This essay argues that there is a divide in LGBT studies on Hispanic writers, between those researchers who map the portrayal of gay culture in the work of writers who are known to be or to have been gay and those critics who prefer to produce innovative queer readings of canonized figures. A number of test-cases are studied, including the life and work of the Mexican, Xavier Villarrutia (1903-1950), the Peruvian, César Moro (1903-1956), the Puerto Rican Ramos Otero (1948-1990), the Argentines Néstor Perlongher (1949-2002) and Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972), the Uruguayans Cristina Peri Rossi (b. 1941) and Marosa di Giorgio (1932-2004). The essay concludes with a discussion of homoaffectivity in César Vallejo’s poem “Alfonso, you are looking at me, I see…”