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Armoured Closet Gay
aka: Armored Closet Gay

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"When I grew up, being gay, being a sissy or anything like that was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely and had to hide it and became "Perfect Richard, All-American Boy" as a place to hide."

AKA Haggard's Lawnote , or the Law of Inverse Homosexuality: The more vocally opposed a person is to homosexuality, the more likely they are to be gay themself and closeted about it.

He's the strongest, toughest, manliest man on the sports team. He might hate gays and be vocal, or even violent about it. He will remind everybody that he is completely, 100% straight. That is, during the daytime. When night falls, you can find him Where Everybody Knows Your Flame with the Club Kids and Gym Bunnies. He might be browsing Grindr with a headless torso pic. He's the self-loathing gay guy who hides behind a macho homophobic façade.

If Fridge Logic is applied, this trope can become a Morton's Fork. Anyone who is homophobic might be suspected of being a secretly self-hating gay person. On the other hand, if you go in the opposite direction and defend gays, you're obviously speaking up on behalf of your people, which means you're gay anyway! (Then again, people who would try to catch you out this way are probably homophobes, and thus potentially gay themselves, so in that sense it sort of evens out. This is a prime example of a Kafkatrap, where any denial of something is used as proof that you're guilty.)

This is one of the most common variants of You Are What You Hate. It's also a subtrope of Bigot with a Crush, Boomerang Bigot, Internalized Categorism, Psychological Projection, and Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny. See also Gayngst if the character is particularly self-tormented about it and Gay Conservative if they have politically conservative (American-style) views as well. Not to be confused with Straight Gay, who is out of the closet but just non-flamboyant, or Gym Bunny or Manly Gay, also out of the closet and macho all the same.

Subtrope of Closet Gay. Polar opposite of Gay Bravado — acting gay to affirm your heterosexuality — unless it's a double bluff, of course. Sometimes overlaps with Gayngster and with Transparent Closet — just because the armor's there doesn't mean that people can't see through it. May result in Irrational Hatred of gays, or tsundere behavior toward the object of such a character's same-sex affection.

This isn't Forced Out of the Closet, though this character may end up being a target of that. Remember that the character's homosexuality has to be mentioned in-story. If it's never said but you have good reasons to believe that a character is an armoured closet gay, explain it at Wild Mass Guessing.

No Real Life Examples, Please!


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Blue Flag: Touma is very popular, friends with everyone, and generally a very nice guy. But when another character reveals that she knows that he is in love with Taichi, he pins her against a fence, horrified that she might have told Taichi about his feelings.
  • Mizuho from Dandelion Among Lilies is implied to have been this as a teenager. She would get very offended at the very idea of homosexuality and believed that same-gender romances never ended happily. Years later, she accepts the love confession of Ena and begins dating her.
  • Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Juzo Sakakura, the former Ultimate Boxer is absolutely in love with his longtime friend, Munakata ever since they were in High School. He is a violent man who has dedicated his life to this Unrequited Love, helping said crush in everything, including supporting his relationship with their mutual friend Chisa. He is extremely afraid of anyone finding out about these feelings, which is actively and torturously used by the Big Bad in order to blackmail him to keep him quiet about Junko's involvement with the First Killing Game.
  • In Happy Yarou Wedding, Yuuhi suspects that his brother-in-law Kazuki's vitriol towards homosexuals is just a cover for his gayngst, especially after he meets Chiharu. He's right.
  • Downplayed in I Think Our Son Is Gay. Hiroki's closet usually doesn't go that far, but when Akiyoshi noted he finds it's "kind of unpleasant to watch a same-sex kiss scene" on TV, Hiroki's response is what one would expect from this trope, while still blushing heavily:
    Hiroki: R-Right! It's impossible between two men!
  • Downplayed in Moyashimon. Sawaki notes that his childhood friend Kei always hated being called girly looking. He notes this after he finds Kei dressed up in gothic lolita. Kei replies that she believes a person's mentality lies underneath things they hate.
  • Nameless Asterism: Kotooka is a closeted lesbian who has feelings for her friend Tsukasa and a complicated relationship with another friend Washio. While seeing nothing wrong with being gay in and of itself, she thinks that her feelings and the feelings of her friends will break apart their friend group, as her feelings for a previous friend ruined a previous friendship of hers. In order to avoid this, she dates boys she isn't attracted to and tries to get her friends to date boys as well.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari, particularly in the manga, is all but stated to be explicitly bisexual, even admitting to having fallen for Kaworu, even though he says he was afraid of liking a boy, he is very shy and insecure about that side of him and actively avoids recognizing this crush up until he has to kill Kaworu.
  • Tomoko Kuroki, the protagonist of No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, generally disparages people she sees as "lesbos" and looks down on anime that trade on Les Yay subtext. This is despite the fact that Tomoko herself has more scenes demonstrating sexual interest or romantic attraction in other women than every other character put together. Downplayed, however, in her disdain for "lesbos" has less to do with homophobia and more with her disdain for any relationships or attraction not involving herself.
  • Kanou from Okane ga Nai would like to remind you that he thinks that homosexuals and Okama are unnatural and he's totally straight! He just loves Ayase, dammit!
  • In the yaoi The Tyrant Falls in Love, Souichi's homophobia is a major plot point in the series. He sleeps with his kohai, Morinaga, voluntarily kisses him, and even "moves in with him" while vehemently denying that he is gay.
  • Sumika from Yuri is My Job!. She doesn't hate lesbians, but she's the only character who explicitly identifies as a heterosexual. She takes an almost instant dislike to her lesbian coworker Goeido, prompting her lesbian friend Saionji to ask if Sumika dislikes Goeido for being a lesbian, something Sumika denies. After Saionji and Goeido's relationship ends badly, Sumika becomes convinced that romantic love is "selfish" and has no place in their (all-female) workplace. As such, Sumika is initially convinced that her feelings for her kohai and friend Kanoko are platonic, and it isn't until she's asked several difficult questions that Sumika starts to realize that she's in love with Kanoko.
  • Yuri Kuma Arashi is this trope on crack; post-apocalypse shelter Tokyo claims they're at war against the uplifted cannibalistic Bears, but they're secretly a homophobic elitist cutthroat organization mostly consisting of lesbian couples who routinely vote on which public transgressor to throw under the bus as bait for bears, or even execute their comrades in the dark and point fingers at bears. At this point, the cast can only be classified under one of three categories: "definitely gay and publicly denying it", "possibly gay", or "mauled by bears".

    Comic Books 
  • All-New X-Men revealed that Iceman was gay, but was trying to suppress that so that he wouldn't face discrimination on another front in addition to the Fantastic Racism he already got for being a mutant.
  • The Boys: Although given that just about every supe is The Hedonist, it's more Armored Closet Bisexuality.
    • When Teenage Kix is blackmailed into firing one of the members, Shout Out is blackballed into quitting them supposedly for being gay (in fact, because the team leader was cheating on him with another teammate, and apparently Shout Out wasn't as good).
    • Soldier Boy has sex with the Homelander (the former is stupid enough to believe his worthiness to enter the Seven is being tested and found wanting, just like it is every year), but has to be reassured that "there's nothing gay about it".
  • Ex Machina: Bradbury talks a lot about banging girls, acts overly macho, and uses many gay slurs, but is actually a closeted gay man with a crush on Hundred. When Bradbury finally comes out to Hundred and gets rebuffed, Bradbury goes right back into denial, punching Hundred and calling him a faggot.
  • Frank Miller has said that the characters "subliminate their sexual urge into crime-fighting" in his comics and that Batman would in fact "be much healthier if he were gay".
  • In the Post-Crisis DC Universe, original Green Lantern Alan Scott told his son, Obsidian, who's gay, that he couldn't completely accept being gay as normal. Yet after Doomsday Clock restored Alan's place in the timeline, the Green Lantern 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular implied that Alan, much like Obsidian and his own counterpart in Earth 2, is gay himself and his "friend" Jimmy was actually his boyfriend. He officially came to his kids in DC Infinite Frontier #0.
  • The "Naked City" arc of Preacher has a belligerent cop named Paul Bridges who is an outspoken bigot towards black people, Asians, Muslims, and—more than anything—gays. He is only tangentially involved with the plot, but a short while later, the main character stumbles on him in a bondage club, getting it on with a couple black guys. After that, the arc ends with his black partner John Tool discovering him, leading to Paul bursting into tears and coming out to him.
    Paul Bridges: I think I'm gay.
    John Tool: Are you sure you're not just fucked up in the head?
  • In The Punisher Presents Barracuda, we have President Luna, who really hates gays, but his wife says he can't get it up unless she dresses up as Che Guevara. He also has sex with Barracuda's very obviously crossdressing buddy Fifty while remaining oblivious to his gentials, and when the Unsettling Gender-Reveal hits he jumps out of a helicopter at the realization.
  • Rick and Morty (Oni): One issue insinuates that Summer is this, although it's also possible that she's only lesbian in that alternate dimension and Summer Prime really is straight or at least bi.
  • In The Twelve, the Phantom Reporter notes that Dynamic Man's extremely outspoken prejudice towards gays has gotten the other heroes talking. It turns out he feels no sexual attraction to anyone or anything, as he's a robot with no genitalia. His creator was bigoted and wanted Dynamic Man to be above and opposed to the ills of society, which in his mind included homosexuality; this is also why Dynamic Man is virulently racist.

    Fan Works 
  • In the Ask a Pony blog Ask Hoops and Dumbbell, Dumbbell cites this as the reason why he picked on Rainbow Dash when they were young.
    Dumbbell: When you're... scared, the tomboy with a rainbow on her head is an obvious target, you know?
  • The King Nobody Wanted: Ser Alliser Thorne is suspicious of Jarman Buckwell and Jaremy Rykker's close relationship and scorns Aegon "Bloodborn" Frey as a likely "buggerer". He also shows no interest in women sexually, has a clear infatuation with Jon Connington, shows signs of a crush on Aerys, and describes an admiration for watching Jaime Lannister's skill with the sword that sounds distinctly sexual.
  • The Life Is Strange fanfic Bloom depicts Victoria Chase as going to great lengths to hide her lesbianism from her friends. Her ex, Rachel Amber, uses this against her by threatening to out her if she keeps bullying Max. When Victoria gets her own spin-off, In The Night We Trust, this aspect of her character puts a strain on her budding romance with her friend, Taylor.
  • In Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv) Mr. Yagami is a homophobic Jerkass obsessed with "manliness" but at one point he dressed up as Sailor Moon... and he hits on Ryuk.
  • In From Eroica with Love, it is often speculated by writers (and Dorian) that Klaus protests too much. In one story, Dorian points this out to Klaus, whom responds his usual way.
  • The Pokémon Squad: Jimmy Neutron is a Straw Conservative who uses his racism and homophobia to cover up a disturbing crush on Rudy.
  • Rip Her to Shreds is a Mean Girls prequel where Regina's homophobic behavior is a cover-up for her attraction towards Janis.
  • Supper Smash Bros: Mishonh From God: Sara is one of the most homophobic characters ever written in fiction, yet she also has a lot more romantic subtext with her female friends (and enemies) than with her supposed boyfriends. This ends up confirmed in "The Lauren Chapter", in which the titular character tells us that she and Sara are in a relationship.
  • There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: In this universe, Chloe is gay but very uncomfortable with anyone knowing her true sexuality, and goes to great lengths to hide it, even throwing homophobic insults towards Juleka and Rose both to hide it and out of jealousy with how they can show their true selves without shame unlike her.
  • In This Is A Wild Game Of Survival Kim Ji-min sleeps with her best friend Na-yeon, who is bisexual... and then proceeds to freak out because her parents are homophobic and her family has already cast aside one gay family member. To cover her tracks, she tells Na-yeon she's unlovable and that Ji-min doesn't want to be seen with 'someone like you'.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, Pegasus is Armored Closet Straight. He deliberately acts as Camp Gay as possible and is willing to kill to protect his secret. Also, Marik Ishtar; despite the obvious signs of being gay (hanging around with an attractive man, reading yaoi, flaunting his abs, and stroking a phallic symbol), he frequently denies his homosexuality.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • 2:37: Luke's crew pick on Sean for being gay, and when Luke mentions an interest in trying anal sex with his girlfriend to a friend of his, he denies there being anything gay about it. However, the porn Luke watches is gay porn, and he has at least a casual relationship with Sean. When Steven finds out about the latter, Luke punches him in the face and threatens him with further violence if he tells anyone.
  • American Beauty: Colonel Frank Fitts is virulently homophobic. He is hostile towards his openly gay neighbors and throws out his son Ricky when he suspects he is in a relationship with another man. It turns out Frank is a repressed gay man himself who reacts with violence when he is rejected by Lester, his neighbor.
  • Champ Kind, from Anchorman.
    • He hits on women more aggressively than any of the other newsmen, but then basically professes his love for Ron when he gets drunk, and at the end of the movie, the narrator tells us that he later got fired from a job as an NFL commentator for sexually harassing Terry Bradshaw.
    • In the sequel, when he meets up with Ron again, he constantly keeps on hugging him, to the point Ron gets a little weirded out. He also apparently believes that the census is a way for the U.N. to make children gay.
  • Assassination Nation: Mayor Bartlett has been a vocally conservative anti-LGBT+ politician during his career. A hacker reveals photos of him cross-dressing while partying with male escorts. Bartlett kills himself at a town hall meeting after this.
  • Max in Bent is willing to do unspeakably depraved things to keep the Nazis from thinking he was gay. This is somewhat justified because you really don't want the Nazis to think you're gay.
  • Blue Jean: Siobhan, the student who mocked and bullied Lois over her lesbianism, kisses her later in the shower. When she's caught this way by Jean, Siobhan then says Lois assaulted her.
  • Brüno (2009) decides his homosexuality is preventing him from being famous, he first tries to consult an ex-gay ministry, then attends a swinging party. After running away from the party, he vows to be back, and be straight, and a few months later, he's organizing a cage fight event under the pseudonym Straight Dave, and holds a homophobic speech at the audience, before making out with his male assistant inside the ring.
  • Bobby Kent from Bully is a sexual sadist who can't find anyone who appreciates his homemade gay porn movies. Gay themes constantly follow Bobby's character; his repressed sexuality might be his defining character trait.
  • But I'm a Cheerleader: Mike, a staff member at the gay conversion camp True Directions, calls himself "ex-gay". But his lingering stares at his boss's son indicate the "treatment" he's been through hasn't worked.
  • Carmen y Lola: On realizing that Lola finds her attractive, Carmen angrily calls her a dyke and says that lesbians disgust her. Her initial hostility quickly becomes curiosity though, and before long they're a couple.
  • Annette's friend Greg in Cruel Intentions plays on the football team, makes anti-gay comments, and presents himself as a heterosexual jock type. He isn't, which is taken advantage of by Sebastian.
  • Cursed: Jerk Jock Bo, who is secretly crushing on Jimmy, making homophobic remarks toward him multiple times before Jimmy's calling him on this leads to Bo's coming out with him.
  • Dating Amber: Eddie acts homophobic at times when he panics due to his gayngst. When seen kissing a young man at the gay club by someone he knows, his reaction was to push the guy away angrily. Later also once Amber comes out the stress causes him to lash out and call her a dyke, hurting her deeply. Eddie soon apologizes to her and accepts himself as being gay.
  • Implied to be the case with the Neo-Nazi killed by Bill in Falling Down. Despite chasing a gay couple out of his store with homophobic slurs & violent threats, he dresses in Manly Gay fashion and graphically fantasizes about Bill suffering Prison Rape at the hands of a black man.
  • Giant Little Ones: It's implied that this might be Ballas' situation. He is only ever shown throughout the movie having some form of sex with Franky, although he constantly boasts about having sex with his girlfriend (a classic sign that one is overcompensating) and acts overtly hostile to Franky over their sexual encounter, attempting to paint Franky as the only "gay" one so he's shunned by most people.
  • Otto, Karl's agent in Magicians, strenuously denies that he has any kind of homosexual love for his client. His denials ring a bit false considering that he once snogged the guy completely out of the blue (and then had the nerve to challenge Karl's own understanding of his sexuality with accusation that "we just kissed..."), and then, whilst trying to pep Karl up before a gig, blurted out "I love you!"
  • A strong case can be made for Johnny from My Beautiful Laundrette, which even gets addressed when his Pakistani boyfriend Omar when confronting him about his right-wing past.
    Johnny: Ain't nothing I can say to make it up to you. There's only things I can do to show you... That I am with you.
  • Neil McCormick in Mysterious Skin is picked up by an exceedingly dangerous man: possessed of strong homosexuality and physically violent hatred of gays, both sides of his character manifest simultaneously in bed.
  • Prom Wars : Hamish constantly taunts Rupert about his Ambiguously Bi status but makes the occasional homoerotic comment himself. During one celebratory scene, he excitedly grabs Joe and kisses him, only to shove Joe away and storm out of the room after realizing what he did.
  • Shall We Dance (2004): Chic is a burly flirt who insists that he is only joining the class to attract girls, complains about having to practice dancing with men, and brags about his romantic exploits, but he is seen romantically dancing with a man during the final scene.
  • Rex from Sex Drive. Loves his car more than anything and is violent (and violently homophobic) towards Ian, who he thinks is gay, but he comes out at the end, and his sexuality is implied to be the motivation for his Jerkass behavior.
  • Bill Reynolds, the housemaster in Tea and Sympathy, is implied to have struggled with his sexuality before marrying his wife. This is likely why he treats the main character, Tom Lee, so harshly. (More overt in the play; the film, considering when it was made, drastically tones it down.)
  • Tropic Thunder has a less extreme version of this with Alpa Chino, a famous rapper who's branching into acting. His catchphrase as a rapper seems to be "I love the pussy" and he hawks a soda based on his music called "Booty Sweat." Toward the end of the film, as all the actors talk about their love lives, he's asked if he has anyone special that isn't just a sexual thing, and Chino replies that he's had a crush on someone he was too shy to ask out. When asked the girl's name he wistfully replies "Lance." When they naturally question it, he falls into a long, denial-filled rant about how he isn't gay and how much he "loves da pussy." He's last seen in the movie hugging Lance Bass at the Oscars.
    Alpa Chino: No, I always wanted to. I guess I just never had the courage to ask. It's complicated.
    Kirk Lazarus: Nah! It's simple as pie man: you plant your feet on the ground, you look her square in the eyes you say "Hey! baby, you and me's goin' on a date, that's the end of the story". What's her name?
    Alpa Chino: ...Lance
    Kirk Lazarus: You say “Listen here, Lance”... Lance? What the fuck did I just hear? Lance?
    Kevin Sandusky: Did you just say Lance?
    Alpa Chino: No! I said Nance. That's what I said, Nance.
    Kevin Sandusky: It sounded like Lance.
    Alpa Chino: Dammit, I'm Alpa Chino! 'I Love Tha Pussy', aight? Lay yo ass back down and look at the stars.
    Kirk Lazarus: When you wrote 'I Love Tha Pussy', was you thinking about danglin your dice on Lance's forehead?
    Alpa Chino: Aw hell no! What!? C’mon look-
    Kirk Lazarus: Everyone is gay once in awhile, this is Hollywood!
  • The villain from the early gay rights film Victim (1961) is strongly implied to be this. He's a blackmailer who wears leather and sunglasses, has nude male artwork and photographs of musclemen in his apartment, and seems to enjoy humiliating his victims a little too much.

    Literature 
  • The Age of Madness: Leo dan Brock's thoughts frequently linger on how handsome his gallant young friends are, particularly his closest confidant Jurand. When his thoughts get a little too passionate, however, he cuts himself off. It soon becomes clear that he's in love with Jurand and just can't admit it to himself. When he catches Jurand having sex with another man, he banishes them both as "perverts," but it's pretty clear that he's secretly jealous of Jurand's unfaithfulness.
  • The Black Magician Trilogy: A strange case in that there's no macho posturing, and only a little gay-bashing. Dannyl — a magician from a country that has very strong prejudices against homosexuality — is so incredibly deep in the closet (due to the aforementioned prejudice and an incident as a teen) that he constantly uses his magic to suppress any and all attraction to men utterly subconsciously—he doesn't even know he's doing it till he exhausts himself magically and can't do it anymore.
  • A double case in Camouflage. The protagonist himself, who's bisexual and firmly not liking his homoromantic side, and the main antagonist, who becomes a massive prick about it. Ultimately, the latter's monstrous actions serve as a cautionary tale to Danilo, and he accepts himself and goes on to fight for LGBT rights.
  • In Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon, Hawkins Fuller is very much in the closet. He even bashes homosexuals at work. The book was set during the McCarthy era when being gay meant being blacklisted and possibly never working again. Fuller had no choice but to play the part. To a lesser extent, Timothy Laughlin fits the self-loathing part, and he was also in the closet for a long time because of necessity.
  • In The Fire's Stone, Aaron is bisexual, but getting him to admit to his attraction to men, particularly Darvish, after the trauma his father's religion inflicted on him, takes just about the entire book. He has a lot of Gayngst involved and is repulsed by the idea of same-sex relationships.
  • In The Harem Protagonist Was Turned Into A Girl!! And Doesn’t Want To Change Back!!!?? Augusta is in deep denial about being bisexual partially due to wanting to have an heir to her very rich family estate, she's the last love interest of protagonist Svetlana's girlfriends to come around to Svetlana's transition and only does when alien warrior Plynx reveals her species' tech can easily allow two women to have children together.
  • Harry Black in Hubert Selby's Last Exit To Brooklyn and in the film adaptation, where he's played by Stephen Lang. He affects a macho demeanor (though nobody takes his bluster seriously), is married to a woman whom he loathes and finds physically revolting, and has clandestine affairs with local drag queens while embezzling money from his union to wine and dine his homosexual lovers.
  • In the first book of the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, a young Vanyel Ashkevron is sent from the backwater where he grew up to the big city, where he defrosts meeting Tylendel, the love of his life. Knowing that his father will be extremely displeased and ruin things for him if he finds out, they keep a Secret Relationship and Vanyel plays up his own snooty tendencies, then contrives a violent hatred of Tylendel, going as far as physically attacking him in public. Tylendel treats this as a game and thinks it's great fun to play along. Unfortunately, this naturally has all of Tylendel's peers absolutely despising Vanyel and when all in one night Tylendel dies and Van is empowered and Chosen, they wish Vanyel had been the one to die.
  • Older Than Feudalism: The Roman poet Martial (38-102 CE) wrote about a friend who despised effermate clothing:
    He will ask why I suspect him to be a 'soft' man.
    We go to the baths together. He never looks at anything above,
    but examines the athletes with devouring eyes,
    and looks at their dicks with constantly moving lips.
  • Mitch Tobin: Bruce in the fourth book hotly denies that he's gay despite having had sex with men and threatens anyone who he thinks will tell his mother.
  • Modern Faerie Tales: In the original edition of Valiant, Ruth responds to Jen's homophobic behavior by calling her a "closet case."
  • In Out Of The Shadows by Sue Hines, Jodie is continually picked on by the Alpha Bitch because of her extremely close friendship with Ro. She gets back at the Alpha Bitch later on in the book by suggesting that she's trying to cover up her own lesbian yearnings with her bullying. It's never confirmed if her accusation was right or not, but the Alpha Bitch does leave her alone after that.
  • In the horror novella The School House by Simon Bestwick, the protagonist's friend committed suicide after being raped by two classmates who had mercilessly tormented him on suspicion of being gay (it's never revealed whether he really was.) Although it's possible this happened because they were in an all-male boarding school where there were no girls around, the protagonist seems to suspect that the bullies put up a front as tough-guy thugs because they were unsure about their own sexuality.
  • The Secret History: When narrator Richard first meets Bunny, he thinks he's the gay kind of homophobic, but after getting to know him more he changes his mind.
    I’ve known men who run down homosexuality because they are uncomfortable with it, perhaps harbor inclinations in that area; and I’ve known men who run down homosexuality and mean it. At first I had placed Bunny in the first category. His glad-handing, varsity chumminess was totally alien and therefore suspect; then, too, he studied the classics, which are certainly harmless enough but which still provoke the raised eyebrow in some circles. [...] The more I listened to Bunny, however, the more apparent it became that there was no affected laughter, no anxiety to please.
  • Deconstructed with James Toranaga of Touch (2017), who gets very angry when his friend Casper notices his crush on another boy. Given that James is a recent rape victim still figuring out his sexuality, the outburst is fairly justified.
  • The Traitor Game:
    • Michael suggests that Shitley, The Bully who likes to target gay or effeminate kids, is a case of this in order to anger him. It's left ambiguous whether he was correct or not.
    • Downplayed with Francis. He isn't homophobic (going by fifteen-year-old boy standards) and his Establishing Character Moment has him rescuing a boy who is being bullied and accused of being gay by Shitley, but he's definitely Straight Gay, and it's implied that this is a front when he thinks he is outed by Michael and demands to know how he managed to figure out his secret.
  • In The Way You Are, the main character spends most of the novel in the closet. His armor is slowly chipped away as the story progresses.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Accused (2023): Jamie is attracted to men but firmly in the closet about it. He insults Robyn over being an openly gay drag queen, despite also sleeping with him.
  • Bad Education:
    • Though he directs very little homophobia at the openly gay student Stephen, The Bully Frank Grayson often calls other students and even teachers gay and uses it as an excuse to bully them. In the season 2 Christmas Special, however, he turns out to have a crush on Stephen and kisses him in front of the whole school. Later he invites Stephen on a date to a football match while other students can hear him. He tries to hold on to his macho persona but Stephen tells him to drop it and none of the other students seem to care that he's gay anyway. They were made an Official Couple in the series finale when they went to prom together. Also, they won prom king and queen.
    • The fighting instructor in the "Self Defence" episode is rampantly homophobic, but also seems to enjoy grabbing Alfie's crotch.
  • The Boys (2019): Ezekiel, it turns out, is a closeted gay man who has secret trysts with men while publicly touting his conservative Christian beliefs, saying homosexuality can be cured by prayer. Hughie initially plans to blackmail Ezekiel with a video on his phone, but he forgets to take it out during an impromptu baptism, so the phone is waterlogged. He improvises and claims that he personally had sex with Ezekiel. Given that most Supes have a But for Me, It Was Tuesday mentality about regular people, Ezekiel believes him.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Larry is a big brute bully who sexually harasses girls to cover up his gayness until he comes out in "Phases". After he comes out, his attitude changes dramatically.
    • Four seasons after his last appearance, we learn this about Buffy's brief love interest Scott Hope in "Conversations with Dead People". He told people that every girl he broke up with was a lesbian, "and then last year, big surprise, he comes out." This was likely an Actor Allusion gag, as the actor who played Scott went on to star on the American Queer as Folk.
  • The Stephen Colbert character from The Colbert Report is implied to be one of these, e.g. with a reference to a Keanu Reeves DVD he inexplicably finds in his player every Monday morning, while also being an anti-gay conservative commentator. In a bit of a Casting Gag, he sometimes interacts in a "we're totally not gay" way with a character played by Paul Dinello, who played Mr. Jellineck in the above-mentioned Strangers with Candy.
  • In the Community episode "GI Jeff" Cobra Commander is jokingly depicted as being secretly bisexual, having been Destro's lover. He spends a lot of the episode denying it even in the middle of battle, shouting that he'll get vengeance for his "totally platonic friend".
  • In December 2011, Conan referred to a news story in which a schoolteacher in Michigan struck the word "gay" from the popular Christmas carol "Deck the Halls." The sketch which followed depicted two men pitching a CD entitled Straight-Up Christmas, which included such carols as "Little Drummer Boy (To Whom I Am Not Sexually Attracted)," "Jingle Breasts" and "Do You Hear What I Hear? (Yes! Monster Trucks!)" They also pitch a bonus CD of music performed on power drills. After they believe the cameras have stopped filming, they start making out.
  • Control Z: Gerry is vocally homophobic, but it turns out he likes to watch gay porn. This naturally gets him called gay himself, though he insists that he's not. Season 2 reveals that he's lying, even to himself; he really does like men.
  • The unsubs of Criminal Minds episodes "In Heat" and "Broken" are both gay men who have been driven to be self-hating, primarily by their fathers. The unsub in "In Heat" kills open gay men to take over their lives in hopes of experiencing their confidence. The unsub in "Broken" attempts to seduce women to prove that he's been fixed; when he can't perform sexually, he kills the women in a rage.
  • Riley of Degrassi: The Next Generation: star track runner, football team captain, and quarterback, summertime lifeguard, insatiably attracted to men. Early on any insinuation of his sexuality led him to lash out violently, including clocking a gay lifeguard in the jaw. But anger management classes and his new boyfriend's coaxing have helped him to not only calm down but even come out publicly.
  • Inverted in the Doctor Who spoof "The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot". Turns out John Barrowman is actually married to a woman and has children, a fact that Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy use to blackmail him into driving them from London to Cardiff.
  • Euphoria: It's heavily implied that most of the reason why Nate is so fucked up is that he is suffering mental strain from repressing same-sex attraction, which explains his extreme heteronormative views, like fantasizing of attacking a man that attacked his woman just to protect her. His sudden attraction to Jules, a trans girl, brings all of them to the surface worse than ever.
  • Fellow Travelers: It's made clear Roy Cohn is a closeted gay man, who's also pushing an effort to fire LGBT+ people with federal jobs as blackmail threats by communist agents, and "deviants" unsuited for employment. Later on, Hawkins Fuller gets evidence that Joseph McCarthy himself, who'd started this push against LGBT+ employees, had paid for sex with a man.
  • A French Village: Lucienne, after acting quite homophobic toward Marguerite, kisses and even has sex with her (though after she apologizes). In her case, she's probably bisexual, since her previous relationships were with men and there's no sign she didn't like them.
  • Glee:
    • Dave Karofsky (one of the jocks and Kurt's main bully) starts out as this. After forcefully kissing Kurt, he denies that it ever happened and attacks Blaine, a guy whom he doesn't know who's only there to let him know he's not alone. He then switches to another school where he is so cruelly bullied by the boys there that he's Driven to Suicide and only barely survives.
    • Santana is a female example — she 'fesses up to Brittany that the reason she acts like such a bitch is because she is angry, and she is angry because she has feelings for Brittany that she can't handle. Some parts of the fandom then quickly decided that Santana's Extreme Omnisexual behaviour is because she subconsciously has decided that it is easier being the school slut rather than the school dyke.
      Santana: I'm a closet lesbian and a judgmental bitch, which means that I have excellent Gaydar.
  • In the Dutch soap series Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden, there was a storyline where a man from a Muslim immigrant background made many disparaging remarks towards homosexuals and was determined to marry a Muslim woman to prove himself to be a "real man". This arrangement falls apart on the wedding day due to a variety of factors and causes him to come out of the closet.
  • Brendan of Hollyoaks genuinely is homophobic—it's not a façade. He is also gay, and quite jealous and possessive with his sometimes-boyfriend Ste....who he also abuses as a result of said homophobia. It's...twisted.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street:
    • One episode centered around a conservative Congressman who went to the police claiming that he had been kidnapped. Pembleton is assigned to investigate, and he quickly discovers that the "kidnapper" was actually the Congressman's boyfriend; the Congressman had broken his arm in a fight and tried to frame him for kidnapping out of fear he'd expose their relationship as revenge.
    • Bayliss starts out as a Heteronormative Crusader uncomfortable with homosexuality, but in the sixth season he comes out as bisexual and starts sleeping with men.
  • Ted Altman of Intelligence (2006) is implied to be one. In one episode, he is seen checking out another man at the bar, then freaks out when the guy notices him and starts checking him out back. In a later episode, he appears to be cruising a group of male prostitutes before being scared off by a patrol car.
  • It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Mac begins the series as a Manchild who is obsessed with heavily muscled action heroes. The homoerotic undertones of his obsession get turned into a Running Gag that he is secretly gay but unable to admit it because of his staunch Catholicism. Over the seasons, he slowly loses all interest in women, and the rest of the gang become increasingly vocal about how he's obviously gay. In the 12th season, Mac finally comes out of the closet to win a dispute over a lottery scratcher.
    Mac: Well, I'm gay.
    Everyone Else: Yeah, no shit.
  • On Jerry Springer and Maury, a common show topic is the manly man who also enjoys dating/sleeping with men (or the occasional drag queen) and claims to the end that he is 1000% heterosexual, and is not even bisexual, or even bi-curious.
  • A The Kids in the Hall sketch has Scott Thompson playing a macho actor who constantly denies that he's gay, even when he's seen in bed with a man. The sketch ends with him dead and in an open-casket funeral, with two women wondering how he died. One of them says it was AIDS, but his corpse keeps muttering "Cancer." (This is Harsher in Hindsight as Scott - who is gay in Real Life - was successfully treated for cancer in 2009.)
  • Kaldrick King on The L.A. Complex. He's a tough, violent rapper with a criminal record who's spent time in jail. He also falls in love with the slightly less armoured Tariq and starts to let his guard down a little. True to the trope, though, when the two are caught kissing, Kaldrick beats the crap out of Tariq to save face, even though Kal still claims to love Tariq afterwards.
  • Law & Order: SVU: In "Lowdown" closeted gay Bronx D.A. Jeff York is found murdered in his car. They exhaust the list of their suspects until they land on his black male coworker. Fin then explains the phenomenon of being on the "down-low" in the African-American community. They investigate the coworker's poker group, and sure enough, they are all "on the down-low" and have sex with each other when they are supposedly playing poker. One of the friends, a former football player, actually refuses to testify after revealing this because he does not want to tarnish his image, while vehemently denying that he's gay in a homophobic manner.
  • In Love Alarm, a male high school student beats up another one for ringing his Love Alarm, but he immediately stops and runs away when Hye-yeong comes in his defense. The truth is that he likes men himself, and the reason he runs away from Hye-yeong is that he has a crush on him.
  • Lovecraft Country: Montrose was quite in denial about gay as a teen, telling Thomas (who was also gay) they couldn't stay friends because he "wasn't like that" (using an anti-gay slur).
  • The L Word:
    • Burr Connor is a famous actor who's shown making homophobic remarks toward another actor who's a closeted gay man in the past and then Jenny, an open lesbian. It soon turns out that he's a closeted gay man himself, and regrets doing this.
    • Alice and Tasha meet an NBA star at a closet party. A few days later, said player makes homophobic comments about a fellow player, and Alice outs him in public.
  • Mad Men: Sal's entire Latin Lover, ladies man persona is put on to cover up the fact that he's gay. When approached by a client who can recognize him for who he is because he too is a Closet Gay, Sal shuts down the entire proposition saying he simply can't.
  • Mr. Show plays this for laughs with Wyckyd Sceptre, a brainless hair metal band that becomes infamous overnight for a viral tape of one of their parties... which features the guys giving each other copious amounts of oral and anal sex. They not only reject the idea that it's gay, and mockingly call one of the record execs a "faggot" when he tries to commiserate with them as a gay man, but seem to have no concept of how this could possibly be construed as such when they do it ("dude, stop sayin' that, it was just a party!"). They later get marketed for flamboyantly gay audiences by the label, become sponsored by Menuco Butt Plugs, and perform a song — "Gettin' the Shaft" — that suggests their catalogue is already full of innuendo.
    Record Exec #1: ...Guys, I'm going to take your tape out, okay?
    [He shuffles the tape behind his back]
    Record Exec #1: Now, I want you to do me a favor, and watch this OTHER tape of gay men having sex; take a look.
    [He puts it back into the VCR, and the band watches themselves going down on each other in the hot tub]
    Lead Singer: Aw, man...
    Guitarist: Aw, that's —
    Lead Singer: This shit is fuckin' SICK, man!
    Record Exec #1: [furious] ...THAT IS YOU!!
    Lead Singer: AWRIGHT!
    [They all high-five and congratulate each other]
  • October Faction: Phillip, who bawled out Geoff for being a "fag" when they first met, is himself in the closet.
  • On Parks and Recreation, Marshall Langman, who along with his wife Marcia heads the Society For Family Stability Foundation, is heavily implied to be this. In "Sex Education" when they try to shut down Leslie's sex-ed classes for the elderly, they go on TV and talk about the importance of abstinence-only education.
    Marshall: We all have some crazy urges from time to time, but you just can't act on them. You have to bury them, way down deep inside. You have to say, "Get out of here you crazy urges, you are not welcome in this brain of mine."
  • In Playmakers, Thad Guerwitcz even beats up his own boyfriend in the presence of his teammates and proposes marriage to a girl he just met just to avoid being ostracized by his team.
  • Paige in Pretty Little Liars. She spends her entire introduction episode making jabs at Emily for being gay and physically threatening her — and then kisses Emily two episodes later and becomes Emily's on-again/off-again girlfriend.
  • The Quantum Leap episode "Running for Honor" featured Sam as an Ambiguously Gay cadet at a military academy with a no-gays policy trying to protect an openly gay ex-cadet from the violent intentions of a campus hate group. Sam calls out the leader of the group and accuses his homophobia of being a front to conceal his own homosexuality. The group leader never admits to being gay, but he backs down from the raid he was planning, and later leaves school, claiming he doesn't belong there.
  • In Riverdale, Cheryl Blossom has been this since middle school, after her mother caught her sharing a bed with her best friend and romantic interest, Heather, and verbally abused Cheryl with homophobic attacks. This caused Cheryl to feel ashamed of her sexuality and actively repressing it, eventually leading her to express it in a very toxic way such as threatening Josie and mocking Toni for her bisexuality. Though with Toni's emotional support and reassurances, Cheryl is able to accept her sexuality and openly dates Toni.
  • In Queer as Folk Drew Boyd is a macho football player who was engaged. Then he hooked up with Emmett and insists on staying in the closet until near the end of the series.
  • Parodied in an episode of Scrubs, with The Todd. Carla and Elliot suspect that Todd is gay (since he hasn't actually slept with any woman he supposedly has) and that his womanizing personality is merely an act he puts on to avoid suspicion. They confront him and get him to tearfully come out of the closet... but then he proceeds to act exactly the same as always, only towards men instead. Then he reveals to the two of them that he was only pretending to be gay because "chicks dig gay dudes". Then he walks away and starts hitting on both men and women equally.
    Janitor: What are you?
    The Todd: ...I'm the Todd.
  • Sex Education: Adam Groff is revealed to be an Armoured Closet Bisexual when he kisses Eric Effiong.
  • During Season 2 of Shameless (US), Ian and his boyfriend Mickey Milkovich are caught having sex by Frank of all people. Micky was gonna kill him out of fear he'd tell everyone, but after seeing Frank being wasted, he instead punches out a cop to violate his parole. He'd rather do more time in jail than come out of the closet.
  • Skins:
    • In the second season, Maxxie is verbally taunted by a macho, apparently gay-hating thug who turns out to have a serious crush on him.
    • Naomi was this for much of Series 3, assuring everyone how very straight she was in between make-out sessions with Emily. It didn't really work — well, except for Cook, who was probably too horny to care.
    • Katie Fitch was an aversion; her constant harping on Naomi for being a "lezzer bitch" who "is coming to gay us up" made it seem like she was being set up to be this trope, but it turns out she's straight. But her homophobia does cause a world of pain for her twin sister, Emily, who actually is gay and crushing on Naomi. Emily was in an armoured closet with Katie (until the end of the third series) but didn't seem to have as much trouble opening up to others, especially as it became increasingly apparent that Naomi was lying about being straight.
  • Chuck Noblet from Strangers with Candy, played by Stephen Colbert, is an English teacher / history teacher, assistant to the principal, gun enthusiast, stepmom-attracting, gay-bashing, emotionally unstable badass who has armored his closet so thickly that he is in an unhappy marriage with children and willing to kill his boyfriend when he threatens to out them both in front of the whole school. Don't worry though. In spite of Noblet's fear of being found out and acting like Mr. Jellineck means nothing to him in public, they both really do love each other. This is demonstrated most prominently when Noblet almost came out to save Jellineck's life after a horrible accident with a "ray of hope" after his surgery, but when he proved to be OK, he quickly stopped the explanation of their 'friendship'.
  • Downplayed with Colin Hughes from Ted Lasso. Professional soccer is not the most gay-friendly environment, so Colin pretends to be straight around his teammates and reluctantly joins in on some mildly homophobic locker room banter in order to fit in. However, he's perfectly comfortable with his sexuality in his private life.
  • In Teenage Bounty Hunters, April, the leader of the "straight-straight" alliance at Willingham Academy, is secretly gay.
    • This is mostly a subversion as April doesn't have any self-loathing or denial that usually accompanies this trope and isn't shown to be hostile. She's just very afraid of coming out in a conservative Christian environment and to her homophobic parents, Sterling nearly convinces her to come out, but then her father returns from prison driving her back into the closet before she can come out.
  • Officer Paul Woodrugh from season 2 of True Detective is constantly battling with himself over his sexuality, and very clearly wants the world, as well as himself, to believe that he's straight. He needs to take a Viagra to have sex with his girlfriend and is ecstatic when she reveals that she's pregnant and expresses his desire to marry her, though it's evidently not for the right reason. When a man that he had had a homosexual encounter with in the military tries to bring it up to him, he reacts violently, but later falls back into bed with him while drunk. Also early on, he claimed that he was tempted to punch a "fag" who flirted with him.
  • The Wilds: Shelby. It's mostly a result of her father's religious views. She gets vocally uncomfortable when Toni talks about her sex life, stating homosexuality is sinful, and lashed out at her best friend after being caught kissing her. Later she kisses Toni before they have sex offscreen.

    Music 
  • The song "I'm Not Gay" by Jesse Pepe has the singer talk about enacting various homoerotic situations while insisting he's not gay, and that he "like(s) vag more than a porn star scandal", etc. Until the end, where he declares "I'm fucking gay!"
  • Mann Gegen Mann by Rammstein is a poetic exploration of this trope. The title literally means "Man Against Man", which has the same double meaning in German as in English: Man Fighting Against Man or Man Leaning Against Man, with the former definition alluding to violence and the latter to sex (and, for an added layer of entendre, it's also a homonym with "Mann gaygen Mann" - literally "Man gay for Man"). The song mixes depictions of the singer seeking love from other men, with homophobic lyrics ("I am every father's nightmare" and "My gender calls me a traitor") and, in the song's bridge, lead singer Till Lidemann yells a German homophobic slur between screaming.
  • Spoon's "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine" seems to deal with this trope, describing a man who tries very hard to be masculine: "in his coat and his boots/and his black-heart machine/no one sees the two sides of Monsieur Valentine." Later, the man "makes love to the duke."
  • Musical comedian Roy Zimmerman has a series of songs satirizing anti-gay politicians and activists who turn out to be closeted gays. Here's the latest one.

    Podcasts 
  • In the Cool Kids Table game Creepy Town. The toughest jocks in town, Ethan and Frank, are revealed to be secret boyfriends just before Frank's death.

    Theatre 
  • Angels in America features a famous real-life example in Roy Cohn. He's so deep in the closet that even when admitting to sex with men against undeniable evidence (which was only brought up because he freaked out at even a hint of him being linked to the gay community), he still finds a way to claim that this doesn't make him a homosexual, as in his mind true gay men are weak and devoid of clout, which makes a supremely powerful man like him heterosexual. Adding onto his hypocritical homophobia, Roy refuses to even be officially diagnosed with AIDS, stating that the disease afflicts gay men, and has his record changed to state he has liver cancer. As in real life, his death from AIDS forever links him to the community that he despised whilst alienating him from his bigoted allies.
  • Be More Chill's Rich continually bullies Jeremy and Michael, most of the attacks being homophobic. At the very end of the show, when his SQUIP is deactivated, he realizes that he's been bisexual the entire time, and actually has a crush on Michael. He once again asks Jeremy if Michael is his boyfriend, this time genuinely curious as opposed to cruel.
  • The Book of Mormon features Elder McKinley, a Mauve Shirt who demonstrates this as a Running Gag whenever the show draws attention to him, violently rejecting his sexuality even though everybody knows he's attracted to men.
  • Dean in Everybody's Talking About Jamie is heavily implied to be this. While he continually harasses Jamie for being gay and flamboyant, he walks into prom holding his hand at the end of the show.
  • Kurt and Ram's dads in Heathers: The Musical. At the funeral, where he believes his son killed himself over being gay and ashamed, Ram's previously mega-macho man's man dad reveals that he and Kurt's dad have been having a secret affair for years.

    Video Games 
  • The Brute Splicer model in BioShock 2 is a violently homophobic man who is always complaining about "poofs" and prefers boxing to wrestling because the latter involves two men touching each other too much for his liking. However, when under the effects of the Hypnotize plasmid, he can get downright flirtatious with Delta.
  • In the video game Bully, one of the jocks, Kirby, behaves the same way, until you finally make out with him. All of the cliques have one boy who will kiss Jimmy if his respect for their gang is high enough. If it's not, even Cornelius, the Urkel-like gay nerd, will try to whup Jimmy's ass with a yardstick.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • James Garret is an... interesting example of this trope. He fits all the criteria, appearing to be disgusted to the point of anger by what he turns out to be himself. But he is not so much an armored closet gay man as he is an Armored Closet Robosexual. The similarities to this trope are only further highlighted when the robot in question turns out to have a masculine personality.
    • Enforced by Caesar's Legion. Caesar himself punishes homosexuality with death but according to various characters it doesn't seem to stop his underlings, especially since they styled themselves after ancient Rome. In fact, despite "don't ask, don't tell" being enforced on pain of death, homosexuality is said to be more accepted in Legion territory than neutral ground like the Mojave. Veronica comments that they "mount each other more than they mount their women", although it's left vague how much of that is NCR propaganda/her being a smartass.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV:
    • Bryce Dawkins, the largely unseen Deputy Mayor of Liberty City, notorious for his vitriolic homophobic rants (thus pandering to his right-wing voter base). So it is perhaps no surprise that he turns out to be the lover of Bernie Crane, a very Camp Gay fitness trainer. In fact, most of Niko's missions with Bernie involve fending off members of The Mafiya trying to blackmail Bryce. The secret ends up getting revealed anyway (as a post-game radio news feed reveals), but Bryce still insists he's not gay, will not change his anti-gay stance, and instead "visited a rehab", presumably to "correct personal failures", or at least lie low for a while until the issue dies down in favor of celebrity scandals. Quoth a press statement meant to deflect accusations of homophobia against him...
    • The same game also features Brucie, who is somehow both this and in the Transparent Closet.
  • Invoked and played with for Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4. When he was a kid, the other kids teased him for liking things like sewing and other "girly" things, so he developed a Badass Biker facade in order to defend himself. These feelings manifest themselves as a half-naked Camp Gay Evil Twin Shadow with shades of He-Man Woman Hater. However, since part of acquiring one's Persona is learning to accept your suppressed feelings, Kanji learns to be more at ease with himself (especially once he learns that there are people who do accept him for who he is). Although he remains a tough guy, he stops worrying about whether or not he's "strange." Worth noting that his sexuality is deliberately left ambiguous in both (English and Japanese) versions, as the original focus of his issues that his interests make him "unmanly" by Japanese values, which is a problem that doesn't convey as well to Western audiences. Thus, Kanji is Ambiguously Bi with his Love Interest famously being a girl with a very Tomboy-ish appearance, and who herself struggles with wanting to work in a heavily male-oriented environment which her own Shadow is merciless about.
  • In Yearning: A Gay Story, Carlos starts out talking about how much he loves pussy every other sentence but it's very obvious in multiple scenes that he secretly checks out the male protagonist when they're swimming or running and he confesses after he eventually comes out as gay that he slept around with women so much because he hoped it would somehow make him straight. Not to mention how his family is very religious, which made him terrified about what might happen if they ever found out about his homosexuality.

    Web Animation 
  • ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Downplayed in the video My Mom Entered My Room Without Knocking. Sorry, Mom.... The protagonist mention how her friend tried to kiss her at age twelve. Though she liked her friend back, she didn't know what to do and got angry. She yelled at her friend that they couldn't be friends and tried to run away (only to accidentally fall off the roof).

    Webcomics 
  • The Bedfellows: Sheen lives with, sleeps with, and rapes Fatigue, but is nevertheless abrasive to the point of borderline sociopathy.
  • At a party, Shay from Between the Lines (2006) notices a girl as being a kid who used to beat her and throw homophobic slurs at her when they were younger. Shay comments that Nikki became like how she hated - they're both transgender - which gets Nikki quite mad.
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • Tony is acting like a Jerkass to cover his crush on Tedd, according to Grace. It's been well-established that Tedd really is just that girly and, as Justin puts it, doesn't have to worry about gay guys being attracted to him. So really the trope is just being triggered by a Stupid Sexy Flanders.
    • It's eventually revealed that the reason Lucy was constantly belittling Rhoda and making jibes about her being attracted to Diane (and stopped when Rhoda actually got a girlfriend, although the previous comments made her feel like she couldn't tell her friends) was that she was attracted to Diane and saw the third member of the group as competition. Once this is all sorted out, they make plans for a double date.
  • If this Exiern strip is saying what it sounds like, Typhan-knee may have been gay all along, and that in part influenced the Gender Bender curse, as well as post-transformation Tiffany's attraction to Denver.
  • Possibly Roscoe from A Game of Fools, if his terrified rantings about homosexuals are anything to go by:
    Roscoe: The homosexuals be everywhere, behind every bush! Sometimes, I wake up after being real drunk, and there be naked homosexuals next to me! They be bewitching me!
  • Kill Six Billion Demons:
    • Angels are normally genderless, though they generally use he/him pronouns. The Knight Templar angel 6 Juggernaut Star Scours the Universe especially hates mortals (especially humans) and any angels who ascribe to mortal concepts like gender, calling them deviants and seeking to kill them whenever possible. It even prefers being called "it" just to distance itself from such mortal concepts. It later turns out its Void form's spiked skeleton apperance is an intentionally cultivated Game Face: When its concentration slips, 6 Juggernaut Star turns out to be a Broken Angel who looks like a human woman in a pretty dress, with burnt-away wings. Even Trans Tribulations sufferer 82 White Chain, who considers herself a woman and hates 6 Juggernaut Star for representing the worst of angelkind, is given pause when she discovers this and tries to reach out to 6 Juggernaut Star as "sister".
    • Allison is a more traditional version. The comic starts with her trying to lose her virginity to her boyfriend, but she later admits that he's a bit of a jerk and she was just trying to do it because it felt important at the time. Gay communities sometimes refer to this as "compulsory heterosexuality" where questioning people, especially lesbians, date people they're not actually interested in to try to fit in. Allison has a lot of sexual tension with Cio, a female devil, and they kiss during Seeker of Thrones. While Allison tries to brush it off at first (she was barely even conscious, for one thing), she soon agrees to go on a date with Cio.
  • Mitch from Long Exposure used to bully Jonas because he didn't know how to handle having a crush on him. By the time the comic starts, though, he's trying to make amends for his past behavior by acting (sort of) friendlier towards Jonas and eventually admitting to him the real reason behind his bullying of him. Soon after, they hook up.
  • The reason why Pyper is so abrasive towards Jen and Max in Magical Boy is that she harbored attraction towards other women (most likely Jen) and is fully aware of how her pastor father would think about it, internalizing these feelings and taking out her frustration on them.
  • Mr. Normal is a webcomic about a very closeted trans woman trying to suppress her wants by acting ultra-masculine and lashing out at effeminate men and transgender women. She makes friends with a trans woman who can't get that she dislikes her.
  • Olly and Mondo in Roommates. After beating up on Gian and finding out Junior actually is openly gay (and not just Gay Bravado as they had always assumed), they return to their dorm and have a frank heated argument punctuated with spontaneous rough sex. At least twice.
  • The Faroe Islands in Scandinavia and the World. Being outed makes him invoke a DESPERATE HOLY SLAM!
    • Possibly America, too, though that one isn't as obvious.
  • After a comic in which the token gay character of Sinfest gets propositioned by an alien from Uranus, a number of readers simultaneously commented that the alien is a dead ringer for Seymour, the overenthusiastic bible-thumping Christian. Seymour has also shown up in a comic where Satan tempts Jesus with the promise of hot bitches.
    • Li'l E also had distinctively armoured-closet behavior. A notable comic has him nagging Buddha for his feminine traits, only to swoon and gush when Satan walks by. Subverted with the reveal that Li'l E is actually Satan's son.
  • In this Skin Horse, Sweetheart, an Uplifted Dog who is canonically in love with her female roommate, advocates "curing" a same-sex couple of Uplifted Opossums because she fears that LGBT Uplifted Animals will harm the Uplifted Animal cause. For context, the other characters are concerned about the couple because the couple wants to use Mad Science to evangelize people for the Church of Happyology they're founding.
  • Spinnerette: Sarah is quite against homosexuality despite being gay herself, and the drugs she happily distributes to everyone can turn gay people straight among other effects. She even continues to dose herself to keep herself straight. However, since the drugs do alter people's personalities to make them more "wholesome," it's not clear whether or not she was like this before the church gave her the drugs. Depends on if she willingly sought out a cure for being gay, or if it was forced on her.
  • String Theory (2009) has Dr. Benjamin Langstrom, thanks to the 1950s-esque morality of the American Days of Future Past setting looking almost as unfavorably on homosexuality as on communism. Per Word of God:
    Langstrom had to remain closeted or else he'd risk his career. Especially risky with a teaching career. His friend Dr. Auditore was outed, unfortunately, and now the only job he can get is as a drug rehabilitation counselor at a prison out in the middle of nowhere (and only because his friend's sister runs it).
  • In Tails Gets Trolled Bugs Bunny joins the Troll Slaiyers due to his ability to screw with trolls by crossdressing and kissing them (he's nicknamed "The Gay"), but he mentions that he hates doing so. Later, Bugs confesses that he actually became gay with Daffy.
  • Played for Drama in Welcome to Room #305. Yoona has heavy baggage about being lesbian, no thanks to her twin brothers homophobic backlash when he learned her secret. She begins pretending to be straight and Yoon Sung, realizing the emotional damage he's causing, tries to stop her. She resists and their relationship continues to sour. Yoon Sung pretends to be gay in order to get her to stop but Yoona in turn becomes overprotective and highly homophobic towards him.
  • Winter Before Spring: After Hana confesses to her friend Min-ji and is betrayed, she is terrified of being put through the same with her new friend Yura, and expresses some mild anti-gay sentiments, calling it “unnatural.”

    Web Original 
  • The Onion:
    • Parodied by this article titled "Why do all these homosexuals keep sucking my cock?"
    • Parodied in this video where "Rick Santorum" reveals why he doesn't like gay marriage is because his boyfriend cheated on him and married some other guy.
    • Parodied in this video where Republican politicians are reported to seek services of male prostitutes at the RNC convention Tampa Bay.
  • Rational Wiki refers to this as Haggard's Law, in reference to an infamous Real Life incident where Ted Haggard (known for his staunch, aggressive anti-gay stance) continued to claim that he's not gay or bi despite being caught paying male prostitutes to have sex with him.
  • Deconstructed with James Toranaga of Touch (2017), who gets very angry when his friend Casper notices his crush on another boy. Given that James is a recent rape victim still figuring out his sexuality, the outburst is fairly justified.

    Web Video 
  • Heavily implied with Jace Connors of Deagle Nationone of his past Google searches is "how to tell if your gay".
  • This animatic for a cover of "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame changes the implications of the song due to the singer being female. The protagonist of the short is a nun who is lusting over another woman. Frollo's hypocritical and violent attitude is still there.
  • In the final episode of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged, Alucard, after seemingly being destroyed, finds himself trapped with the souls of several million dead Londoners. Without even thinking about it, he helps one guy deal with his insecurities about his own appearance and discovers that by helping them resolve their Unfinished Business they could all move on and he could come back to life. He then helps a second person whose emotions about a "guy kissing another guy" turn out to be rooted in "wishing it could be him but not thinking it can", then he fwips out, and taking what followed in macro, an improbable fraction of them — he claims "like a third" — were "just in the closet", and it's implied he developed a habit of calling out, "You're gay!..."
  • Vanessa on Out With Dad, due to her strict Catholic upbringing. Her homophobia is mostly a reaction to her being terrified that she might be gay.

    Western Animation 
  • Subverted in American Dad!. Terry's father Tank Bates is homophobic and deeply disapproves of his son's homosexuality. Stan accuses him of being a homosexual and outs him in front of a crowded football stadium. It turns out that Tank truly is not homosexual. Stan's attempts to reconcile the father and son reveal that Tank actually subverts every other homophobia-explanation trope as well. He doesn't think it's against God, he doesn't think it's a choice, he doesn't think they are all Camp Gay or after his butt, etc. He is unable/unwilling to offer any explanation or justification for hating gays in general and his son specifically (his son even produced a grandchild for him already, what is this guy's deal?).
  • Gangstaliscious from The Boondocks is a gangsta rapper who is secretly gay. In his second appearance, Gangstalicious drops increasingly obvious hints about his homosexuality, but he still keeps denying it.
  • Drawn Together: Clara is racist, xenophobic and religious but can't resist making out with Foxxy in a hot tub.
  • In the Family Guy episode where Chris dates Connie DiMico and becomes popular, there's a jock who keeps mentioning how he plans to bully the "gay" nerds (with each mention becoming more and more homoerotic), until he finally says at the end "I'm gay, alright?!"
  • Parodied in Futurama where Professor Farnsworth is against human-robot marriages because he dated a robot who eventually left him.
  • This is a fairly popular Alternative Character Interpretation for Murderface in Metalocalypse fanfiction, expanding on the series's running gag of his insecurity in his sexuality.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In one episode, Lisa invokes this trope when Nelson is teasing Bart and calls him gay. Lisa points out that homophobic people who accuse others of being gay often have sexuality issues. This shuts up a wide-eyed Nelson, as he runs away.
    • Moe once suspected a politician of being a closet gay because of how anti-gay the politician acts.
  • South Park:
    • Mr. Garrison (prior to coming out in the fourth season).
    • Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak are heavily implied to be this in Season 19's Tweek x Craig, as they repeatedly state that they are not gay, but the whole town either ignores or disregards their statements and eventually, Tweek and Craig get together in the end, realizing that they are gay, as confirmed by Word of God by Trey Parker and Matt Stone on Twitter, which is further shown on Season 21's Put it Down.
  • Naturally, a major plot twist in Super Drags. Sandoval, the religious nutcase running an anti-gay camp, was the Drag Queen villain Lady Elza all along.


 
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Alternative Title(s): Armored Closet Gay, Gay Homophobe

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Sam

Sam swears he is heterosexual and is outright homophobic, despite exhibiting just about every Camp Gay behavior. It's implied he's homophobic because he has trouble accepting his sexuality.

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