Cisheterosexual People in Post-Closeted Times The Role of Evading Difference in Managing an Advantaged Identity and Legitimizing of Inequalities

How do cisheterosexual people navigate inequality against LGBTQ people in contexts where discrimination is often considered a matter of the past? We argue that some do so by evading difference based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While emphasizing individuals and their fundamental sameness may convey an egalitarian standpoint, evading difference might obscure markers of intergroup inequality, blur the advantaged status of cisheterosexual people, and thereby legitimize structural inequality. Using mixed-methods—in-depth interviews (N = 20) and online surveys (N = 531)—we characterized distinct profiles of cisheterosexual people in the Netherlands, combining low-to-high difference evasion (“People who focus a lot on sexual orientation and gender identity forget that we are all just people”) with low-to-high inequality evasion (“Compared to cisgender and heterosexual people, LGBTQ people have equal opportunities”). In turn, these profiles distinguished how cisheterosexual people manage their advantaged identity and their ideological outlook on inequality. Specifically, those evading difference were more likely to evade inequality than those acknowledging difference. Furthermore, those acknowledging difference were most likely to recognize privilege and exhibit a substantive egalitarian outlook. We conclude by discussing how cisheterosexual people can either perpetuate or challenge inequality by managing difference and the implications of these findings.