“Covering” is sociologist Erving Goffman’s term for how we try to “tone down” stigmatized identities, even when those identities are known to the world. In my work, I describe four axes along which individuals can cover: appearance, affiliation, activism, and association.

Appearance concerns how an individual physically presents himself to the world. Affiliation concerns his cultural identifications. Activism concerns how much he politicizes his identity. Association concerns his choice of fellow travelers -- spouses, friends, colleagues.

So a person with an X identity can cover by making sure he doesn’t look like a stereotypical X, disaffiliating himself from X culture, not engaging in activism about X causes, and distancing himself from other Xs. It’s probably easier to see how this works in concrete cases. Those can be found below.

Racial covering
Sex-based covering
Gay covering
Religious covering
Disability-based covering