Mistaken for Gay

aka: Mistaken For Lesbian

"... Not That There's Anything Wrong with That!"

"I mean, everybody thinks I'm this big dyke because... 'cause I wear baggy pants, I play softball, and... and I'm not as pretty as other girls, but that doesn't make me gay. I mean, I like guys. I can't help it."

— Jan, But I'm a Cheerleader

A comedy plot line in which a character wrongly believes another character to be gay, either because of misinformation received or because of the supposedly gay character's own misinterpreted words and actions, usually an invocation of Gender Nonconforming Equals Gay. Once the character is taken to be a homosexual, all his words and actions become laden with innuendo and further misunderstandings, and humor ensues.

This can often be caused with supernatural secrets, such as superpowers or lycanthropy, which aren't immediately obvious, or various other embarrassing secrets.

Almost inevitable for Heterosexual Life-Partners. This plot may be the first time we've heard them explicitly say they're not gay (whether we believe them or not is another matter).

A slight subversion occurs when a character is suspected of being gay and takes this as a compliment, since that person deeply sympathizes with gay people.

For such characters to qualify, they have to be mistakenly assumed to be homosexual, even if the G, H, and L words are not used. However, these characters don't need to retaliate or tell those who have mistaken them that they aren't gay as such characters can easily disprove these mistakes through other means such as a revelation of a straight relationship.

See also Mistaken for Index. When the character probably is gay but is in denial, they're in the Transparent Closet. When the Character is heterosexual but acts like the Camp Gay stereotype they're Camp Straight. Due to the common belief that All Men Are Perverts and A Man Is Always Eager, any male character who isn't shown to jump at the chance to have sex with a woman will be mistaken for gay (if not actually gay) by the audience and possibly by the other characters as well (especially male characters).

If they don’t want to be mistaken for homophobes, they might add the disclaimer Not That There's Anything Wrong with That, with varying degrees of success.

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Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Fan Works
• Live-Action TV

Comedy

• Subverted in a bit featured in John Mulaney's "New in Town," in which Mulaney confesses that while he is a straight man, he probably shouldn't be, and understand assumptions that he's gay.
• Happened to Tim Nutt.
  I went to Gay Pride last year. I thought they said beer. "Swing by the parade, there'll be thousands of beers", that's what I heard. It was fun! I was glad I went. Took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on, though. Got down there, full of enthusiasm, "We're here! We're beer! We're here! We're beer! We're... we're... we're what? All of ya? Wooow! You guys are gonna laugh! I heard the wrong word. What do you say we get together Saint Patrick's Day? I'd be more comfortable with that. Or maybe I'll see you at your wedding."
• Comedian Rip Taylor, who was married to Las Vegas showgirl Rusty Rowe and later divorced, appeared in Washington D.C.'s Capital Pride parade as the Grand Marshal. When referred to as openly gay, Rip sent "Ask the Flying Monkey" host Brent Hartinger an e-mail stating: "You don’t know me to summarize that I am openly gay. I don’t know that you’re not an openly heroin user. You see how that works? Think before you write."

Comic Books

• Astro City:
  • The old women in Crackerjack's boarding house think his secret identity is gay because he's a "theater type" with long hair.
  • Nightingale and Sunbird also face rumors of lesbianism after an unlicensed comic portrayed them as "closer than sisters" and strongly implied there was something going on there.
• Batman: Greg Rucka mentioned a story that he'd like to do but knows DC would never let him: A group of Gotham socialites are discussing their relationships with Bruce Wayne, and one of them eventually confesses that she's never had sex with him. They compare notes, realise that none of them have actually had sex with Bruce Wayne, and come to the inevitable conclusion...
• Bikini Cowboy: Rod McCloud observes that Whisky Jill is affectionate towards her Native American friend Tonta and asks if they are lesbians. Whisky Jill and Tonta are disgusted by the idea that they'd love each other in that way.
• Black Magick: In issue #8, Morgan is in a huff with Rowan because he thinks that Rowan and Alex are an item and that Rowan hasn't told him yet. This causes Rowan to burst out laughing.
• Cavewoman: In Cavewoman: A Wizard, A Sorceress and Meriem, Zordu and Teegan refer to Carrie as Meriem's 'consort'. Leads to this exchange:
  Zordu: Do not worry. Your consort will be well cared for.
  Meriem: What's a consort?
  Zordu: Your lover, of course.
  Carrie: No way! We're both strictly dickly.
  Teegan: Are you sure?
• Convergence: In Convergence: The Question #2, Batwoman is jealous that Huntress lives with her ex-girlfriend, Renee Montoya. She's embarrassed when she learns that Huntress is straight and they're just roommates.
• The DCU: As shown in the page picture, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), which has been a Running Gag for years.
• Doctor Strange: This happens to Doctor Strange in the miniseries Doctor Strange: The Oath, often enough to qualify as a running gag. First, random street toughs assume he and his friend and servant Wong are a gay couple, then Night Nurse seems to assume that Wong calling Stephen 'master' is sexual in nature (alluded to by her remark about his being unable to pass comment on 'other people's fetishes'). Then Reginald Pavlish, a would-be patient of Strange's in his last days as an arrogant young surgeon offers 'something else' to repay Strange, in what reads very nearly as an inverted Scarpia Ultimatum (Strange turns him down anyway.)
  • The Night Nurse at least has a good excuse in that her first encounter with the pair involves Wong carrying a wounded Strange into her clinic, panicking and practically claiming he "is Strange's". The explanation for Strange getting shot - as a result of his quest to save Wong - does little to ease suspicions.
• Empowered: The series had a supervillain team called "Rum, Sodomy, and The Lash". When Emp confronts The Lash, she asks where his teammates are and he sadly explains that Rum had to go to an AA meeting, and Sodomy got tired of explaining that he only represents heterosexual sodomy and quit.
• Great Lakes Avengers: One issue features the revelation that Mr. Immortal's power of Resurrective Immortality makes him "the final step in evolution", surpassing the mutants (typically classified as Homo superior) to become something more. He decides to announce this to his teammates by walking in and declaring himself to be "Homo supreme." Flatman, who came out of the closet a matter of minutes ago, merely grumbles about Immortal trying to upstage him.
• Green Lantern: In Judd Winick's run, when Kyle learns his art assistant, Terry Berg, is gay and having trouble coming out, he asks his editor Andre Choi how he handled it. Choi explains that he didn't, because he's not gay.
  Andre Choi: Why does everyone think I'm gay?! I'm so sorry I'm thin, I'm sorry I dress well, that I have earrings, that I'm an art director. I don't like show tunes, disco does nothing for me and I'm attracted to women. Not. Gay.
• The Incredible Hercules: A Running Gag during the series is the Greek gods mistaking Amadeus Cho for Herc's eromenos.
• Josie and the Pussycats: In issue 15 of She's Josie, Melody believes her friend Pepper is hitting on her:
  Pepper: Melody, I appeal to you!
  Melody: ♪ Oh you do, Pepper! But I like boys better! ♫
  Pepper: No, no, you ninny! I want your help!
• Kick-Ass: This happens to Dave Lizewski after he gets beaten up twice while trying to be a real-life superhero, with the kids at school assuming he's a gay prostitute who keeps getting beaten up by his clients. Dave goes along with it for a while since his crush, Katie Deauxma, adopts him as a gay best friend. The situation does not end well. After acting the part of the Gay Best Friend (including spray tanning her topless), he admits it was all a ruse. Katie is furious, and has her boyfriend beat him up, followed by a graphic photo of their sex sent by phone.
• Mortadelo y Filemón: There is a moment in a story when the General Director walks in on them in the worst possible moment and thinks Filemon is proposing to Mortadelo.
• Ms. Tree: In "Skeletons in the Closet", an underground gay magazine 'outs' Michael and her secretary Effie as a lesbian couple, even though they're not.
• Quantum and Woody: This is a regular Running Gag, where Woody insists to anyone within earshot that they're "not a couple."
• Rawhide Kid: In Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven, the openly gay Rawhide Kid figures his compatriot the Two-Gun Kid for gay based on his costume — stuff like the kerchief, the mask, the print on the vest. When they talk about it, Two-Gun is mortified and says he has to rethink his look, but Rawhide encourages him to keep it the same, saying that being tough is about standing your ground, being true to yourself, and not caring about what other people think.
• Runaways: The relationship between Nico and Karolina was complicated by Karolina's crush on Nico. When Nico swore off men after learning that her boyfriend Alex Wilder was The Mole who had betrayed them Karolina believed that Nico had decided to "switch" and subsequently attempted to kiss her and was gently rebuffed. The resulting conversation is extraordinarily awkward as Karolina wonders if the problem is that she is going "too fast," whereas Nico had never realized that Karolina was in love with her in the first place. The Ship Tease between the two characters would be a regular occurrence through the remainder of the original series' run, and they eventually got together in the revived series.
• Spider-Girl: The eleventh issue involved Mayday Parker being stranded in the past at the time where her father, the original Spider-Man, first encountered Spencer Smythe's Spider-Slayer. J. Jonah Jameson mistakes Spider-Girl for Spider-Man and notes how Spider-Man suddenly appears more feminine, then starts to panic over how people will react to his attacks on Spider-Man if he is a minority. While not explicitly stated, it's implied that J. Jonah Jameson came to the conclusion that Spider-Man is gay.
• Spider-Man: Early on in J. Michael Straczynski's run, when Aunt May discovers the truth about her nephew's super-hero identity she admits that for the longest time due to his sometimes odd behavior and natural sensitivity she thought he was gay.
• In the Peter David Supergirl title, Linda Danvers's parents get the wrong idea when she attempts to tell them about the huge, identity-altering secret she's been keeping.
  Linda: I'm not gay! I'm Supergirl!
• The Tick: In issue 6 when Arthur brings The Tick to his apartment for the first time, after the Tick realizes it's his home and not a secret base he immediately asks Arthur if he's "funny".
• In the first issue of Toxin, Pat tries to tell his buddy that he's become merged with a symbiote. His buddy initially thinks that he's about to come out of the closet.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra: Matt and Foggy are always together, so Phoebe had thought that they were gay.
  • The Ultimates: Exploited by Captain America. After Hulk had disposed of the Big Bad, Captain America told him that he had been talking with the crews of the alien ships, and they said that Hulk was a sissy boy. Blatant Lies, of course, but it was enough to send an enraged behemoth of destruction against those ships, willing to prove that "HULK STRAIGHT!!"
• X-Factor: Quicksilver once confessed to his on-again-off-again wife Crystal that he'd begun seeing someone, and it was a man. She was a bit shocked but said she understood. As it turned out, he was "seeing" Doc Samson, a psychologist.
• Young Avengers: Subverted when Billy trys to tell his parents he's a superhero but ends up coming out to them in a totally different way - except that he really is gay and his parents think his boyfriend is the perfect son-in-law.

Comic Strips

• Pops up seemingly out of left field in Heart of the City. Heart has an anxiety attack before a dance audition and her friend hugs her to comfort her. A couple of other kids see them and jump to conclusions.
• Stephan Pastis was able to get one of these jokes into one Pearls Before Swine strip has Rat, being as cynical as ever, stayed in bed due to his view of the world. Pig ended up crawling into bed with Rat and Rat trying to get Pig out of the bed before someone sees.... just as Goat walks in and goes "Ohhhhhhh myyyyyyyy" and Rat instantly trying to get the truth out, resulting in an incredibly awkward moment for the three of them.

Films — Animation

• In Batman and Harley Quinn, Nightwing gets a Raging Stiffie while tied up and in the presence of an underwear clad Harley. Amused, Harley says she's surprised because she had always assumed he and Batman were a couple. Shocked, Nightwing says that is definitely not true, and he and Harley have sex.
• In the original Ice Age movie, Diego cracks a joke about this when he sees Manny and Sid defending a human baby:
  Diego: I see. Can't have one of your own, so you want to adopt.
• In Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Barry Allen decides to tell his mother that he's The Flash, but gets embarrassed when she interrupts and says she already knows he's gay and she's not ashamed. He corrects her, then realizes he has bigger problems when she has no idea who The Flash is (the timeline has changed).
• Monsters, Inc. - Celia's furious when she thinks Mike's cheating on her with Sulley on her birthday.
• The Princess and the Frog: During a trolley ride, a guy sitting next to Tiana tries to offer her a flower but, while he's distracted picking the flower, she leaves her seat and he mistakenly offers it to the guy on the other side.
• In Shrek Forever After, when Donkey helps Shrek learn that the Curse Escape Clause to break the Magically-Binding Contract that's erased his life is True Love's Kiss, he momentarily glances at him. Donkey retorts that Shrek will have to take him to dinner first.
• In Superman Unbound, Steve Lombardi assumes that Clark is gay (oblivious to the fact that Clark and Lois are dating), commenting that he never seems interested in women, and doesn't follow sports, but stays in shape. Lois turns it on Steve and asks if he's interested in Clark.

Films — Live-Action

• The plot of Three to Tango is that Chicago architect Oscar Novak is mistaken for gay and has to keep up the charade because he was hired for the contract of his life on the assumption he was gay so he could act as a safe companion for his new boss's mistress Amy. Hilarity Ensues.
• 21st Century Serial Killer: Early in the movie, Aaron mentions to his female coworker at the post office that Erin isn't "doing it" for him. After a night out with Charles, in which Aaron couldn't bring himself to kill anyone, to Charles' annoyance, the female coworker has a very different idea of what Aaron meant.
• Happens in 42 when Ralph Branca tries to coax Jackie Robinson to shower with the rest of the baseball team instead of waiting for the others to finish.
• Absolutely Anything: Catherine thinks Neil is gay after he has what seems to be a man whom he's hiding in his flat who talks like his lover (actually his talking dog). However, it's oddly enough the day after the two had sex, which you'd think would have told her otherwise.
• Adam (2019): Or rather, mistaken for trans. Adam gets hit on and picked up while at an LGBT+ club by a woman who's unaware that he's cisgender, thinking Adam's trans like most guys there. Later this also happens with another queer girl, Gillian, whom he dates.
• American Beauty: The paranoid ex-Marine neighbor wrongly suspects his son and the protagonist (played by Kevin Spacey) of having a homosexual affair after he catches the two together and thinks his son's giving the protagonist a blow job (he was actually just rolling a blunt). As it turns out, he's a closet case himself. His son ends up rolling with it to get out of his father's grasp and when he accidentally reveals he's gay to the protagonist, he puts a bullet into his head.
• An Unfinished Life: After several days of observing her grandfather's close bond with his invalid friend of the last forty years, Becca curiously asks if they're in a relationship. They laugh the suggestion off.
• In Are You Being Served?, Mr. Humphries believes that Captain Peacock is gay when Conchita gives him a love letter he wrote that was intended for Miss Brahms.
• The Art of the Steal: Agent Bick's initial attempt to threaten Francie with Prison Rape misfires slightly:
  Interpol Agent Bick: Let me ask you a question. You ever seen the inside of Sing Sing?
  Francie Tobin: I haven't.
  Interpol Agent Bick: 'Cause I know a lot of guys who would like to fuck you inside there.
  Francie Tobin: You hitting on me?
• Baby Mama: Kate and Angie are mistaken for a couple when they attend a pregnancy class together.
• In Bad Boys (1995), Julie thought Marcus was gay from all of Mike's pictures at his apartment.
• Bad Boys II: At the electronic store Mike and Marcus discusses Marcus' butt injury, while being incidentally broadcast throughout the store, customers miss the context and thought they were talking about anal sex.
• One of the comedic subplots of Bend It Like Beckham concerned Jules's mother being convinced her tomboyish daughter was a lesbian and her best friend, Jess, was her girlfriend. This is established by having her overhear Innocent Innuendos with incredible serendipity. Probably the most notable moment is when she starts coming up the stairs towards her daughter's room, where she's speaking with Jess about her relationship with the football team's coach -
  Jules: You don't know the meaning of love!
  • This is probably a nod the original script, in which Jess and Jules were actually going to be outright lovers (before Chadha decided that that would be just too alien for a mainstream audience on top of Jess' Indian culture). It's not the only such surviving artifact of that plot.
  • And played both ways, as Jules' non-traditional interests and Gender-Blender Name cause Jess' family to think she's a boyfriend from her description.
• In Bernie, the title character snaps and kills his friend Marjorie after she pushes him too far. During a later conversation with one of the townspeople, Bernie asks if it's possible for someone to snap under duress and do something terrible that they couldn't possibly have done under normal circumstances. He's covertly referring to killing Marjorie, but the woman he's talking to thinks he's trying to confess to being gay.
• Blue Jean: Inverted. Jean, a lesbian, is mistakenly thought to be straight when talking with a man at a party. It prompts her to come out.
• This didn't seem to affect them in Bringing Up Baby, when Grant goes to the door in Katie Hepburn's dressing gown because there's nothing else to wear, the dignified lady caller wants to know what he's doing in that getup; Grant jumps up in the air, waving his arms, and yells "Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!" While film studios at this time usually got away with having flaming gay characters by contextualizing them as "mistaken for gay" or Frasier-like refined but straight males, in this case and a few others MGM got away with Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• But I'm a Cheerleader: Everyone but Megan knows that she's gay. Also a very butch girl at the reeducation camp Megan's parents send her to "comes out" as straight, having been mistaken for gay just because of her looks.
• In the film Cashback, the main character and his friend Sean (in a flashback) narrowly avoid being caught looking at a dirty magazine, but fail to hide their erections...
  Voiceover: After that, Sean's mum always thought we were gay.
• In Cemetery Gates, Kym has told August that Hunter is gay (presumably to keep August away from her boyfriend). As a result, August assumes that Hunter's roommate Matt is gay as well, and keeps referring to them as "the gays".
• The Children's Hour, and the source play, is about two teachers who are sabotaged by a student when she starts a rumor that they're in a gay love affair. Given that this is the early 20th century it's not taken lightly. Parents remove all the kids from the school, they lose a law-suit against the child's grandmother which causes them to become public disgraces around America, their reputation is ruined, and one of their fiancées dumps them since he believed the lie. The twist ending is, as implied multiple times in the film, that Martha was really gay. Either way she tragically commits suicide.
• One of the subplots of Class Act is that Duncan Pinderhughes' parents are so confused by the Hip-Hop culture of Blade Brown that they suspect the two might be gay lovers. Duncan's father doesn't realize that's not the case until the very end, when he catches Duncan having sex with Damita.
• The French movie The Closet subverts this; when a photoshopped picture of the main character at a very gay bar in a very gay outfit shows up at his office, he is seen as gay by everyone despite no outward mannerism changes. This is intentional; the photo is sent by his neighbor in an attempt to use discrimination fears to avoid the impending layoff of the main character.
• The film Clue features Mr. Green, whose blackmail-worthy secret is that he's gay. In the third ending, the final line of the film is him declaring he's going to go home and "sleep with [his] wife." (He was actually an undercover agent, and pretended to be homosexual to protect his family. Or, this being Hoover's FBI, he was a homosexual who pretended to be a heterosexual pretending to be a homosexual. Interpretations vary.)
• In Crank: High Voltage, mob boss Don Kim orders Chev Chelios and Venus into his limo for a discussion. Venus' medical condition makes him go into spasms every once in a while, and the spasms make him look like he's trying to hump Don Kim. Enraged, Don Kim has Venus thrown out of the limo, then comments to Chev, "Your friend, has the gay condition."
• In Cursed (2005), Jimmy becomes stronger and more confident after being bitten by a werewolf, combined with emitting sexual allure. His closeted bully Bo becomes attracted to him and assumes that Jimmy's change in attitude means he's closeted himself.
• The guys from Dead Man on Campus were mistaken for gay.
• In the 2006 film DOA: Dead or Alive, Bass Armstrong assumes his daughter Tina is in relationships with Christie and Kasumi when he walks in on Tina and Christie sharing a bed, and later Kasumi giving Tina a shoulder rub. Christie doesn't help when she sort-of hugs Tina and mentions that she Sleeps in the Nude and wants Tina to do the same. After Bass leaves, Tina kicks Christie out of the bed (literally), and the latter is not nude.
• Doctor... Series:
  • Doctor in Clover: When Dr. Grimsdyke tells him he's in love, Miles has to clarify if it's with a woman.
  • Doctor in Trouble:
    • When the Master-at-Arms sees Dr. Burke with Ophelia's clothes, he assumes he is "one of them". Dr. Burke catches on and pretends to be interested in him to get him to leave before he realises he is a stowaway.
    • When Dr. Burke is caught hiding in a lifeboat by a boy, he lies he is playing hide and seek with his friend as to not let the boy catch on that he is a stowaway. When he tries to claim he is playing with Roddy, Roddy believes he is flirting with him.
• In Dogma, Bethany assumes that Loki and Bartleby are lovers because of some ambiguous phrasing in Bartleby's conversation. Bartleby immediately denies that they're gay, but technically since neither of them has a biological gender he's not necessarily denying anything, or at least the Slash Fic writers would like to think so ...
• Happens in the Bollywood film Dostana when the two male leads are trying to get a flat. They run with it, because it was the only way to get the place. It backfires though.
• Enchanted: Nathaniel has the following exchange when he enters New York to look for Edward.
  Artie: Let me guess. You are looking for a beautiful girl, too?
  Nathaniel: No. I am looking for a prince, actually.
  Artie: Right.
• A deleted scene in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has a gag where paparazzi photographs Johnny Storm while he's kneeling in front of Ben Grimm and holding a bouquet.
• In The Fifth Element, when Father Vito Cornelius opens his front door to find several hulking Mooks there to kidnap him:
  Cornelius: Weddings?
  Right Arm: Not really.
• Near the beginning of The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, The Great Gazoo sees Fred and Barney lying on top of each other and thinks that they're mating (doesn't help that Gazoo's alien race has no females and they reproduce like amoebas). Talk about a gay old time!
  Fred: Oh, no, Barney and me don't, uh... Get off of me! (shoves Barney off his back and onto the floor)
• Get Smart:
  • This exchange at the Russian restaurant:
    Max: There was a guy in the bathroom who's really hot.
    99: (surprised) Okay, well...
    Max: No, no, no, radioactive hot. Although, yes, he did have a certain rugged quality that some find appealing.
  • Max is trying to get Shtarker off a table. A minion passing by sees what appears to be "humping" Shtarker. The minion smiles appreciatively. (This scene was actually cut down for the final version of the film; the deleted part of the scene has the mook complaining that the boss is allowed that when he isn't.)
• Glorious: Wes manages to draw the attention of Gary, the property manager. Of course, seeing a disheveled guy in the restroom and a voice coming from a gloryhole makes him think they're cruising. He tells them to find a motel somewhere.
• In Go, Adam and Zack bicker like an old married couple, causing a girl at the supermarket to think that they're gay. In a surprise reveal, it turns out that they are.
• The Bollywood film Heyy Babyy has Riteish Deshmukh accidentally offer a flower to a male party guest. He's highly embarrassed at his faux pas, even more so when the male party guest's confusion gives way to a coquettish smile in return.
• A Played for Drama example in Higher Learning: Remy, a lonely college student, is approached by a young, bald-headed man one night on the campus square. The young man asks Remy to come with him, causing Remy to become suspicious and angrily demand to know if the other guy is a "faggot." As it turns out, the bald kid is actually a neo-Nazi skinhead who has witnessed Remy being bullied by his black dormmates and thinks he'll make a good recruit to the "white power" cause.
• In Horrible Bosses 2, when Nick, Dale, and Kurt break into the office of Dale's old boss Julia, Nick gets dragged into what he thinks is an AA meeting taking place there; however, it's actually a sex addiction meeting, and Nick's improvised description of his "problem" understandably leads everyone else present to think he's gay. However, Nick (the only one of the main trio who doesn't get laid regularly) is happy to go along with it when he finds out that Julia regularly tries to seduce gay men who come to the meetings with the hopes of "de-gay-ing" them, and he does indeed manage to get laid with her.
• Hot Bot: Following a series of misunderstanding due to them attempting to keep Bardot secret, including a series of credit card charges to a No-Tell Motel, Limus and Leonard's parents come to the conclusion that they are in a relationship.
• In I Love You, Man, a guy misinterprets the intentions of Peter (Paul Rudd), which is to say he's just looking for a guy best friend, and promptly kisses him on the mouth.
• In the movie In & Out, Kevin Kline's character is "outed" as a joke by a former student of his, and spends most of the movie denying that he is gay. The trope is ultimately subverted when it turns out he really is gay.
• In an early scene in Independence Day, Captain Hiller (Will Smith) ends up with a friend on one knee (demonstrating how to properly kiss ass) and holding a wedding ring box (which had just fallen out of Hiller's locker). At that precise moment, another pilot happens by, sees the situation, and walks off with his hands up in a "don't mind me" gesture.
• The Island (2005) has Lincoln Six-Echo cornering his buddy McCord while the latter is, in Six-Echo's own words, "taking a dump in a can" (i.e., in a bar toilet). Mac even has his jeans down when Six-Echo accosts him … and then a trucker walks right in on them, with Mac even spouting accidental Double Entendre like "let's go back to my place where we can be alone" … but to talk about what's bothering Lincoln, not … well, Not What It Looks Like, as an irritated Mac tells the trucker.
• In Just One of the Guys, Terry is a high school female posing as a high school male. When she admits her romantic feelings to Rick, he assumes she's (he's) gay.
• The Bollywood movie Kal Ho Na Ho has this going on between the two male protagonists, played for laughs. First they get totally wasted and pass out in bed together; totally innocent but when the Indian maid walks in she is horrified. Then later she finds them yelling at each other in what looks like a lover's quarrel. Things like this continue to happen, freaking her out more and more. Finally when the man she is actually a maid to gets married to a woman, she is so happy that she actually hits/shoves the obviously gay interior decorator when he gets too close to the groom.
• Casa Nova in Kayfabe: A Fake Real Movie About A Fake Real Sport is suspected of being gay by several of the wrestlers as a result of his obsession with his oiled physique, his refusal to wear pants in the locker room, and his tendency to refuse to let go of certain holds in the ring because "it's hot". At the end of the film, we meet his beautiful fiancée, Tatiana.
• In Kick-Ass, after Dave is beaten up and stabbed by thugs and ran over by a car, his classmates believe him to be gay, because he was found with no clothes on. After hearing this, Katie quickly takes an interest in him becoming her Gay BFF, Dave goes along with it to be close to her. This is a remnant from the comic, which went into more detail and revolved around the fact that he was repeatedly found with no clothes on in a bad part of town, which lead people to think he was working as an underage prostitute.
• Happens with the teenaged Laser in The Kids Are All Right, with the added twist that his parents are lesbians. In actuality, he and his friend are doing drugs.
• Lady Ballers: Or Mistaken for Trans in this case. As Rob gets turned down from joining the competition as the men's events are all full, Alex, still wearing a wig from his job, gets mistaken by the receptionist for a trans woman and she enters Alex into the women's tournament.
• The Layover: The hotel manager where Kate and Meg are staying thinks they're lesbians when they get into a fight.
• Lethal Weapon:
  • In Lethal Weapon 3, Murtaugh gets confused when Riggs tries to fess up to doing it with Lorna. Riggs refers to her as Sgt. Cole (her rank), but Rog initially thinks he means Sgt. Cole from Traffic, who is her uncle.
  • In Lethal Weapon 4, Murtaugh doesn't understand why young detective Lee Butters keeps trying to butter him up, not knowing that Butters has secretly married his daughter. Riggs, who knows the truth, suggests that Butters is gay. Naturally much Hilarity Ensues until Murtaugh discovers the truth, whereupon he punches Riggs in the face for his prank.
• In French movie Le Tatoué (The Tattoo), Louis de Funès's character is accused by his wife to be seeing another woman (while in truth, he's spending time with Jean Gabin's character). After lots of denial, he blurts out "No, it's a man!", to the wife's (and eavesdropping butler's) shock.
• Little Fockers - The principal of the private school Greg is looking at assumes that Jack and Greg are a couple, a situation not helped by a confused account of the events of the night before when Greg helped Jack with a priapism episode.
• Lost & Found (1999). David Spade's gorgeous neighbor (played by Sophie Marceau) stops by his apartment early in the morning and finds him and his friend shirtless, having just woken up. It doesn't help when his friend makes himself scarce by declaring, "I'll go make the bed!" In truth, he was simply letting his friend stay the night after a bender.
• In Loverboy (1989), Randy is a pizza delivery boy who ends up hooking up with a rich middle-aged Italian woman named Alex. She basically becomes his Sugar Momma. When Randy's father reads some of the letters Alex sends him and notices Randy receiving expensive gifts brought by a guy, he assumes, to his horror, that Randy is gay (Alex being a gender-neutral name). Near the end of the movie, this saves Randy from a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by three men he cuckolded when one of them (who turns out to be a friend of his father's) remembers Randy's father telling him about his son.
• Love And Other Disasters is about a Fag Hag who does this, causing her to be Oblivious to Love with great comedic effect.
• A variant in Mamma Mia!: Harry is trying to talk to Bill about something new he realized about himself. Bill thinks Harry's talking about realizing that he's gay; really Harry is talking about realizing that he's Sophie's father. But later in the movie it turns out Harry actually is gay.
• Men in Black 3: The guy who gives J the time travel device comments "You must really love him," referring to K, whom J had referred to as his partner.
• In Moscow on the Hudson, Robin Williams' character, who recently defected from the Soviet circus, notices a man, to whom he made a passing greeting, following him down the street. When he confronts the man: "KGB?" "No, GAY. I thought we shared a moment back there."
• In Mr. Right, Francis fights a hitman in an alley. At one point, Francis gets behind his opponent and grabs him around the waist. A man walks up to them, and quickly walks away while calling them disgusting. Francis comments on the man being homophobic as the fight resumes.
• In My Best Friend is a Vampire, Jeremy's parents misinterpret what's going on and conclude that their son is gay. This being 1980s Texas, they're very relieved when Jeremy introduces new girlfriend Darla at the end of the movie.
• In My Favorite Wife Cary Grant's character Nick is mistaken for gay after he refuses to sleep with his second wife on their wedding night because his first wife has just returned from the (presumed) dead. Since the movie was made in 1940, they had to do the whole mistaken for gay subplot without ever saying the word "gay" or "homosexual" (in fact, they had to make do without any direct reference to sex of any kind). It's still surprisingly clear, especially when a therapist the (second) wife hired apparently finds Nick trying on a dress.
• In the first The Naked Gun movie, Det. Frank Drebin had just rendered a baseball umpire unconscious to "borrow" his uniform. He removes the uniform, props the umpire over a table and proceeds to undress himself. Moments later, a janitor walks into the room, sees Drebin and the umpire, says "Whoops! Sorry, fellas!" and nonchalantly leaves.
• Night of the Living Dorks: At the Wild Teen Party at Philip's house, Ushi sees Philip from behind with his pants down, Wurst kneeling in front of him, and Philip grunting. Wurst is stapling Philip's penis back on, but to Ushi it looks like Wurst is giving Philip a blowjob. Her response is to gather everyone at the party and making them watch her ridicule Philip for supposedly being gay.
• No Kidding: When Vanilla asks Will why he avoids her, she asks him if he even likes girls.
• Once Bitten: When Mark's friends Jamie and Russ attempt to check if his inner thigh has bite marks, it looks like both are checking out his dick. The other boys in the shower think they're gay and flee.
• In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, James Bond encounters 12 young women who are apparently allergic to the food they work with while staying in Piz Gloria, disguised as Sir Hillary Bray, a genealogist at the London College of Arms. He entertains the women with talk about genealogy at dinner, but he chats so long, trying so hard to stay in character and not flirt, that it leads some of the women to think he's gay.
  Woman: Of course, I know what he's allergic to...
• Ashley's best friend Dan in Over Her Dead Body who it turns out started to pretend to be gay after he is mistaken for it just to stay close to her.
• Plan B manages to be a combination of both this and Gay Bravado. Bruno catches Pablo, the boyfriend of his ex Laura, checking him out openly at the gym, which leads him to believe that Pablo is bisexual and pretend to be gay/bi-curious himself to seduce Pablo away from Laura so that he can hook back up with her. However, it turns out that Pablo isn't actually bi and was just checking out Bruno because he looked uncannily like a man in a certain photo of Laura's, and is clearly unsure of what to think about his new friend's subtle and not-so-subtle "flirting" with him. Then all of this is subverted/deconstructed/zigzagged/something when Pablo and Bruno both realize that they've genuinely fallen in love with each other nonetheless.
• Poltergay: The way protagonist Marc tells his therapist how he regularly sees men (actually five ghosts of gay partygoers who died in The '70s) at the house he and his wife inherited and the fact that he's a construction worker (a very masculine field) prompts his therapist to think he's a repressed homosexual. Marc himself almost thinks he's that afterwards for a while, until an encounter with a gay man who loves "converting" straight men definitely convinces him that he's straight.
• In a deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith (kept in the novelization), Palpatine tries to worsen the growing wedge between Anakin and Obi-Wan by claiming Obi-Wan was seen leaving a certain senator's apartment at an unseemly hour. The obvious insinuation (that Obi-Wan is sleeping with Anakin's wife, Senator Padme Amidala) goes sailing over Anakin's head and he assumes Obi-Wan is sleeping with a different senator he knows (who's a guy). Palpatine wearily specifies that he meant Padme's apartment.
• In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Robin and his Merry Men encounter Rabbi Tuckman, who misunderstands the name and asks if they're "feygeles".
• Sam: Cynthia briefly suspects that Doc is actually gay and is attracted to his childhood friend, Sam. She's only half wrong, as Sam is now Samantha.
• Secrets In The Hot Spring: After Qie save Hsu from a Gang of Bullies in the bathroom, rumours quickly spread on social media that he and Hsu are gay lovers. Neither one is gay. In fact, Hsu reveals that Bat, The Bully he wants to be friends with again, is a girl.
• In 17 Again (2009), Maggie concludes that Mike is gay after he is obviously squicked by her advances, not knowing, of course, that he's actually the 17 year old version of her father.
• In Sextette, Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton) is confused by the media of being gay, and Barrington constantly reinforces this rumor by naively declaring such lines as "Well, yes, I would say so. Always gay, never depressed. Happy and gay. That's my motto", "It's queer to me," he's a "man's man" and that as a coxswain he "coxed the entire crew."
• In Shampoo, Lester asumes George is gay because he's a hairdresser; in reality, George is The Casanova.
• This appears in Snakes on a Plane, in which the effeminate, comic-relief air steward states early on that he can't wait to see his girlfriend, resulting in disbelieving remarks from his colleagues. At the end of the film, he is reunited with his girlfriend who turns out to be both real and highly attractive (and also apparently every bit as bubble-headed as he is), while the rest of the characters express their surprise.
• Some Kind of Wonderful: Watts. At the beginning, a guy tells her that she has "a little bit too much up front to be a guy" so she has to be a lesbian. She's actually a straight tomboy though, into her friend Keith.
• Tour de Pharmacy: Marty and Adrianna begin a relationship while competing in the Tour de France, though since Adrianna is pretending to be a man so she can compete, the public thinks that they're in a same-sex relationship and hail them as gay icons.
  Lucy Flerng: Marty and Adrian became the first publicly out gay athletes, while simultaneously being in a heterosexual relationship.
• Up Pompeii:
  • Lurcio worries Nausius has "turned" after he shows no interest at Ludicrus Sextus' orgy.
  • When Captain Bilius tries to get Lurcio to give him the scroll, Lurcio assumes he's trying to pick him up.
• Invoked in Venom: Let There Be Carnage: while separated from Eddie and taking in a rave using another host, Venom takes to the stage to let out his feelings about being hidden, how people should be nice to aliens, and how everyone should be free to be who they are. While he is talking about Eddie keeping him a secret because of the fact that he is a dangerous brain-eating symbiote from outer space, the other revelers interpret his speech as advocating for equality for immigrants and the LGBTQ+ people.
• Water (1985). Michael Caine enters the island's prison and finds its two inmates hiding under the bed as a bomb is about to go off.
  "Are you two digging a tunnel or committing an unnatural act?"
• Welcome to Marwen: Played for Drama, as Mark was deemed "queer" by some neo-Nazis in a bar when he drunkenly mentioned liking to wear high heels, which they beat him severely for.
• This happens to our heroes in Wild Hogs every time the bike cop appears. It doesn't help that whenever he spots or overhears them, they tend to be discussing such matters as "being ridden so hard by Woody" or taking naked baths together, as seen here.
• In Wild Wild West, the train conductor walked in on Jim West and Artemus Gordon having a discussion on the realistic quality (or lack thereof) of the latter's costume breasts. From the angle the conductor viewed them from, it looked like they were feeling each other up — and it wasn't at all helped by their declarations of "touch my breasts." The conductor just gets a squicked look and mutters "I knew it."
• In Zachariah, a man hassles Matthew and Zachariah for being "faggots," resulting in Zachariah's first duel.

Literature

• 2666: The critics assume Amalfitano is gay.
• In Alexis Carew: HMS Nightingale, Alexis' first officer Midshipman Villar is attracted to Marie, a single mother Alexis rescued from Giron in The Little Ships, but Villar walked in on them sleeping in Alexis' bed on the way to drop Marie off with Alexis' grandfather. Once he finally manages to work around to saying what he thought, Alexis bursts out laughing and explains that no, both of them are straight and they only slept in the same bed because installing a second bunk in the captain's quarters wasn't practical for either of them (Marie had to be able to get up in the middle of the night to deal with her baby, and Alexis is too short to comfortably climb to an upper bunk).
  Villar: You said your sweetheart was French!
  Alexis: Yes, French. A Frenchman. A French man, Mister Villar — a lieutenant in their navy.
• In The Art of Being Normal, Kate is a closeted transgender girl who is mistaken for a gay boy by most people.
• Happens to Phury in one of J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood books. He kisses Rehvenge to shut the latter up after being "accused" of being gay. The Reverend is not at all thrilled the Brother called his bluff.
• In * Boot Camp, Pauly Vetare was sent to Lake Harmony because he was small and unathletic and his dad thought he was gay, even though he's straight.
• In Cartwright's Cavaliers, one of Jim Cartwright's new employees assumes he's gay because he's rarely dated women. Jim finally becomes irritated enough to correct him that he likes girls, "I just haven't found one that likes me back." (This is mainly because he's severely overweight.)
• Cheaper by the Dozen, a memoir about a family with 12 children, includes this anecdote: While on a family trip, the father realizes that they have left one of the young sons behind at a restaurant. Upon returning they find that the nighttime clientele is rather seedier than the daytime patrons. While checking a booth the father is startled when a woman asks if he is looking for a naughty little girl. Flustered the father replies, "No! I'm looking for a naughty little boy!" The woman responds, "Whoops dearie, pardon me!"
• Convenience Store Woman: Keiko is thirty-six and has never had a boyfriend. One of her friends not-so-subtly tries to ask if she's a lesbian, but the truth is, Keiko's just not interested in all that, with anyone.
• In The Crystal Cave, 12-year-old Merlin meets Count Ambrosius, who turns out to be his father. Ambrosius gives him a fine set of rooms, a tutor and a servant. Given Ambrosius' seeming lack of interest in women, Ambrosius' brother Uther, who's always having affairs with women, assumes from this considerate treatment that Merlin is Ambrosius' catamite, even though Ambrosius has displayed no interest in boys either.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In The Meltdown, Greg and Rowley sneak into Gramma's house while she's gone so that they can get warm. Greg figures that they could warm their clothes in the dryer in the basement, but since they’re naked otherwise, they decide to use some of Gramma's clothes. Cue Greg's mom walking in on them. Initially, it seems that she’s in Tranquil Fury that they went into Gramma's house without permission to do shenanigans, but she later sits down with Greg to tell him that it's okay for boys to "play pretend" and that it's part of growing up. Greg doesn't understand what she means, but it's obvious to older readers what she was thinking.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Harry Dresden has frequently been mistaken for his maternal half-brother Thomas Raith's lover, to Harry's initial dismay and Thomas' great amusement. Harry, who mostly finds it exasperating, later uses this to his advantage once when caught snooping in Thomas' apartment, something that works like a charm on the homophobic security guard (the young female cop is more suspicious, but Mouse, Harry's entirely sapient Big Friendly Dog, is ample distraction). It doesn't help when word gets to the SI division in .005 seconds.
  • The root of this is in a case similar to the one of the film examples above, Thomas, when he gets a 'real job' as a hair dresser, deliberately poses as a flamboyantly gay European because there is no such thing as a 'good, high class, straight American' hairdresser. Also, it helps to prevent any of his clients from trying to make a move on him, as Thomas is an incubus and is trying to avoid any Accidental Pornomancer shenanigans.
  • The first time that medical examiner Waldo Butters meets Thomas, he immediately thinks Harry and Thomas are a couple—and this is before the events in the first example. Harry tries to convince Butters otherwise. It doesn't work, thanks to Thomas, though Butters does eventually figure it out.
• The Help: Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is temporarily mistaken for gay by her own mother, mostly because she's 23 and hasn't had a boyfriend yet.
• Fifty Shades of Grey: Before meeting Ana, Christian's family believed he might be gay as they'd never seen him with a woman. Even Ana spontaneously asks him if he's gay during their interview. He's actually just very private about his intimate relationships with women because he's into BDSM and doesn't want it getting out in public; Ana is the first woman he's ever been serious about so he's far more open about their relationship.
• Jonah, best friend of the title character of MaryJanice Davidson's Fred The Mermaid series is constantly this trope, even by the woman he winds up marrying. He's actually a Camp Straight.
• Good Omens:
  • Happens to Aziraphale and Crowley several times, but mostly to Aziraphale who apparently gives people the impression that he is "gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide." Not to mention the fact that Crowley seems to have a habit of calling Aziraphale "angel" with other (human) people present, while Aziraphale calls Crowley "dear" on a regular basis. The most notable incident being when Crowley and Aziraphale give Anathema Device a lift in Crowley's Bentley; she worries about whether or not she'll need to use her bread knife to protect herself, but when Crowley calls Aziraphale "angel," she concludes that she hadn't been in danger after all. The most humorous possibly being when a little girl tells Aziraphale, "You are rubbish. And probably a faggot."
    
    Also happens in fanfiction, when fics label Aziraphale/Crowley as slash. The book explicitly states that all angels are sexless by default unless they really want to make an effort and Neil Gaiman has said that while Aziraphale and Crowley were written as having a "love story" in the TV adaptation, them being an angel and a demon means that they don't subscribe to the same gender or sexuality norms that humans do.
  • A briefer earlier example is Mr Tyler's reaction to Sister Mary Loquacious and another nun winking at each other (in fact, to indicate that everything is going as planned, which it isn't, but they don't know that). He saw a Ken Russell film about nuns once.
• Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi: Inverted for Lan Wangji. He got upset over Wei Wuxian remarking how Mianmian was likely to never forget him after he took a blow meant for her, Wei Wuxian assumed that he was acting so emotional because he also liked the girl. This drove Lan Wangji up the wall, since at the time, he was already wrestling with his growing attraction for him.
• Harry Potter:
  • At the Yule Ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Snape and Karkaroff get put on stopping people from making out duty. Harry and Ron were trying to get away from the ball for a moment and then started eavesdropping on them. There's a brief moment where Snape is confused as to why Harry and Ron are there.
  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Dudley mocks Harry for yelling "Don't kill Cedric!" in his sleep, wondering, "Who's Cedric — your boyfriend?"
• Jaine Austen Mysteries: In This Pen for Hire, Jaine isn't sure if Cameron Bannick, the guy she gets into, is gay or not. He isn't, but he acknowledges that he ticks a few boxes of stereotypes (owns an antique shop, platonic relationships with older women, etc.).
• In Mississippi Jack, a man mistakes Jacky's riverboat tavern for a brothel. When she tries to set him straight, he assumes that the girls "must take care o' business amongst yerselfs", adding that the idea makes him sick.
• Redfern Jon Barrett's Proud Pink Sky is set in the world's first gay state. Straight character Howard is afraid of this when he arrives in the city.
• Split Heirs: Prince Arbol spending so much time with Wulfrith is mistaken for them being lovers, which worries one councilor, inspiring his father Gudge to behead the fellow for suggesting the idea. Gudge is later simply overjoyed to see Wulfrith (Arbol's twin, though he's unaware of this) having sex with Lady Ubri while in the library.
• Rose of the Prophet: Mathew is accused of cross-dressing to seduce a man. This comes close to resulting in him being killed, since this is a capital crime (he's actually asexual, having been forced into cross-dressing initially).
• Fitz and Lord Golden (a.k.a. the Fool) in the Tawny Man trilogy. More of a Played for Drama example, as Fitz is deeply uncomfortable with this and at least a little bit homophobic. It doesn't help that the Fool describes himself as being in love with Fitz, though he also states that his feelings are not sexual. More accurately, the Fool's feelings are not necessarily sexual. He tells Fitz that he 'puts no limits' on his feelings, but he knows Fitz isn't interested and therefore it wasn't a conversation that ever needed to happen.
• Celis in Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle is initially mistaken for a lesbian (and one that Does Not Like Men) due to her saying that she's not good with men. In reality, she just doesn't know how to interact with people in general and men in particular.
• Underground: Andrew mentions that the girls he went to high school with thought he was gay because he would only hang out with them and he would do their hair. When Robyn asks, he tells her he isn't.
• This happens twice in Why We Took the Car: First at the beginning, when Tschick is convinced Maik is gay, and again, when Isa thinks Maik and Tschick are wearing lipstick after they ate brambleberries.

Music

• "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Couch Potato" (a spoof of Eminem's "Lose Yourself") has the line, "But I only watched Will & Grace one time, one day. Wish I hadn't, cause TiVo now thinks I'm gay!"
• A fake interview with Eminem makes Slim Shady pretty weird...
• The song Secret by The Veronicas:
  You could call me six times but still I won't pick up the phone
  You could spend all your money on me but still I'll say no
  You could write a million letters everyday confessing to me
  That I am the girl of your dreams
  But nobody ever asked me
  I never looked at you that way
  'Cause I always thought you were gay
• Bo Burnham's song "My Whole Family (Thinks I'm Gay)". The twist is that not only is he gay, but he has a boyfriend, all while insisting he's straight.
• The entire premise of the Stephen Lynch song "If I were gay" (VERY NSFW)
  But if I were gay
  I would give you my heart!
  And if I were gay
  you'd be my work of art!
  And if I were gay
  we would swim in romance...
  but I'm not gay — so get your hand out of my pants.
• Trap rapper Playboi Carti has sometimes been mistaken for being gay: rumors about him being gay or at least bisexual surfaced on late 2017 after his ex-girlfriend Rubi Rose liked an Instagram comment that called him out.◊ Rose herself however debunked the false rumors just a month later. These rumors resurfaced again when Carti changed his aesthetic to a vampire films-inspired one to match his long-awaited sophomore album Whole Lotta Red. Carti himself references these old rumors in the song "New Tank".
  I got me some thots
  They thought I was gay
• Folk singer-songwriter Fred Small made a point of avoiding any references to gender in his lovesongs, so that listeners could interpret them as being about a person of any gender they liked. This, plus a number of overtly pro-gay rights songs, led to a lot of speculation among fans that Small was gay, and he studiously avoided confirming or denying it. He "came out" as straight in 1993, in response to the wave of homophobia over the issue of gays in the military, because he felt it was important that straight allies make themselves known. (His last album does contain one song, "Reverie's End," in which his lost love is definitely a woman because he recalls imagining she was pregnant.)
• Sloppy Seconds' song "I Don't Wanna Be A Homosexual" is all about this trope.
• Amusingly, the woman who inspired Weezer's “Pink Triangle” turned out to be a case of this by Rivers Cuomo. She wore the titular triangle on her backpack (rather than on her sleeve) as a show of support for gay rights, but wasn't a lesbian herself.

Theatre

• Subverted in Angels in America: Joe walks in on Louis crying in the bathroom and in the ensuing conversation Louis assumes Joe is gay. He's completely right, but Joe just hasn't wrapped his mind around that yet.
• In the opening number to Be More Chill, main character Jeremy and his best friend Michael are subject to homophobic bullying from Armoured Closet Bisexual bully Rich, who first writes on their backpacks the word "boyfriends" split up, and later calls Jeremy gay for signing up for the school play (even though he does the same thing).
• This is a fear of many in Billy Elliot due to Billy's love of ballet. Michael, Billy's less-flamboyant (in public, anyway) friend... seems to be Mistaken For Straight.
  Billy: It says..."Billy Elliot is queer."
  Father: ESQUIRE!
• Elder Mckinley in The Book of Mormon does this to Elder Price, assuming that he is gay after expressing discontent with his new life in Africa. Price isn't actually, and continually tries to tell Mckinley this. Mckinley, on the other hand...
• In Everybody's Talking About Jamie, Jamie's teacher Miss Hedge assumes that his mom and her close friend who's helped to raise Jamie after his father left are dating.
• In Jasper in Deadland, Gretchen assumes Jasper is gay when he insists the girl he's trying to rescue is just his friend.
  Gretchen: So you're gay? You're her gay BFF.
  Jasper: No, I'm not gay. I'm very straight, and we're best friends.
  Gretchen: "Best friends" with a girl and you ain't tappin' it? That's a new one.
• The musical Rock of Ages includes a character who is mistaken for gay through most of the show, which leads to the best line in the play: "I'm not gay! I'm just German!" The character's named Franz, and he's currently (as of November '09) played by Tom Lenk, who is gay.
• In the musical Something Rotten!, this happens to Nick and Bea twice, while Bea is disguised as a man.
• In Twice Charmed, Prince Charming says that he loves the maiden at the ball, but the Grand Duke thinks he's referring to him.
• In We Are the Tigers, Kate and Cairo are assumed to be a couple by Annaleigh. Kate actualy is a lesbian, but Cairo is not and they are not together.

Video Games

• 2027: When Daniel first leaves the safe house in Paris, a woman sitting outside will begin hitting on him, then inquire about Xander (Daniel's work partner and platonic friend). She'll immediately assume there is something more going on, and will become disappointed.
• Valygar in Baldur's Gate II is mistaken for gay by quite a number of characters. When he denies it, they delight in mocking him, which includes him being called a "fruit" by Cernd.
• Two characters from Bar Oasis gets this treatment. Vic suffers this treatment twice. First Desree though Vic was gay because he was "interested" in Haruki Murakami's work. Then Vicky accuses him of being gay. Vicky also accuses the Boss for being gay due to the "No dating customers" philosophy. One should note that Vicky runs a gossip rag that pegged them both as gay.
• Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: When Gun looks impressed at Emil shrugging off Jabra's daggers, Emil feels the need to remind him that he's into girls.
• Densetsu no Stafy 4: When Starly shows up to join Starfy and Moe to confront Arcy, he declares that she's the one he's been searching for. Moe mistakes Arcy as talking to him.
  Moe: (translated) …You talkin' to me? I know I'm a cool guy, but I'm not interested.
  Arcy: (translated) No, no. I'm not talking about you, clam. I'm speaking to the young lady.
• Deus Ex: Invisible War: If playing as a male Alex, the player can use this to their advantage when trying to break into the Minister of Culture's apartment. If the player convinces him he wants to come over to be a chamber boy, he'll give access to the place, allowing the player to raid it.
• Speaking of Nippon Ichi games, there's this little exchange in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
  Laharl: ...What? What's the problem now?
  Aramis: ...Thank you, Your Highness.
  Laharl: H, Hmph...! Well, it is part of my job as the Overlord...And don't bother to thank me. If you want to show your gratitude, you can repay me with your body.
  Etna: Hmmm... I never knew you were like that...
• In Faris' recruitment event in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Zidane confuses the others by flirting with "him" as much as he does with any of the female party members. Cloud speculates that Zidane has "switched sides" until Faris admits that she's a woman—which Zidane had already realized when he and Bartz were giving her first aid.
• In Far Cry 4, Pagan Min mentions that people often make this mistake about him, since he is very flamboyant and wears a bright pink paisley suit (described in-game as making him look like a "metrosexual pimp") but is by all indications straight, having only ever loved one woman. Apparently he chose the style to honor his British mother and annoy his Triad crime lord father. He personally has no problems with homosexuality and apparently accepts them in his Royal Army.
  • There's some Real Life subtext to this: The reveal of Min's character design drew complaints online, as some commenters complained about Ubisoft using the old Depraved Homosexual villain cliché in 2014. Thus, Min's remarks about people assuming he's gay just because he wears a pink suit can be seen as a Take That, Critics! to the complainers.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening:
  • Lon'qu has rampant gynophobia due to a female childhood friend being killed when he was unable to help her. As a result, he cannot stand being within a certain range of the female members of the army, and his quotes and reactions change when he's talking to one. In a DLC map, another party member, Vaike, asks him about it, and when Lon'qu refuses to talk, Vaike immediately assumes that Lon'qu is gay, assuring him that there was nothing to be ashamed of. Naturally, he gets verbally thrashed.
  • This is also present in the Female Avatar's conversations with Flavia, who wants to offer her the chance to be her adopted sister, but phrases it in such a way that suggests it's a proposal of marriage. Avatar tries to explain she's not into women, and Flavia talks about how gender doesn't matter to her in such a way that it sounds like she's bisexual. It is eventually cleared up, but much Hilarity Ensues before then.
• This happens twice in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia as well.
  • The first example happens in Leon and Kamui's supports. Due to Kamui asking Leon about his relationship with Valbar, Leon assumes that it must be because Kamui was hoping for a shot with him if he ever moved on from Valbar. Kamui tries to correct him, but eventually just gives up.
  • Te other example occurs in one of the Memory Prisms, where Clair teases Fernand about being into her brother Clive.
• Grand Theft Auto V:
  • When Michael and Trevor show up at Tracey's audition for Fame and Shame, Lazlow thinks the two are her two dads.
  • The Triads mistake Michael and Trevor for a gay couple due to their being seen alone together during various parts of the story. When Franklin shows up, they begin to wonder if he's their other boyfriend or adopted son?
  • After he starts hanging out with Michael, it's mentioned that some people back in the hood thought that Franklin had been whoring himself out as a rent-boy to rich white guys in Vinewood.
• In Kindergarten 2, during the mission "Flowers for Diana," Cindy has the player deliver a Love Letter to Felix. Initially, Felix assumes the letter is from the protagonist and awkwardly tries to turn him down before the misunderstanding is cleared up.
• Makai Kingdom delivers us this particular little gem in a dialogue between Zetta and King Drake the Third:
  Zetta: Aren't you the one who attacked me in my sleep?
  Drake: ...Only because I wanted your junk.
  PREGNANT PAUSE
  Zetta: ...You sick bastard... I didn't know you swung that way.
  Drake: What the hell?!! No, no, no, no! I wanted your money, you-your valuables!
• Metal Gear:
  • Briefly in Metal Gear Solid, in the long cutscene when Snake and Otacon first meet. Snake is checking whether or not Otacon is suffering from FOX-DIE. Otacon just assumes Snake is coming on to him. Later in the scene, he interprets Snake's confusion over what he means by how Meryl, despite being dressed as a soldier, is 'still all woman' as Snake being "dense", although this is a possible subversion because what Otacon actually means is that Meryl still has to use the ladies' bathroom.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, if you take pictures of the Vulcan Raven doll or one of the male pinups and send them to Otacon at the end of the Tanker chapter, he will question Snake's sexuality.
• In Overwatch, one pre-game interaction has Lifeweaver asking if Junkrat and Roadhog are a romantic couple. Junkrat doesn't seem aware that this is even a possibility.
  Lifeweaver: Are you and Roadhog together?
  Junkrat: Do you ever see us apart?
  Lifeweaver: No. I mean, are you a couple?
  Junkrat: Yes! A couple of dashing rogues! Not sure what you're missing here.
• Persona 4:
  • This is one of Kanji's issues, though his sexuality is kind of a point of contention in the fandom as well. Most of his character arc deals with his insecurities about his more feminine hobbies and him being terrified that people will reject him for it, which causes his Shadow to manifest as a Camp Gay parody of himself. The fact that his semi-canon pairing is with a Bifauxnen tomboy doesn't really clear up matters. Word of God is that this was done intentionally.
  • For a brief moment Kanji makes this mistake about Yukiko when she tells him about her own experiences of having to confront her shadow.
    Kanji: So like, that means you came out to everyone too?
    Yukiko: Th-That's...Um...
    Kanji: What was it like for Senpai—
    Yukiko: *Slap*.
  • In the Golden Updated Re-release, during the trip before the Bonus Dungeon if you get caught in the snowstorm with the other guys, you all huddle up in the cabin for warmth and the girls get the wrong idea when they come to check up on you. Rise doesn't take it well before the misunderstanding is cleared up. She does it again in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth if Yu picks a guy in the Group Date Wedding.
• In Puyo Puyo, Schezo's tendency to completely mess up his speech leads to him being mistaken for being gay on at least three occasions.
  • It's implied by Rulue in SUN, after Schezo was Not Distracted by the Sexy. She claims Schezo was doing...some unspeakable things that she doesn't elaborate on.
  • In 15th Anniversary, Lemres mistakes Schezo's desire for his power as flirting and tries to turn him down gently.
    Lemres: That's very nice of you, but I just don't swing that way.
  • In Puyo Puyo Tetris 2's Chapter 6, he mangles one of his lines and accidentally claims that muscular bodies satisfy him. Even when he tries to correct himself, no one buys it.
• Raidou gets this a lot in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, partly because he spends a lot of time looking for men (specific ones, for detective-work-related reasons) in the neighborhood of Tokyo where the gay prostitutes hang out. Tae also thinks he and Narumi are a couple at one point (granted, so do many of the fans).
• In an optional scene in Chapter 9 of Rakenzarn Tales, Kyuu and Kite happen to run into each other and decide to go get some lunch. As it would happen, some of the Negima girls are at another table in the same cafe, see them together and jump to this conclusion, thinking it was a Rescue Romance deal. Eventually, one of the girls loses her patience and yells at the guys to start making out, much to their confusion.
• In Rune Factory 4, Frey walks in on Doug practicing his proposal with Dylas in his reverse proposal event and wonders if they fight all the time to hide their feelings for one another.
• Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has the Ambiguously Gay Manikin shopkeeper. Truth is, he's offended he's been mistaken for "a queer".
• Shin Super Robot Wars: Rai is thought to be gay by a good number of characters because his teammate Ryusei was going around telling them so. Rai responds by punching Ryusei in the face so hard that nobody questions his sexuality anymore. Thankfully Ryusei isn't like this anymore.
• In the PC-98 exclusive Touhou Fuumaroku ~ the Story of Eastern Wonderland, the samurai Meira introduces herself and her intentions to "take" Reimu (in a fight to gain her powers). Reimu mistakes this for a marriage proposal and accepts, much to Meira's confusion. By the time she figures it out and explains herself, Reimu's stopped listening altogether.
• Mick in The World Ends with You apparently has so little confidence that he assumes Neku gives Mick his patronage because he's gay for him.
• Zigzagged in The Urinal Game: The reason for not peeing next to someone is so you don't get mistaken for perving on the other men, but the player character's orientation isn't revealed.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • In the second case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you can either accuse Marvin Grossberg of his obvious connection with Redd White, or...
    Phoenix: It's not something I can claim to understand... But you and Mr. White are lovers, aren't you!
    Grossberg: W-w-what! My boy!
    Phoenix: You sent that painting to him! As a sign! A sign of undying love!
    Grossberg: M-m-my boy, please! You're letting your fancies run away with you! Where do you get these bizarre ideas?
    Phoenix: I... I don't understand how you could...
    Grossberg: That's because I'm not, we're not... Don't be ridiculous! Enough. I'll swallow my pride and tell you all.
    Phoenix: (I knew it! They are lovers!)
    Grossberg: N-no! We are NOT lovers!
  • If you show Larry a picture of Ron DeLite during the segment where he's scolding himself for being a womanizer, he'll assume that you're offering to hook the two of them up and will apologetically tell you that he can't switch orientations.
  • When Apollo encounters Klavier for the first time, he can't help but be stunned by how closely he resembles Kristoph. Klavier misinterprets his staring.
    Klavier: I must say I'm used to being inspected by the ladies... But this is the first time I've felt this way with a man.
• In Hakuouki, at one point, Harada starts flirting with Chizuru in public, forgetting that in the eyes of everyone else, she is disguised as a boy and this creates some unintended impressions about his preferences.
• Little Busters!: At one point when Riki and Kyousuke are having one of their typical Ho Yay-filled scenes - Kyousuke reaches around Riki's collar to take off a piece of lint, leaving their faces very close - Mio comes across them. She, well, interprets the scene as any Yaoi Fangirl would. The conversation doesn't help - when she asks if she's interrupting, Kyousuke says that she somewhat is, and then asks her to join. At first she's very pleased by it all, and even thanks Riki at being able to see something so beautiful, but realises on her own that she misinterpreted the scene. All this time, neither Riki nor Kyousuke ever figures out what she was thinking.
• Jumin from Mystic Messenger is speculated at several points to be gay because of his constant rejections of women.

Web Animation

• The ACTUALLY HAPPENED video My Parents Think I Am Gay But I AM NOT is about a teenager whose parents mistake him for dating his male best friend. Despite his protests, his parents don't believe him. They even mistake his girlfriend for a beard. Even when he comes clean about what he and his friend were doing, his parents still think he's gay.
  So I got myself together and told my parents. That night Jim and I were just playing, playing just a video game. I'm a gamer. Gamer, not gay!
• Bowser's Kingdom follows this trope an odd number of times, because Kamek is constantly calling Hal (and sometimes Jeff) gay:
  • Episode 2:
    • Jeff and Hal flashbacked the time they took flying lessons from Kamek. When it failed, Kamek said "What are you, gay?!"
    • Hal got close to a squished Jeff so he can mourn for him. Jeff got revived and thought Hal was gay. When Hal spoke later in the episode, Jeff said "Shut up, gay face!"
    • When Jeff was squished again and Hal was mourning for him again, Kamek passed say and said "See! I knew you were gay!"
  • Episode 6:
    • Hal was apparently leaving during his jobless period. A Mouser came by and took the sack he was carrying. Hal notices this, and said "He took my sack!". Kamek heard him and said "What are you, gay?!"
    • When Jeff mentioned to Hal that Donkey Kong kept asking him to eat bananas, Hal said, "And they say I'm the gay one."
  • Episode 10:
    • During the scene of Hal explaining why there are no subtitles for the speakable characters from episodes 8 and on, someone was apparently fiddling with the subtitles. The subtitles eventually turned into "I secretly love Kamek." when Hal said "Sometimes I really, really hate this place." Kamek saw this and said "I knew you were gay!"
  • The Movie:
    • Not as close to the trope itself, but when Jeff and Hal (disguised as Mario and Luigi, respectively) were making there way inside Peach's palace, the Toad there said hi to them (he mistook them for Mario and Luigi), and blushed when he said hi to Hal (Luigi), and said "Ya know, I had a great time last night." Hal then asked "Are you insinuating that I'm a gay?"
  • Episode 666:
    • When Jeff was trying to tell Hal about the zombie invasion, Hal wouldn't listen until Jeff told him that the zombies called Hal gay.
• In the Cartoon Hooligans episode "The Rumors About Spider-Man and Deadpool", when Deadpool inadvertently pulls off Spider-Man's suit leggings, Spider-Gwen happens upon them before running off crying. Immediately afterwards, Captain America and Iron Man also happen upon them, and Iron Man decides to post a picture of the "couple" on Instagram with the tags "#SpideyPool", "#HahGay" and "#Bromance", over their vehement denials.
• Etra chan saw it!:
  • Tokusa ate the last piece of Kuroki's fried chicken, which caused the latter to pull a prank on the former as revenge. Kuroki baked some cupcakes and slipped them inside Tokusa's desk during Valentine's Day. Tokusa became nervous when he found out since the school they studied in was an all-boys school. After a while, Kuroki told Tokusa about the prank and demanded him to apologize for eating his fried chicken, Tokusa then asked him to make more cupcakes for him. The next day, Kuroki discovered that his classmates spread a rumor about him and Tokusa being a gay couple.
  • Akamatsu's co-workers think he was in a relationship with Hiiragi despite the fact that he was married to Karin. He was then called by his boss Katsura regarding the situation, he reveals that Hiiragi was telling him about Akamatsu being his boyfriend and he was playing with his feelings. Akamatsu and Katsura confront Hiiragi about his lies, as it turns out, he genuinely thought he and Akamatsu were dating. He became upset that Akamatsu went to vacation with his wife instead of him and he also slapped his hand when he attempted to molest him inside a crowded train.
• My Story Animated: In I Was Jealous of the Perfect Girl, But Ended Up BFFs, Lola thinks Paige is trying to ask her out when she approaches her and turns her down. Paige then corrects her and tells her she's not into girls either.
• In an early episode of Red vs. Blue, Church gets this from Caboose after trying to explain that the Freelancer the Blues hired is actually his girlfriend after her voice-changer fails. Caboose mistakenly still thinks Tex is a guy and that Church is gay, leading Church to respond with "Yeah, that's right. I'm a gay robot".

Webcomics

• One of the most used Running Gags in Acception is people assuming Arcus is gay. The fact Arcus is as Camp Straight as you can be, with his love of glitter, rainbows fashion and so on, doesn't help.
• This was an ongoing subplot in Avalon, especially the first year. Early on, Joe tells Ceilidh that her new friend Phoebe is gay (a rumor started by a bitter ex-boyfriend); the amount of time the two spend together leads to a rumor that Ceilidh is also a lesbian, which is compounded when her probing for a definite answer, without being too direct, makes Phoebe think so as well. The "lesbian" subplot is essentially forgotten after the story's halfway mark, until the undrawn ending, in the synopsis of which Phoebe confesses her love for Ceilidh, who in the next "scene" ambiguously mentions "new relationships".
• Bobwhite. Marlene does a brief internship with Jen, a director who's a big deal in the independent film circuit. They're a great match on the set. Then Jen gives Marlene a big kiss, only to realizes seconds later that Marlene didn't like her that way. (The real irony is that Marlene took this internship in the first place to get away from relationship drama.)
• Building 12— Joe and Alex are mistaken for this. Note that this is a variation as they are lovers, but Alex is actually a girl.
• Eerie Cuties: Nina jumps to the conclusion that her sister, Layla, is a lesbian when she walks in on her giving Brooke a kissing lesson. Then runs off before they can explain and tells Cess and Laura about it, who stage a rally in front of the entire school to humiliate Layla. Eventually, even her mom gets wind of it, much to Layla's chagrin.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Tedd gets this at times from the football players that are shown. The Jerk Jock gives him a hard time; the other toes a more Politically Correct line. Neither really help Tedd feel better. At least neither know of his favourite hobby.
  • In addition, George assumed that Justin and Elliot were a couple. This is not the case, though Justin certainly wishes it was.
  • This trope is the natural assumption about the extremely effeminate Noah, on the part of readers and characters, resulting in mild surprise/awkwardness when he talks about his girlfriend.
    Noah: You are surprised that I have a girlfriend?
    Elliot: What? No, not at all!
    Noah: It is okay if you are.
    Elliot: I ASSUMED NOTHING!
    Noah: Of course not.
  • Of course, Noah also freely admits that he can make straight men see rainbows.
  • After Elliot and Sarah's breakup, and the fact that they're still friends, is mentioned on Elliot's web show, rumors start to circulate to the effect of Elliot being gay. Interestingly, Elliot doesn't give a damn when he finds out, merely saying "Eh, let them think what they want."
  • In the Magic tournament storyline, Tedd assumes his opponent Larry is gay, based on the reasonable grounds that Larry is blatantly hitting on him. Nope, Tedd's just that girly.
  • Catalina thinks that Susan's misandry means she might be playing for the ladies' team, and asks her out. Susan's a little saddened to turn her down. While at the time Susan thinks the incompatible orientation is that she's straight, she later is prompted to consider what she actually is attracted to and finds that she can find men sexy, women sexy, the thought of men and women (or men and men, or women and women) doing things together sexy, but finds the thought of herself doing things with men or women an immediate turn-off.
• General Protection Fault: When Patty says Tim's reaction to Fooker and Sharon's relationship implies he has a crush on one of them, Fooker starts "subtly" trying to work out which one. Once Tim realises what he's asking, he says he's flattered but no, and he hopes Sharon knows she's just The Beard.
• In Girl Genius, Sanaa thinks that Othar may have other reasons for wanting to save Gil, like being his boyfriend. Of course, given her history with Othar ^note He's her brother, she may well just be picking on him to amuse herself.
• Good Cheese: Mitch is mistaken for being gay by a lot of the cast. Part of it stems from his effeminate behaviour (for example, wearing nail polish), but the catalyst for the rumours was a photo of him and a friend being rather close. It turns out that his friend was gay, but Mitch is shown to be attracted to women when, at the end of the story, he kisses the female Mara.
• Gunnerkrigg Court's Kat has been mistaken for gay by Paz, thanks to a conversation in which Kat extolled Paz's virtues. For the record, Kat has actually had a boyfriend, even if he did turn into a bird and Paz is getting over the shock of finding that her crush has a crush on ''Chang'e'', of all people. In the next chapter she's wearing a flower in her hair, apparently in an attempt to seem more girly. And then they decide to give a relationship a try
• The Guy Upstairs: Rozy and Hawa are close enough that rumors of them being an item are common. At one point Ravi coldly shuts them down, although due to Malaysia’s treatment of homosexuality, it’s rather justified.
• Last Res0rt cranks it up a notch; sure, Addy and Jigsaw end up caught on camera, but Jigsaw is a vampire and thus was feeding on Addy, not sleeping with her, so Jigsaw ends up having to play along...
• In Luminary Children, Cameron mistakes Rex and Rick for boyfriends. However, after the amount of Ho Yay between them up to that point (which, by the way, is approximately five pages after their introduction), most people would.
• Ménage à 3 has a very comedic instance here. (For the record, Gary isn’t gay.)
• Jae-min from Orange Marmalade, due to his He-Man Woman Hater nature, was mistaken for gay by a large group of people and also his best friend (who was worried Jae-min had a crush on him). Si-Hoo's obsessive and highly suggestive nature isn't helping his case and seems pretty determined to "have him".
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Nale, disguised as Elan, worries about this when Vaarsuvius catches him and a male police officer (actually a shapeshifted Sabine) snogging passionately. However, given that V rarely notices or even understands gender, they probably didn't think much about the police officer's sex, and was more concerned with him not being Haley.
  • Tsukiko thinks she is mistaken for bi due to misinterpreting the Monster In The Darkness's comments that she "does both" (actually referring to doing both Arcane and Divine magic).
    Tsukiko: I didn't know the Crypt Thing was female!
  • Earlier, on Elan and Nale's first meeting, Nale's comments on Elan's handsomeness (or rather, his own handsomeness) lead Elan to ask "Are—are you hitting on me? Because whatever you heard about what happened at summer camp—"
• A running gag in Penny and Aggie with Aggie has several people (and, at one point, her best friend) believe or play with the idea she is gay. Also done with Penny. Turns out, Aggie is a lesbian, and Penny is bi, at least for Aggie.
• In Sandra on the Rocks, teenage gamers Alex and Marie's post-workout exhaustion combined with their video game trash talk gives one online listener the impression that not only are the two of them getting it on (not that Marie would mind), but that Alex regularly has sex with guys as well.^note This setting being as it is, that eventually comes true — but only quite a bit later.
• Selkie: After Selkie buys flowers for her classmate Te Fahn in an attempt at matchmaking gone wrong, her classmakes start to tease her for "Having a girlfriend." The student teacher, Miss Flower (who is gay herself) even offers help and advice before realizing what actually happened.
• Subverted in Shortpacked!. Robin believes that the reason that Ethan doesn't show any interest in her is because he's secretly gay. However, when she confronts him about this, it turns out that Ethan actually is gay, but just didn't realize it; unfortunately for Robin, she just helped him work it out.
• String Theory (2009): Phineas.
  Phineas: No, no, no. Don't. Be. Dense. I know you, Dr. Herville Albert Schtein.
  Schtein: Oh God. You've got a weird crush on me, don't you?
• TwoKinds has Keith and Natani. It gets confusing because Natani considers herself male but is in fact not. Natani is actually two people sharing two bodies as part of a medical procedure to keep them alive, one male and one female. So whether it's really a 'mistake' or not is something the characters themselves aren't sure of because no one has a word or customs for defining the gender of a binary being, though they're usually offended anyway, on principle.
• Umlaut House had a bit of a Running Gag where Saundra, ironically one of the straightest characters, was mistaken for a lesbian by strangers. Though there was an Alternate Universe where her counterpart was a lesbian (and attempted to seduce her).
• Sydney in an early Unintentionally Pretentious. While she acknowledges the act of leading Mia in public to be innocent, she believes people see two girls walking together arm in arm and extrapolate to sexy results, and suggests that she get a guide dog for her benefit.
• Played for Drama in Weak Hero when, as part of their ongoing bullying campaign against Stephen, the students of Eunjang Middle School wonder if he's in love with his best friend Gray and make unsavoury comments about it. Gray, usually The Stoic, is visibly rattled when he comes across their mockery.
• Yoon Sung from Welcome to Room #305 gets mistaken for gay when he gets offended over men making homophobic remarks. His sister is lesbian and at the time he felt guilty for being so homophobic towards her in the past.

Web Videos

• In Atop the Fourth Wall's "Athena #1" review, Linkara officially announces that he is straight, to counter accusations that he dislikes women being objectified in comic books because he is gay (rather than feminist disagreement with the concept of boob windows and constant ass shots).
• This is a VERY long Running Gag of the ComedyShortsGamer.
• In "If Straight People Had to Come Out", gay people assume everyone is gay by default, so when one guy is revealed to be straight, his friend says, "Oh! You're straight?!".
• Jack Vale Films has a recurring prank called "I'm Not Gay", where Jack acts as though random men are hitting on him and tells them he isn't gay.
• Noob:
  • It plays around with that trope due to having a cast including a Yaoi Fangirl and an Effeminate Misogynistic Guy who happens to be a very dedicated Hero-Worshipper. Only the webseries gave a somewhat definitive answer to the situation, with the guy affirming that he's being a Celibate Hero (and claiming to avoid relationships with women), but the very same episode showed that he and the "hero" in question are on a much more friendly basis than they used to be. Later, upon witnessing one of the consequences of that friendship, the girl's reaction was basically "I can't picture this happening unless these two slept together at some point.". The actual situation hence seems closer to The Not-Love Interest.
  • Its Spin-Off Neogicia has a female protagonist who shares a room and is Heterosexual Life-Partners with an openly lesbian woman that currently does not have a girlfriend and is the most vocal of the two concerning how close they are to each other. The perfect recipe for making people that don't know them personally misread the situation. The protagonist herself has very heterosexual crush... on the emperor of her faction, which gives her plenty of pre-existing competition.

Western Animation

• 6teen:
  • Jonesy and Wyatt were mistaken for a gay couple by two girls they were trying to hit on. Jonesy was not amused.
  • Nikki makes a new friend in one episode and there is strong evidence that the girl has a crush on Nikki. Nikki tries to ask her if she is gay, awkwardly stumbling over her words in an effort to avoid offending her. The girl thinks Nikki is trying to ask her out, and declines because she already has a girlfriend.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Uncle", Ocho informs Gumball that his uncle is Mario. Gumball declares "MARRY ME!" as Teri and Masami walk by, and Teri casually remarks "Called it". Masami tells Teri that she owes her $20.
• Ace and Gary, the members of The Ambiguously Gay Duo fight villains who believe that both members of the duo are gay and scheme to out them as such. According to Word of God, these villains are only half right but, it's unknown which member of the duo is the mistaken one.
• American Dad!:
  • In an episode, Terry has to fly under the gaydar to keep his bigoted father from finding out he's gay; in the process of pretending, he claims Francine is his girlfriend and Greg (his actual partner) and Stan are "the homos from across the street". Terry's dad goes right along with this despite Stan's absolute lack of performance (he sees Stan wolf-whistle an attractive woman and snarks "Yeah, whistle a showtune, you fairy!").
  • There was also that time Stan created his own theatrical one-man show about Abraham Lincoln and his fictional bodyguard played by Stan. It's a hit because of all the gay subtext Stan doesn't seem to notice.
    Stan: You guys are really grasping at straws here.
• In Aqua Teen Hunger Force Master Shake’s plan to have sex with women by falling down a well backfires when the media finds out he’s living down there with the legendary and famously gay Dirtfoot.
  Carl: Oh, yeah, they've been pretty much common-law married for years. It's cool. I don't have a problem with that. I'm fine with it. I don't think it's, you know, constitutional, but, you know, they do whatever they want, as long as they ain't flaunting it out in my yard or nothing 'cause, you know, I'm a man. Oh, oh, wait, wait! There they are! They’re the gay ones!
  News: You don't have to be gay to like Dirtfoot, you just have to be gay to be Dirtfoot. Or, to be Dirtfoot, you have to be gay. I guess what we're all saying here at Channel 5 is that Dirtfoot is gay. And so is that milkshake.
• In Archer:
  Woodhouse: This is Sterling Archer, my...
  Stinky: None of my business. Consenting adults and all that.
  Archer: Wha...HEY! No one is consenting to anything!
  Stinky: None of my business.
  • Happens again when Archer accompanies Pam to her sister Edie's wedding. Edie assumes he's a gay gigolo that Pam hired because she didn't want to show up without a date.
• Bob's Burgers: In "Turkey in a Can", Bob's Thanksgiving turkey keeps mysteriously being sabotaged by someone in the family, forcing him to keep going back to the butcher to buy a new one. This leads the butcher to believe that Bob keeps coming back to flirt with him, at first offering to set him up with a friend but he eventually gets worn down by Bob and offers to go on a date or sleep with him. Meanwhile, Bob is flustered at being flirted with at all, and continually insists he just wants to get a turkey and go home. However, on Bob's last visit it's heavily implied that the butcher wasn't too far off in his assumptions...
  Butcher: Oh my God, we're doing this!
  Bob: No, we're not.
  Butcher: Hey, what do you wanna do? You wanna go to the beach?
  Bob: No. Maybe. Wait, I'm straight. I mean, I'm mostly straight. You should call Tony.
  Butcher: Let's grab a coffee. No, let's just have sex! Oh God, this feels so great!
  Bob: I should just-, sorry I gotta go cook this. Also, I'm married. But if I wasn't... Who am I kidding, you're out of my league! It would never work.
  Butcher: What are you talking about?!
  Bob: I really gotta go!
  Butcher: I'm gonna see you tomorrow!
  Bob: Probably not... I'll call you!
• The Season 3 finale of BoJack Horseman has Todd Chavez's ex-girlfriend, Emily, point-blank ask him if he's gay, reassuring him that it's fine if he is. Genuinely surprised, Todd immediately says he's not, but then adds that he doesn't think he's straight either, and then concluding that he doesn't think he's "anything". Emily tells Todd that that's okay too.
• Clerks: The Animated Series:
  • The series reveals what few fans there are in-universe all think that Dante and Randal are a couple.
  • Additionally, the third episode had Dante forced to "admit" he was gay in order to save the entire town of Leonardo from being destroyed.
• On The Cleveland Show, Junior changes his style and starts going by "C.J." in an attempt to be cooler. He winds up befriending a girl from another school and asking her out to her prom...only for it to come out that she's a lesbian, and thinks he's one too. Hilarity Ensues.
• The Critic: Jay Sherman's boss thinks he's gay, and that Jay has a huge man-crush on him, despite Jay's repeated insistence that he's not gay. Then again, considering Jay's ex-wife compared his sex appeal to that of a dead mackerel, it probably wouldn't be that good anyway.
  Jay: You don't think I'm gay, do you?
  Doris: No man in his right mind would sleep with you.
  Jay: Thank you!
  • In one episode, however, Duke does admit he knows Jay isn't actually gay. He just likes to give him a hard time.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G. Jimmy reveals his plan to use a boyfriend helmet on Lizzie prompting a confused Lizzie to ask "You want a boyfriend?" before Jimmy clarifies he modified it to work on girls.
• Daria:
  • Kevin and Mack were briefly mistaken for a couple while attending a bridal expo together. They were actually there to see their respective girlfriends in a fashion show.
  • Played for Drama in "Is It Fall Yet?" when Jane befriends Alison. Alison gets Jane drunk (note that Jane is too young to drink) and comes on to her, claiming that she never hits on straight chicks. Jane briefly begins to question her own sexuality, but eventually realizes that Alison was trying to do just that to help seduce her.
  • Briefly in "Lane Miserables" when Jake answers the front door assuming it's one of Quinn's dates and sees a woman at the door.
    Jake: Wow, I really don't know my kids!
• On Family Guy, Peter tries to help a co-worker.
  Peter: Derek, how are you getting to the picnic?
  Derek: I don't know. I don't have a ride.
  Peter: Hey, John, you got a two-seater, don't you?
  Peter: Hey, Derek, maybe you go with John?
  Derek: For the last time, I'm not gay!
  John: Thanks anyway, Peter.
  Peter: We'll get him.
• The Fred's Head episode "Fred TV" revolves around a reality show editing Fred's life to make it sound like he's hiding the fact he's gay. They promise to fix their mistake in the next episode...only to not only make the implications worse, but imply his parents are homophobic and have thrown him out on the streets.
• Futurama: This happens to Kif Kroker in "Amazon Women In The Mood" when he, Bender, Fry, and Zapp Brannigan are sentenced by the Femputer to death by "snu-snu". While Fry and Zapp switch moods ranging from glee to terror, Kif just shows absolute terror and when Zapp sees the terrified looks on Kif's face, Zapp says "what are you gay?" to Kif when its clear that Kif is in love for Amy but has been having trouble confessing his feelings for her throughout the episode due to anxiety.
• Gravity Falls: In one episode, The Men in Black agents Powers and Trigger disguise themselves as a married couple during their investigation of the supernatural incidents occurring at Gravity Falls. They eventually drop the act, but bicker Like an Old Married Couple when they get into an argument on where Trigger left Powers' phone. Tambry walks in on the agents and then immediately walks out while telling them that she is "not even gonna ask" after seeing the agents bicker in a closet combined with the fact that Trigger's wearing a dress at the time.
• In the Harley Quinn episode "Dye Hard", Clayface interprets Dr. Psycho and Riddler's partnership as them dating, despite Psycho's statements otherwise.
  Psycho: We're not fucking! We're together.
  Clayface: I see. Not using labels yet, are we? Too new, is it? Lot of changes, Psycho. Dating, hooking up, baring ass, call it what you will. I'm proud of you for finally being who you are.
• Kaeloo: A Parental Bonus. Episode 139 follows a super hero called Ratman (a squirrel) and his sidekick (a duck) who share an apartment. Their nosy neighbor visits their apartment and it's all but implied that she has mistaken them for a couple.
• King of the Hill:
  • Bill Dauterive spends an episode purposely being mistaken for gay much like one of the examples above, as the trendy salon he is hired by only employs women and gay men, thinking straight men simply don't have what it takes to be good hairstylists. He blows his cover when an extremely attractive female customer flirts heavily with him and says it's a shame he's gay, and he just can't resist "coming out" to her. She immediately becomes disgusted with him (and herself, for letting a straight man style her hair) and outs him to the whole salon, getting him fired.
  • Dale thinks that John Redcorn is gay. The same John Redcorn that his wife has been sleeping with behind his back for over 10 years, and is very obviously the real father of his son. In fact, this actually started when Redcorn was about to confess to the affair out of guilt but was stopped from doing so by Hank.
    Dale: [to Hank] I was gettin' a weird vibe in there. You think he's gay?
  • And Peggy's hairdresser from "Good Bye Normal Jeans": everything about him from the way he acted and dressed just screamed Camp Gay, but as it turns out, to Peggy's and the viewers' surprise, he has a wife and child. Possibly he was deliberately dialing it up for the same reasons Bill did.
  • In the episode "My Own Private Rodeo", Hank tries to help Dale mend fences with his estranged father Bug, who is, in fact, a gay rodeo rider; when Hank shows up at the Rodeo, Bug jumps to conclusions:
    Bug: (intrigued) Oh my god, Hank. Are you gay?
    Hank: (shocked) What?! No! I sell propane!
  • Hank spent much of the early seasons worried about Bobby possibly being gay especially when he took up modeling, this fear was put to rest in "Naked Ambition" when Kahn informs him that he caught Bobby and Connie half naked together, after Kahn leaves Hank laughs and breathes a sigh of relief. Later in the episode after Khan has erected a giant fence between their houses, Hank lets Bobby borrow a ladder so he and Connie can kiss.
  • In the "I'm With Cupid" episode there's a Valentine tradition of girls giving carnations to the boys they like. Bobby gets two, so he lends them to his best friend Joseph, since it'll make the latter seem more desirable to a crush he has. The plan works, and Joseph gives Bobby his carnations back while thanking him profusely and calling him an awesome friend... only for Dooley to walk by at that exact moment.
    Dooley: That took courage.
• A Parental Bonus joke in The Looney Tunes Show episode, "Jailbird and Jailbunny"; Bugs and Daffy escape from jail and Bugs wants to turn himself in, but the police officer he talks to doesn't recognize him since Daffy dyed his fur to disguise him. Bugs asks the cop if he's not an escaped convict, why is he chained to Daffy? The cop's response: "Your personal lives are your business."
• In Mike Tyson Mysteries, Mike thinks Yung is a lesbian when he sees her watching the WNBA. It doesn't help her case when Marquess also enjoys watching the WNBA. In a much later episode, Yung casually admits to being pansexual, so Mike is at least partially right.
  Mike: Oh, my God! Are you a lesbian?
  Yung: No, I'm not a lesbian.
  Mike: You're a lesbian and you're afraid to come out to me.
  (Mike looks at the empty beer cans, cigarette butts, prescription medications and bottles, and a bong around the living room)
  Mike: Is that why you drinkin' and druggin', because you have so much shame?
  Yung: This is all Pigeon's, not me.
  Mike: Yung, I will love you no matter who you choose to lay with.
• In one episode of My Gym Partner's a Monkey when Adam almost accidentally kisses Jake while fantasizing about kissing Kerry:
  Jake: Don't get me wrong, Adam; I know I'm quite a looker, and I like you and all... (comically deeper voice) but not that way.
• The Rocko's Modern Life episode "S.W.A.K." involves Rocko trying to stop Heffer, who's a mailman in this episode, from delivering a love letter to his crush Alicia, who is also a mailman. Naturally, the one answering the door turns out to be her giant, overprotective elephant brother who throws a massive tantrum when he sees the contents of the letter. He only calms down when he mistakenly assumes that Heffer is the mailman the letter is adressed to.
  Heffer: [reading] "To my mail carrier. You are like a ray of golden sunshine. With each delivery, you bring a glimmer of joy that warms my heart. Love Rocko." I think you're special too, Rocko! [hugs him]
  Alicia's Brother: You mean you... and you? That's so sweet!
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Last Exit to Springfield", Homer mistakenly thinks that Mr. Burns' attempts at negotiating with him and offering a bribe are Burns coming on to him. He storms off, saying although he's curious about it, he doesn't go for these "back-door shenanigans".
  • In "Lisa's Date with Density", Lisa asks Milhouse to pass Nelson her note due to being too nervous to ask him out. During class, Milhouse discreetly passes the note on to Nelson, which reads, "Guess who likes you". Nelson turns back and sees Milhouse waving to him from the back row. Cue off-screen beating and Milhouse being carried to the ambulance via stretcher.
  • In "Homer's Phobia", Homer ends up overreacting to many small silly things Bart is doing (such as wearing a Hawaiian shirt, or putting on a ladies' wig and singing the Shoop Shoop song) and taking it to mean that contact with an openly gay shopkeeper (played by John Waters) is making Bart "turn gay". After several attempts to make Bart "man up", Homer gives up and says that he's okay with whatever Bart wants to be. When Lisa finally explains it to him, Bart's reaction is "He thinks I'm gay?!"
  • In "Gorgeous Grampa", Marge thinks Abe is gay after finding his old wrestling wig in his room, and starts trying to set him up on dates with men.
  • In "Black-Eyed, Please", after Bart causes Lisa's Sadist Teacher to quit, Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers chase her out to her car to beg her to stay. She just calls them "the worst-dressed gay men I've ever met!" before driving off.
  • Played for laughs in another episode, where in an attempt at copying Bart's 'El Barto', Homer (helping build homes for the homeless) paints 'El Homo' on a wall in big letters. Cue a man coming up to him and saying something along the lines of "I wish I had your courage!". Homer then realises what he's painted, and panicking, hastily begins to paint over it.
  • The trope was often averted with Smithers in earlier seasons, during his conversations with Mr. Burns.
  • Happens often with Lenny and Carl.
  • Homer once said he thought Sideshow Bob was "out loud and proud".
  • Mr. Burns is also subject to this when he's trying to improve his image by going on a Howard Stern knock-off radio show, coupled with a heavy dose of Have a Gay Old Time.
• South Park:
  • Butters is quite feminine and gentle, so even his mom thought he was gay and gambled on his sexuality with his dad. Butters' sexual orientation was also the entire point of "Cartman Sucks", in which he is sent to a Pray Away the Gay camp for being "bi-curious".
  • In "My Future Self 'n Me", when Butters reveals to Stan that he's Professor Chaos, Stan assumes that Butters is coming out to him and reassures that he doesn't care if Butters is gay. This only causes Butters to be disappointed and wonder if he made the costume too flamboyant.
  • One hilarious instance of this is someone assuming that Heterosexual Life-Partners Terrance and Phillip are gay. That someone is Phillip himself.
    Terrance: Wow, Scott really hates us Phillip.
    Phillip: Yes, perhaps he's homophobic.
    Terrance: ...But we're not gay, Phillip.
    Phillip: We're not?!
  • In "Tonsil Trouble", Cartman gets AIDS from a botched blood transfusion and then passes it on to Kyle intentionally. Throughout the episode, people repeatedly assume that Cartman and Kyle are gay lovers (see the page quote) when they find out that they both have AIDS. Earlier, the doctor who diagnoses Kyle asks him repeatedly if he's absolutely sure he hasn't been having unprotected anal sex.
  • Happens again in "Cartman Finds Love" between Cartman and Kyle. To keep Kyle from going out with the new girl for a few naïvely racist reasons, Cartman spreads the rumor that he and Kyle are (or at least were) dating. Funny enough, everyone seems to believe it pretty easily.
  • In "Tweek x Craig", the entire town believes the two are a couple after the new Asian students make Yaoi art featuring them. Tweek and Craig fail to get people to stop shipping them together and they decide to go along with it after seeing how happy their "relationship" makes everybody. Interestingly, this actually ends up developing into a real gay relationship, as cemented in "Put it Down" two seasons later, in which Craig calls Tweek "babe" and "honey" even when there is nobody they know around and thus no need to hold up a charade.
• Star Wars Resistance: In "The New Trooper", Kaz^note who has, so far, only expressed attraction to female characters is so relieved when Neeku pops out of the maintenance shaft under the floor when he thought he was going to get cornered by stormtroopers that he tells Neeku that he could kiss him. Neeku misinterprets this and responds that he doesn't feel the same way.
• Time Squad: This happens to Buck Tuddrussel at least twice in the series. He has had a lot of blatant subtext with Camp Gay robot Larry 3000. The subtext is so thick that other characters think that theres something going on between them. Tudrussel and Larry have been mistaken for ancouple engaged to be married by Albert Einstein, who refers to Larry as "the missus" and then Dr. Sigmund Freud approached Tuddrussel and Larry's "relationship" like he would towards a married couple. Tuddrussel has shown attraction towards multiple women in the show though.
• Total Drama:
  • Revenge of the Island has an odd variant: Lightning constantly mistakes Jo for a guy. Things get very awkward when, during a perilous situation, Jo laments that she's going to die without ever having kissed a guy.
    Lightning: Hey man, it's cool. Lightning doesn't judge.
• Happens quite a few times in The Venture Bros. There's the doctor mistaking Brock for Rusty's partner, the hicks calling Dr. Orpheus gay in the diner, Rusty accusing Dr. Orpheus of trying to seduce him...
  • Pete White gets this the most, because of his eccentric style, his lucky pink shirt, and because he rooms with Billy Whelan. In Every Which Way But Zeus, he's called out by, of all people, Shoreleave. When Billy's mother is introduced, Billy even has to confess to Pete that he told her they were gay—it was just easier than trying to explain two straight men living together.
• Yam Roll: The monster from "Sand in Bikini Problem" chooses to cuddle with Frank the weiner at Yam Roll's behest.

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