "The Struggle to Be Gay—in Mexico, for Example  combines scrupulous ethnographic observation with a trenchant analysis of contemporary capitalism. The setting is the gay world of Mexico, but as the title suggests, this book has wider implications for understanding the relations between sexuality and modernity. In challenging queer scholars to engage more with class and the legacies of colonialism, Lancaster has written an important and engaging book."—Dennis Altman, author of  Global Sex  and  Queer Wars "A refreshingly unorthodox book, original in both its content and its form: an integrated blend of personal memoir and social analysis, untranscended emotion and high theory. Roger Lancaster movingly conveys what he has learned about his own struggle to be gay by participating in the struggles of his friends and neighbors in Mexico. The lessons he draws from these vividly recounted, often painful, and always recognizable experiences of sex and inequality under capitalism present a welcome challenge to the field of LGBT studies, its practices, and its conventions."—David M. Halperin, author of  How To Be Gay "Roger Lancaster captivates us with a deeply personal and satisfying account of Mexican gay men’s lives and identities. His ever-engaging narrative is informed by situated knowledge of Mexican homosexualities that he acquired over decades of friendship with urban Mexican gay men. Lancaster colorfully describes a country where understandings of sexuality have been in constant transition for the past century, as Mexico constructed its own version of modernity. The picture that emerges in this fascinating book is of a Mexico where gay-identified people grapple with perva