Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

The concealable nature of sexual orientation creates different interactions between the members
of majority and minority groups than between the members of non-concealable majority/minority groups,
for example race or ethnicity. In the case of race or ethnicity, a person‘s membership to a certain group is
often immediately evident, however when heterosexuals have contact with a member of a sexual
minority, it can be done without the person even being aware of it. This even includes contact with friends
or family, such relationships that sometimes predate the person‘s knowledge or acceptance of their sexual
orientation (Johnson, 2006).
Being out in a community is something that requires a great deal of thought and consideration. In
our society, with high levels of anti-gay hate, being out and disclosing one‘s identity isn‘t only a matter of
being comfortable with one‘s sexuality, it‘s a matter of safety, sometimes life or death. The ability to
conceal one‘s sexual orientation can seem, from the outside, to have its good points. Some people might
consider it a blessing to not be walking around with a huge neon sign saying ―Oh Heeeeyyyy, I‘m
gaaayyyy‖, but actually being able to conceal your sexual orientation can actually be detrimental to one‘s
mental health. Concealing one‘s identity can be seen as a coping strategy, used to avoid the negative
consequences of the stigma related to it. LGB individuals may conceal their sexual orientation to keep
themselves protected from what they view as the ―real‖ harm, such as being fired from their job of the
threat of physical violence (D‘Augelli & Grossman, 2001).
Contradictory to what some may assume to be true Smart & Wegner (2000) described the cost of
hiding one‘s stigma as very damaging. They said that the result of concealing the stigma is a constant
preoccupation with hiding it that involves both conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They
even went as far as to say that the inner experience of the person that is hiding a concealable stigma is
comparable to their own private hell.
Contrary to what Smart & Wegner say about concealing a stigma being the individual‘s private
hell, when an individual that is trying to conceal their sexual orientation is in a relationship, the hell isn‘t
just their own.
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