Basic Trope: A character is closeted, but everyone knows they're gay.
- Straight: Alice is not out, and calls herself straight. Everyone knows she's gay.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is gender-conforming, has never been in a relationship with a woman, and is overall Straight Gay. She claims to be straight. Everyone still knows she's gay.
- Alice is married to another woman but still denies being gay.
- Downplayed: Alice's closest friends suspect she's gay, but it's not suspected by the majority of her acquaintances.
- Justified: Alice's friends know Alice very well, and—unlike Alice herself—don't have personal reasons to be denial about it.
- Inverted:
- Alice is actually straight, but is constantly Mistaken for Gay.
- Alice is very open about being gay, has many stereotypical gay traits, and it still believed by most to be straight.
- Alice really wants to believe she's gay, but her constant fantasizing about men and clear uninterest in girls fool nobody.
- Subverted: Everyone thinks Alice is gay. She eventually comes out... as bisexual.
- Double Subverted: Over time, Alice's understanding of her own sexuality changes, and she eventually concludes that actually she is gay.
- Parodied: Everyone knows Alice is gay, even when Alice acts completely straight, has never been attracted to a woman, and has no reason to presume she's gay. (They're right.)
- Zig Zagged: Alice is either bisexual, bicurious, or questioning her sexuality.
- Averted: No one has any assumptions about Alice's sexuality at all.
- Enforced: "We don't want a Ass Pull situation, so let's foreshadow Alice's sexuality by having her family suspect it years before she comes out."
- Lampshaded: "I'm not gay! What, just because my best friend sleeps over a lot makes me gay?"
- Invoked: "You know, if you want to come out of the closet, no one will judge you..."
- Exploited: Bob blackmails Alice with her "secret." This works, because Alice is the only who thinks it's a secret.
- Defied:Bob: That whole girl-crush repression act reeks of "Total Closet Case".Alice: Bold of you to assume the repression was me hiding in a closet. I'm just anxious she won't like me.
- Discussed: "When will Alice come out of the closet? I mean, everyone can see it!"
- Conversed: "Oh, goodness, another gay person who insists she's anything but. When will these TV types learn?"
- Deconstructed: Alice is annoyed by everyone presuming to know her sexuality. She spends years repressing her sexuality, not out of homophobia, but out of a Reverse Psychology desire to prove wrong everyone's assumptions about her.
- Reconstructed: When she finally does come to terms with her sexuality, Alice learns a lesson about listening to other people and not assuming they're wrong out of hand.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob is an exaggerated Camp Gay who claims to be completely straight and utterly manly, you silly pumpkin!
- Alice claims she's still straight because she likes girls. Since both parties would prefer females, and not liking girls is gay, there can't possibly be a person in that scenario that isn't heterosexual.
Wait... are you calling me gay? I'm not gay! Just because I enjoy the female form and then doesn't make me gay! ...I'm going back to Transparent Closet.
