Serving through stigma: the passing drivers and well-being outcomes for young non-heterosexual men in service work

Decent work encapsulates people’s aspirations in their working lives, focusing on social inclusion and the well-being of workers. With this said, service industries have historically been a site of exclusion, low compensation and limited advancement opportunities for employees (Fisk et al., 2018), exposing individuals to precarious, exclusionary or otherwise unfulfilling work that threatens the advancement of SDG 8. To overcome these concerning trends in service work, service researchers have been called to pursue research in line with SDG 8 to improve the well-being of service actors (Russell-Bennett et al., 2024) who, for example, may be at risk of discrimination in their market interactions. Notably, the goals of SDG 8 align closely with those of the transformative service research (TSR) agenda that has emerged in recent years (Anderson et al., 2013).

TSR prioritizes the well-being of service actors and emphasizes decent work as a cornerstone of equitable service ecosystems (Subramony and Rosenbaum, 2024). Through this, the agenda of TSR often focuses on identifying and addressing experiences of vulnerability among service actors who may face heightened risk of harm or exclusion in service ecosystems. To date, however, despite frontline service employees (FSEs) playing a vital boundary-spanning role in these ecosystems, they have been substantially overlooked as potential targets of vulnerability in service interactions (Riedel et al., 2023). Vulnerability in this sense refers to the potential for FSEs to experience state-based harm that is induced by job demands and the availability of supporting resources, with this harm either enhanced or diminished by FSE characteristics (Riedel et al., 2023).

In this study, we focus on the experiences of stigma, vulnerability and well-being of young, non-heterosexual men in frontline service work, a group that is notably overrepresented in the service industry (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024b; Tilcsik et al., 2015) but perhaps not proportionally represented in existing TSR literature. We use the term “non-heterosexual” in this study as an umbrella term to reflect the enduring social positioning of non-heterosexual men as an out-group among what remains a heteronormative society. It is this positioning that exposes non-heterosexual people to potential harm, setting the scene for experiences of vulnerability in their work.

Recent data suggest that at least 3.6% of the Australian and New Zealand population identify as non-heterosexual, with this number on the rise and concentrated especially in younger people (i.e. 16–34-year-olds, with 7.5%–9.5% of this population identifying as non-heterosexual; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024a). While general attitudes toward non-heterosexual people are becoming more favorable with time, non-heterosexual men are still exposed to sexuality-based discrimination in their everyday lives (Casey et al., 2019), with attitudes toward non-heterosexual men being globally more negative than those toward non-heterosexual women (Bettinsoli et al., 2020). Examples of discrimination against non-heterosexual men are also found in their work lives as heterosexist sentiment bleeds into occupational contexts. Some scant literature has sought to bring a voice to the discriminatory experiences of non-heterosexual FSEs as they interact with customers in their roles; even today, FSEs face sexuality-based abuse, aggression and harassment from their customers (Hadjisolomou et al., 2023; Mills and Owens, 2023).

Concerningly, sexuality-based discrimination has also been documented as having negative impacts on non-heterosexual people’s well-being. Well-being is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional construct including psychological (i.e. cognitive and emotional well-being), physiological (i.e. physical well-being) and social aspects, with “well-being” referring to the positivity of these aspects in an individual’s life (Ponting, 2020). In services literature, well-being is often discussed in relation to vulnerability, with harm arising when service contexts erode actors’ capacity to maintain positive psychological, physical and social states (Riedel et al., 2023). With research identifying the negative impacts that discrimination (such as verbal abuse and physical assault) has on non-heterosexual people’s well-being at work (Ueno et al., 2023), FSEs may be driven to conceal their non-heterosexuality by “passing”: a stigma management strategy in which a stigmatized (non-heterosexual) person will obfuscate their identity and masquerade as a non-stigmatized (heterosexual) one (Goffman, 1963). By altering their speech, mannerisms and outward displays of identity, non-heterosexual people can present themselves to others as heterosexual (Clair et al., 2005). Generally, while passing may lead to a reduction in overt discrimination against non-heterosexual people (Puckett et al., 2016), scholars also highlight it as a major driver of harm that can amplify experiences of depression, anxiety and stress (Brennan et al., 2021).

While organizational research to date has tended to focus on the drivers and well-being outcomes of employees who pass among their colleagues (e.g. Newheiser et al., 2017; Van Laar et al., 2019), existing literature fails to consider customers as relevant stakeholders in employees’ navigations of their non-heterosexual identities. To this end, the contexts that drive FSEs to pass as heterosexual among customers and the potential well-being outcomes of passing (or not passing) in customer interactions remain unclear. Given the demonstrated harm that passing in customer interactions can have on other stigmatized service employees [e.g. religion (Chaouali et al., 2024) and disability (Marques et al., 2025)] and in line with the TSR agenda, which seeks to identify the experiences of service actors who may face heightened risk of harm or exclusion, the current study addresses two research objectives:

1. to understand the drivers of non-heterosexual FSEs’ passing behaviors in FSE-customer interactions, and

2. to explore how these FSEs’ decisions to pass in customer interactions negatively affect their well-being.

By applying a stigma lens, we examine non-heterosexual FSEs’ experiences of negotiating their identities with customers and consider how service work can become a site of vulnerability for them. In doing so, this research addresses contemporary calls within services literature to support SDG 8 (Subramony and Rosenbaum, 2024) by making recommendations to improve the dignity and well-being of non-heterosexual service employees in their customer-facing work.

In heterosexist cultures, non-heterosexual people experience prejudice based on the stigma attached to their sexuality. A stigma can be defined as a socially undesirable, discrediting trait of an individual that differentiates them from others and spoils or otherwise devalues their social identity (Goffman, 1963). As sexuality is not necessarily readily observable, individuals who possess a stigmatized sexual identity typically have more discretion in determining who becomes privy to their stigmatized status through stigma management (Camacho et al., 2020), where they may obfuscate their identity and masquerade as a non-stigmatized (heterosexual) person [i.e. “pass” (Goffman, 1963)]. Whether an individual passes in an interaction is directly related to their perception of stigma (Sattler and Lemke, 2019).

Many non-heterosexual people perceive that their sexual identity exposes them to discrimination or negative regard in a heteronormative society (Herek et al., 2009). Felt stigma refers to this internalized expectation or fear that stigma may be enacted by others, even when no overt discrimination has occurred (Herek et al., 2009). Because felt stigma centers on anticipating how others might respond, it can be especially pronounced in transient encounters – such as interactions with customers – where the other party’s attitudes toward non-heterosexuality are unknown. Stigma theory suggests that when a non-heterosexual person experiences heightened felt stigma in a given situation, they are more likely to engage in passing behavior as they perceive a higher risk of enacted stigma (such as shunning, abuse or violence; Herek et al., 2009). In line with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) work on coping, passing can be conceptualized as a problem-focused strategy that seeks to prevent felt stigma in an individual’s external environment, while also playing an emotion-focused function to manage the psychological distress associated with felt stigma (Ozbilgin et al., 2023). Put simply, passing serves as a strategy to bolster non-heterosexual people’s well-being in the face of felt stigma.

Depending on their context, non-heterosexual people will adapt their passing behaviors, constantly negotiating their sexual identity through their interactions with others (Sedgwick, 1990). As a result, non-heterosexual people will curate their “outness,” or visibility of their sexuality, across multiple domains, selectively passing among some people but not among others (Feinstein and Rentería, 2023). The workplace is a particularly relevant context of study when examining non-heterosexual people’s stigma management via passing. Professional workplaces are often characterized by strict heterosexist assumptions (Corlett et al., 2023). As a result, non-heterosexual employees may pass at work to better align with professional expectations and reduce their exposure to sexuality-based stigma from their colleagues (Ravenhill and de Visser, 2019).

Despite passing still being common among non-heterosexual people at work (Feinstein et al., 2019), the impact of workplace passing on their well-being is largely contested in organizational literature because of inconsistent findings. Earlier studies suggest that passing at work is a viable strategy for non-heterosexual employees to reduce workplace stress (Huebner and Davis, 2005) and support their psychological well-being (Ragins et al., 2007); these findings make sense given that passing shields employees from enacted stigma (Puckett et al., 2016). However, these findings are contradicted by later work, which suggests passing results in heightened levels of generalized anxiety, diminished levels of belonging and reduced psychological well-being for employees (Newheiser et al., 2017). These dissonant findings suggest that there are a range of extraneous factors and conditions that alter the relationship between passing and well-being outcomes in the workplace. Whether passing is beneficial or detrimental remains unclear, raising questions about the specific contexts in which it promotes – or undermines – employee well-being. Further, much of this scholarship has concentrated on the dynamics of collegial relationships in organizations and largely neglects how FSE passing plays out in service settings where interactions with customers are central to a stigmatized employee’s role.

TSR literature has more recently begun exploring FSEs’ experiences of identity-based stigmatization from customers, including their stigmatized religious (Chaouali et al., 2024) and gender identities (Hadjisolomou, 2021). Resulting from this stream of literature are emergent findings that FSEs’ passing behaviors in their customer interactions have been associated with negative well-being outcomes. In response to national stigma from their customers, for example, Indian call center workers’ engagement in stigma management through behaviors such as accent modification amplifies their work-related stress and feelings of social isolation (Nath, 2011). Similarly, service employees who conceal stigmatized invisible disabilities such as autism or ADHD from customers also suffer from feelings of exhaustion, stress and diminished psychological safety at work (Marques et al., 2025). These examples evidence how passing can undermine employees’ well-being and suggest that service ecosystems themselves are structured in ways that foster vulnerability. Specifically, FSEs are expected to co-create and deliver value through their interactions with customers (Terblanche and Babin, 2024). In service contexts where customer sovereignty is often prioritized over the well-being of employees, customers are equipped with greater levels of power compared to FSEs (Hadjisolomou et al., 2023). Ultimately, the perceived expectation for employees to uphold the sovereignty of customers in their interactions may limit their ability to express their identity on their own terms and thus contribute to their vulnerability in these interactions (Riedel et al., 2023).

As a result, the extensive body of literature documenting the passing motivators and well-being outcomes for non-heterosexual employees in their collegial relationships likely does not capture the nuance that exists in employee–customer interactions. Almost entirely untouched in TSR are non-heterosexual employees’ experiences of stigma in their interactions with customers. Missing from this literature specifically is why non-heterosexual employees choose to pass and how the management of stigma through passing might impact their well-being in their customer interactions. Importantly, as a concealable stigma, FSEs’ sexuality is not inherently visible and customers may not actually be able to discern an employee’s non-heterosexuality in an interaction. While employees often cannot know the extent of a customer’s awareness of their non-heterosexuality, passing behaviors are likely to be adopted by those who feel their identity could be inferred by customers (Clair et al., 2005). In this study, we seek to elucidate the factors that drive this passing in service interactions and explore the potential negative well-being outcomes of passing for FSEs.

We conducted convergent interviews to collect data from non-heterosexual respondents with experience working in frontline service roles. We used a purposeful sampling method to focus on younger non-heterosexual FSEs for several reasons. First, service work is skewed toward younger workers in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024b). Second, younger people are increasingly identifying as non-heterosexual relative to earlier generations (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024a). However, younger non-heterosexual people may not have established identity resilience yet (Jaspal and Breakwell, 2022) and therefore may experience greater vulnerability in work environments compared to their older counterparts (Willis, 2011), potentially exposing them to greater stigma-based harm in their work. Thus, by focusing on this group, we align our research with SDG 8, which in part prioritizes the attainment of decent work for young people (United Nations, 2024) while also responding to calls for marketing research to consider intersectionality and to better understand understudied market actors, particularly those at the intersection of sexuality and age (Uduehi et al., 2025).

We also chose to focus our data collection and analysis around non-heterosexual men for two main reasons. First, research suggests that men’s passing practices are shaped by distinct socio-cultural pressures such as masculine norms that may not be as relevant to other gender groups (Kanuha, 1999). Broadening the sample to include non-heterosexual women, for example, would dilute our capacity to develop insights into the gendered experiences of men, while also limiting our ability to meaningfully engage with the distinct experiences of women. Second, attitudes toward non-heterosexual men are globally more negative than attitudes toward non-heterosexual women (Bettinsoli et al., 2020), potentially generating higher risks of vulnerability and therefore barriers to decent work.

As is common in studies exploring the experiences of non-heterosexual men in organization (e.g. Hadjisolomou et al., 2023), we leveraged author networks purposively in combination with a snowballing approach to source respondents (Azzari and Baker, 2020). The first four respondents were purposively sampled from service industries including hospitality, retail, financial and public services, establishing diversity of our sample from the outset (including age and country of residence) and allowing us to examine FSEs’ experiences across a range of sectors. To mitigate the risk of particular voices being overrepresented in our sample, we encouraged respondents to refer others from different industry backgrounds (i.e. from outside their immediate social or workplace groups) and monitored the evolving sample to ensure the diversity of sectors and ages represented. With this, our sample included respondents ranging in age from 21 to 31 years old working in a variety of sectors, as shown in Table 1.

Convergent interviews are cyclical, and, as a result, each successive interview is strengthened based on the understanding of the research topic gained from all previous interviews (Rao and Perry, 2003). This allows data collection to evolve in response to emerging insights and capture nuance that standard interviews might miss. Our interview guide was based on a few initial propositions that were founded in parent literature around sexuality and stigma management at work, particularly relating to identity (dis)comfort as central to how and why individuals choose to manage their identity in social interactions (e.g. Goffman, 1963). Example questions in our initial interview guide included:

• Can you tell me about a time when you felt uncomfortable acting in a way that felt authentically “[insert interviewee name]” in front of a customer?

• Can you pinpoint what made you feel as if you had to act in a certain way?

In line with convergent interviewing techniques, additional questions and probes were added to each successive interview that were designed to address unfamiliar or inconsistent ideas that arose through previous interviews. For example, early interviews indicated that organizational context strongly influenced FSEs’ passing decisions. Therefore, in subsequent interviews we included questions such as, “How might your comfort with expressing yourself authentically have changed across the different work roles that you’ve had in the past?” and “Why did you feel that way in some roles, but not others?” While not included in our initial discussion guide, the iterative inclusion of these questions allowed us to more accurately gauge the applicability of our findings to specific cases (based on organizational context, for example) rather than overestimating the generalizability of findings (Dick, 1990; Rao and Perry, 2003). A strength of convergent interviews lies in researchers’ identification of data stability through this iterative approach. When agreement among respondents is achieved (and disagreement explained sufficiently through subsequent interviews or through consultation with relevant literature), stability is reached (Rao and Perry, 2003).

We reached the final sample size (n = 13) based on this principle of data stability wherein no new codes were emerging in our later interviews, indicating that additional data collection was unlikely to generate further insights. To supplement our satisfaction of data stability, we concluded data collection once we had achieved data sufficiency: the point where data were sufficient to address the research objectives (Suri, 2011). By the end of our final interview, we were satisfied that previously observed variations in our data were sufficiently explained by respondents’ contextual differences or supported by existing literature. Given the relative homogeneity of our target population (young non-heterosexual men), data sufficiency and saturation were achieved with a small sample. We sought to maintain a smaller sample size to cultivate a closer association and deeper engagement with our respondents and their experiences (Crouch and McKenzie, 2006). In alignment with the principle of prolonged engagement (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), we prioritized building rapport and trust with each respondent before, during and after each interview. This included pre-interview dialogue and additional follow-up conversations approximately one week after each interview in which respondents were able to clarify responses and add context to their stories and experiences. This sustained contact gave way to a layered understanding of the motivations and outcomes of stigma management for our respondents, which may have remained inaccessible in more transactional interviews. We note that our sample size at stability and sufficiency is consistent with recent studies exploring similar issues relating to workplace stigma management among non-heterosexual men [e.g. workplace masculinity practices, n = 12 (Ozturk et al., 2020); stigmatized identity navigation, n = 12 (MacCharles and Melton, 2021)].

Ethical clearance from our institution was granted before data collection commenced. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim in preparation for thematic analysis. To support the validity of our data, we engaged in member checking by sending transcripts to each respondent for them to clarify or correct their transcript prior to analysis through our follow-up conversations as described above (Holmlund et al., 2020). Once each transcript had been member checked through this process, we read through them several times to familiarize ourselves with the interview content, incorporating insights from our post-interview conversations into our interpretation (Azzari and Baker, 2020).

In line with the convergent approach, coding and analysis occurred iteratively after each interview. We adopted a hybrid method put forward by Fereday and Muir-Cochrane (2006), which involved stages of both deductive and inductive coding. Given the already established body of knowledge regarding collegial passing drivers and outcomes, our analysis drew on initial codes that were based on existing findings in organizational literature. Following this initial deductive stage, consecutive analysis of the interview data made way for inductive codes that were not supported by extant literature to emerge. These inductive codes were either separate from a priori codes or expanded upon these codes in novel ways. This process also progressively refined our coding frame. Coding was conducted by one author who shared an identity position as non-heterosexual (an “insider”; Hayfield and Huxley, 2015). These codes were then mutually interrogated by the research team (consisting of both “insiders” and “outsiders”), yielding sustained discussion around the relevance and theoretical fit of emerging codes and identifying areas of convergence and divergence among our respondents. Any disagreements in interpretation were collectively discussed until consensus was reached, ensuring that the emergent coding frame reflected shared agreement across the team. This process continued iteratively during data collection. Finally, once we had reached data stability, codes were connected under thematic headings that related to our research objectives and illuminated the barriers to decent, inclusive and dignified service work for non-heterosexual FSEs. These themes are presented below.

Through our analysis, we identify the drivers that influence passing decisions, including customer-oriented, self-oriented and role-oriented drivers, recognizing that some factors increase the likelihood of passing while others reduce it. Employees’ passing behaviors stem from their interpretations of how customers might perceive them in situ – regardless of whether customers are actually “wise” to their non-heterosexuality, their behaviors reflect their subjective assessment of the visibility of their non-heterosexuality in each interaction. We also uncover the challenges these FSEs face in their interactions and the outcomes of passing that negatively impact employees’ well-being at work. These drivers and challenges are summarized in Figure 1.

Perhaps most prominently, every respondent in the study highlighted the significance of customer gender in their experiences of stigma and subsequent passing behavior in their work. Respondents reported a greater tendency to engage in passing behaviors when interacting with customers who are men compared to those who are women:

Here, Angelo suggests that his passing behaviors stem from discomfort working alongside (specifically heterosexual) men that is informed by his limited personal interactions with this group. Largely, our respondents’ caution around customers who are men is informed by their broader life experiences with men outside of work. For example, Anton (24; government & public service) framed his caution in authentically interacting with these customers by describing how, in general, “men are more likely to verbally point out and mock stereotypically ‘gay’ mannerisms than women are.”

Reflected in research, which has shown how men are more likely to engage in anti-gay behavior than women (Kite et al., 2021), non-heterosexual FSEs’ experiences of felt stigma in their service work reflect a lingering social memory of enacted stigma in the past, a carryover from accumulated experiences in school, family and other public spaces. The discomfort and fear of judgment associated with customers who are men amplifies our respondents’ experiences of felt stigma in their work, in turn motivating their passing behaviors. On the other hand, FSEs feel less compelled to pass when interacting with customers who are women – a reflection of generally more positive, supportive relationships with women in their personal lives.

While customer gender is the most thematically prevalent factor influencing passing decisions, some other factors also play a role. Many respondents recalled experiences of actively engaging in passing behaviors when working opposite older customers [“When it comes to the older generation, women or men, as soon as they come up to the desk, I’ll flip” (Hamish, 25; government & public service)]. Some respondents also discussed the impact of customer ethnicity or skin color on their passing behaviors [“If they’re from a different culture, I’m going to be much less flamboyant” (Mitch, 24, banking & finance)], based on assumptions that older or non-white customers would hold more homonegative attitudes. While FSEs also occupy non-dominant social identities (just like older or non-white customers), they do not frame encounters with these customers as sites of shared marginalization. Instead, perceived age and ethnicity heighten uncertainty around customers’ sexual identity acceptance, prompting precautionary passing strategies. This ultimately suggests that when stigma domains differ, shared non-dominant status does not translate into anticipated in-group understanding.

Consistent with stigma theory’s emphasis on stigma anticipation, these passing drivers were also tempered by the length and familiarity of customer relationships. Respondents described passing as less necessary with customers they “knew well” (Mitch, 24, banking & finance), like long-term clients or regular customers they would see every day. This familiarity allowed employees to form a clearer sense of customers’ attitudes, lessening their anticipatory fear of negative reactions and reducing passing intentions.

Many of our respondents discussed their experiences of conflict in their roles that are brought on by the perceived opposition between their non-heterosexuality and expectations put upon them in their organization and sector. This conflict is a strong driver for passing in many cases:

For our respondents, flamboyance refers to visible, effeminate behaviors and expressions such as gestures, body language and vocal tone that they perceive as signals of a non-heterosexual identity to customers. Flamboyance has been conceptualized in the literature as an effeminate and expressive self-presentation, in turn largely associated with non-heterosexual men (Ravenhill and de Visser, 2019). The incongruity between professionalism and such self-presentation is well-established in the literature as being a source of tension in intra-organizational relations (Speice, 2020), to the point where non-heterosexual employees will intentionally suppress flamboyance and instead perform masculinity to maintain credibility among colleagues (Ravenhill and de Visser, 2019). As our data show, this tension also extends to inter-organizational relations, including with customers. For many of our respondents who consider themselves to be flamboyant, this sense of dissonance between professionalism and flamboyance can be traced back to normative organizational beliefs and is more prevalent in cases where FSEs are involved in “white collar” work:

Mitch’s perspective illustrates how employees perceive non-heterosexual identities (and their signals such as flamboyance) as undesirable in professional service settings, representing a liability that must be suppressed to perform their role functions appropriately and successfully (Rumens and Kerfoot, 2009). In these contexts, professionalism is tacitly equated with restraint, normativity and, importantly, heterosexuality (Morgenroth et al., 2024) – all qualities that flamboyance flouts – further driving perceptions of incompatibility between flamboyance and credible service delivery. To this end, employees anticipate being judged by customers for violating professional norms through their flamboyant displays and so moderate their behavior based on the perceived risk of stigma from customers. We note some thematic patterns in the sectors in which our respondents are more exposed to felt stigma based on these organizational and industrial contexts. Generally, employees working in sectors or roles more closely associated with masculinity (such as trades, banking and finance) tended to report greater exposure to felt stigma in their interactions with customers. This aligns with research that outlines how masculine roles are stereotypically associated with heterosexual men (Hancock et al., 2020), explaining why these employees may experience greater levels of felt stigma in line with customers’ expectations of masculinity and heterosexuality.

Where some respondents find that their roles’ norms and expectations drive passing, others take comfort in roles where organizational and industrial norms legitimize non-heterosexual identities. In these cases, non-heterosexuality is perceived as a “natural fit” (Mark, 31; consultancy), so the motivation to pass with customers is reduced:

For example, Kai’s perception that his role, the barista, is commonly thought of and accepted as being “gay,” combined with the presence of other queer employees on his team, means that he is not exposed to conflicts between his authentic expression and role-related norms as strongly as other respondents. The idea that certain occupational roles are perceived as “gay” can be seen in organizational literature, too; gay men are more likely to work in women-majority service occupations (Tilcsik et al., 2015), and customer backlash against gay service employees is typically lessened when that employee is working in a stereotypically feminine role (Mishel, 2020). Our data reveal that these stereotypes are indeed also salient for employees, not just customers, leading them to anticipate how customers will perceive their “fit” within certain roles. As a result, service roles they associate with non-heterosexuality or femininity provide a protective buffer against felt stigma, contrasted against their heightened vulnerability to felt stigma (and therefore increased passing intentions) in more masculine roles.

Finally, across our sample, younger respondents reported more frequent and more intensive passing behaviors in customer interactions compared to older respondents who reflected that they no longer seek to pass as actively as they once did in their previous service roles:

For many non-heterosexual people, the perceived risks of “coming out” lessen with age as support systems strengthen and identity resilience improves (Jaspal and Breakwell, 2022), leading to a reduced likelihood of passing in interactions with others. This finding highlights how younger non-heterosexual people are at a greater risk of experiencing felt stigma in their customer interactions and underscores the intersectional nature of vulnerability in service work, where demographic factors such as age interact with sexuality to jointly shape employees’ exposure to identity-based stigma (Corus and Saatcioglu, 2015).

While many of our respondents reported being able to stifle their identity cues to pass in their customer interactions, there are some cases where employees feel there are no avenues available for them to pass – largely as a result of their physical appearance. Certain elements of physical appearance, including hair color [“Now that I have bleached hair, [my non-heterosexuality] is pretty obvious” (Neil, 27; retail & sales)] and piercings [“[Customers] will think, ‘oh, he has a piercing in [his nose] so he must be queer’” (Hamish, 25; government & public service)] are seen by respondents as signals indicating a non-heterosexual identity that cannot be concealed through passing. This theme highlights how employees’ decisions about their bodies outside the workplace can have consequences for their ability to pass within it – a conclusion that has been drawn in intercollegial relationships (Rumens and Kerfoot, 2009), but not yet fully explored in a service context. The embodiment of sexual identity, and therefore stigma, through these physical markers means that these employees are less likely to attempt to engage in passing behaviors on the assumption that their non-heterosexuality is already apparent to customers through their physical appearance. On the other hand, employees whose sexual identity is less visibly and immutably expressed may feel more able to engage in passing behaviors, increasing the likelihood of passing in situations where stigma is felt.

Overall, this theme highlights the situational drivers that influence non-heterosexual employees to engage in passing behaviors when interacting with customers. Taken together, these insights emphasize that passing in service work is a dynamic process that arises through an interplay of self-perception, customer cues and role expectations. When certain service conditions intersect (like when a young employee [self-oriented] interacts with a customer who is a man [customer-oriented] in a professional service environment [role-oriented]), felt stigma is intensified, and passing becomes a more attractive coping strategy. Importantly, this supports contemporary findings in market vulnerability literature, which conceptualizes vulnerability not as an inherent characteristic of an actor but instead as situational, emerging from interactions between an individual’s environment and their characteristics (Baker et al., 2005; Riedel et al., 2023). We contribute to both vulnerability literature and intersectionality literature by showing that the three contextual drivers relating to the customer, the role and the self combine to leave employees vulnerable (or not) to felt stigma. Next, we consider the potential divergences in well-being that passing (or indeed choosing not to pass) can have on FSEs.

We identify three primary challenges of passing (or not) that non-heterosexual FSEs face in their interactions with customers that have detrimental impacts on their well-being. First, our respondents reflected on the negative experiences they have had with customers in the past that have been attributed to their non-heterosexuality as a result of choosing not to pass. These experiences range from enacted to felt stigma, with each instance negatively impacting their well-being. In all, only two of our respondents reported ever experiencing any overtly enacted stigma in previous customer interactions based on their non-heterosexuality, like Neil:

These experiences of negative customer reactions may not always be explicit and can indeed be much more subtle. For example, Gabriel recounted how he believes customers respond or react differently to him during service interactions if he chooses not to pass, automatically attributing this differential treatment to his non-heterosexuality:

While experiences of enacted stigma negatively impact employees’ well-being on a psychological level – particularly triggering negative feelings of diminished self-efficacy and shame – we find that a more insidious source of harm to FSEs’ well-being comes through their experiences of felt stigma. For most of our respondents, interactions with customers are shaped by assumptions of how customers are perceiving them – as if they are viewing themselves through a looking glass. Harm most commonly occurs when employees anticipate or fear discrimination from their customers:

Like many others, Kai’s experiences underscore the harmful, pervasive nature of felt stigma when not passing in interactions with customers. Although Kai has not experienced enacted stigma in his interactions with customers, the internalization of societal homonegativity projected onto his customers creates vulnerability and emotional distress. This is the essence of felt stigma, where looming fears of judgment, as illustrated above, in addition to feelings of anxiety and self-consciousness of being “found out” (Mark, 31; consultancy) contribute to diminished well-being.

Importantly, we find that the experience (and potential harm) of felt stigma is amplified in employees with less established identity resilience:

Hamish, who had only “come out” to himself and his colleagues six months earlier, is still negotiating a relatively new sense of sexual identity, which heightens his sensitivity to felt stigma. This greater harm is also observed in younger members of our sample (such as Kai) who tend to experience greater anxiety in customer interactions – a reflection of the ongoing development of their identity resilience. Ultimately, these instances of diminished well-being through felt stigma were much more common in our data than diminished well-being through enacted stigma, highlighting this more invisible stigma as a substantial barrier to decent work for young non-heterosexual employees.

The next two challenges we identify relate to situations that arise when FSEs choose to pass to mitigate their exposure to felt stigma but highlight that this passing can also have detrimental effects on their well-being.

This challenge centers on employees’ violation of the self, reflecting tension between their authentic identity and how they obfuscate or manipulate this identity in customer interactions. Almost all our respondents shared how they would rarely, if ever, display themselves authentically in their interactions with customers. For example, Kai reflected on his time working in a fast-food service role, hiding the parts of himself that he believed to be indicative of his non-heterosexuality:

The creation and management of multiple selves to pass was endemic in our data. Respondents reflected not only on the creation and negotiation of these selves but also on the blurring of the lines between their authentic and fabricated selves when interacting with customers. The feeling of the convolution or loss of the authentic self has negative impacts on employees’ well-being at work:

Leigh reported feeling upset by passing in customer interactions as the authentic self is sacrificed for more appropriate, heteronormative, othered selves. This finding in particular aligns with organizational research suggesting that feelings of inauthenticity negatively impact work outcomes and, as we support, well-being (van den Bosch and Taris, 2014). Notably, we find that the negative well-being impacts of these experiences of perceived self-inauthenticity were worsened for those employees who hold their non-heterosexuality as especially central to their self-concept, particularly prompting feelings of anxiety and self-alienation (Fletcher and Everly, 2021). Identity theory offers a potential explanation for this variation: higher levels of identity distress are associated with the interruption of identities that are most important to a person (Burke, 1991). In the context of frontline service work, the suppression of a highly salient non-heterosexual identity interrupts authentic identity enactment and intensifies distress, while the suppression of a less salient non-heterosexual identity produces comparatively less impact on well-being.

Indeed, it is not uncommon for service employees in general to suppress authentic identities in their service work as they seek to align with role demands and expectations (Lings et al., 2014). Regardless of whether they are stigmatized or not, the enactment of a “work self” that is inconsistent with one’s true or core self can be a cause of distress for employees (Metin et al., 2016). Thus, the harmful outcomes of identity fragmentation are likely not unique to stigmatized employees. However, what may distinguish stigmatized employees from the broader literature on inauthenticity at work is that this unease is compounded by the cognitive toll of environmental scanning under conditions of potential stigma:

Mark’s reflection provides insight into how he challenges his authentic self to better align with customers in the workplace. This process of “fitting in” does not come without great resource, however – employees take on a cognitive burden to continuously scan and assess their environment for stigma-related threats, in addition to maintaining behavioral controls consistent with passing. Our data indicate that their judgments of felt stigma are commonly made in situ through rapid, cognitive appraisals of customer-oriented cues (such as a customer’s age and gender) in relation to role- and self-oriented factors. These evaluations then inform FSEs’ decisions to pass in each interaction.

This process becomes particularly taxing for FSEs who work in service roles with a high turnover of customers characterized by more frequent, one-off interactions, such as a retail or front-of-house hospitality worker, as each new customer interaction is accompanied by additional environmental scanning. For FSEs, this additional environmental scanning translates to a reduction in mental well-being, particularly in the form of increased levels of stress or cognitive burnout as a result of being “on” all the time to create and maintain inauthentic personas to conceal stigma (Riggle et al., 2023). This finding echoes and extends services literature on adaptive selling, which involves salespeople modifying their behavior to suit individual customers’ perceived traits (Weitz et al., 1986). While adaptive selling is typically framed as a strategic, role-consistent practice that can enhance engagement, sustained adaptation can deplete cognitive resources and cause emotional exhaustion (Sharma et al., 2025). Our findings extend this literature by showing that passing represents a more identity-threatening form of adaptation, which requires concealment of the self rather than mere behavioral adjustment, thereby undermining self-authenticity and well-being.

On the other hand, for employees working in industries with fewer unique interactions (e.g. where FSEs work with repeat clients such as in professional services like accounting or consultancy), the strain associated with the creation and navigation of othered selves is less severe, as employees can more consistently take on a single “heterosexual” persona as an ongoing strategy (“when you’re working there five days a week, like, you spend so much time there, that just becomes your personality” [Mitch, 24, banking & finance)]. Although FSEs such as Mitch also experience challenges to their self-authenticity through passing, the associated cognitive burden is reduced because they consistently invoke a more stable othered self that endures across different customer contexts.

The final challenge centers on the violation of employees’ personal values, principles or commitments, reflecting tension when their passing behaviors in customer interactions conflict with these values. In particular, FSEs who strongly connect with or consider themselves advocates for their non-heterosexual communities grapple with feelings of hypocrisy while simultaneously engaging in passing behaviors with customers:

As evidenced by Leigh’s experience, passing compromises employees’ self-consistency when their values (such as individuality) are perceived as contradictory to the motivations and outcomes of passing (such as conformity). This dissatisfaction is drawn from behavior that is inconsistent with their self-concept and self-cognition (Korman, 1970). Notably, among some of our respondents, these uncomfortable feelings of hypocrisy were accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame or, in one case, self-directed anger:

The struggles with self-consistency reported here have a negative impact on FSEs’ psychological well-being and align with literature that demonstrates the stress that employees feel when they engage in behaviors at work that misalign with their values (Sutton, 2018). Feeling pride in their sexual identity yet passing in certain interactions with customers results in negative emotions, such as anger, and an overall diminishment of well-being. This finding demonstrates how customer interactions can become a site of self-inconsistency when employees are exposed to extreme levels of felt stigma, causing them to behave in ways that conflict with their values.

This challenge is most pronounced when employees hold their personal values with high intensity, defined as the strength and centrality attached to those values (Chatman, 1989). For FSEs who have established core personal values such as individuality and integrity, passing represents a sharper value deviation, generating stronger discomfort through self-inconsistency and harsher impacts on well-being. On the other hand, when these values are held more flexibly or less centrally, employees are less likely to experience this challenge as they interpret their passing as less of a value violation.

We have explored non-heterosexual service employees’ drivers for passing among customers as well as the well-being outcomes of these passing decisions. Using a stigma lens to study these interactions, we find that stigma drives employee passing behavior in some, but not all, customer interactions, and that these experiences of stigma are powerful enough to result in negative well-being for employees as their identity is challenged. Figure 1 illustrates how felt stigma is informed by contextual service factors that trigger employees’ passing intentions and result in different challenges to well-being depending on whether employees choose to pass.

Our model highlights the precarious situation that non-heterosexual FSEs may find themselves in when navigating their sexual identities at work. We find that both choosing to pass and choosing not to pass can have negative well-being outcomes for employees, resulting in a “double bind.” On one hand, by not passing, FSEs may experience a surge in exposure to felt and enacted stigma, resulting in them feeling anxious, frightened or self-conscious. On the other hand, by passing, FSEs may struggle with maintaining a sense of self-authenticity and grapple with perceptions of diminished self-consistency, both of which can result in cognitive and emotional strain – an almost paradoxical outcome given that passing is typically engaged as a coping strategy to alleviate the stressors associated with felt stigma (Clair et al., 2005).

We find that employees weigh the costs of passing against the risks of not when navigating interactions with customers. For example, at times, the challenges associated with passing may be judged as less damaging than the risks of negative interactions with customers, particularly when felt stigma is strong. When felt stigma is weaker, employees may choose to “risk” negative customer interactions in pursuit of authentic and consistent identity expression. Our model also shows how contextual drivers moderate FSEs’ experiences of these challenges. For example, when an employee has lower identity resilience (self-oriented), the harm associated with the challenge of customer reactions is worsened compared to an FSE who has stronger identity resilience. Ultimately, we conclude that FSEs’ well-being outcomes are highly situational and suggest that there is likely no universal “ideal” passing approach for FSEs to optimize well-being outcomes.

We set out to expand on research that has examined the passing experiences of non-heterosexual people among colleagues (e.g. Ozbilgin et al., 2023) by exploring FSEs’ navigation of sexual stigma in customer–employee interactions. Through this, we have illuminated the effects of stigma management on the well-being of service employees in their work and contribute to services marketing theory in a number of ways.

First, the experiences of non-heterosexual service employees are commonly left out of TSR. Earlier literature has identified the experiences of harm facing other stigmatized employees in their customer interactions, based on stigma such as religion (Chaouali et al., 2024), disability (Marques et al., 2025) and nationality (Nath, 2011). Our research has revealed the harm that non-heterosexual service employees may also experience in their customer-facing work, addressing a notable gap in understanding and addressing employee well-being within TSR literature. Importantly, these interactional harms can be understood as occurring within a broader context of market omission (Bennett et al., 2016), where stigmatized groups’ “identities and needs are not considered or reflected in [service] design and delivery” (p. 283). Our work contributes by shining a light on the harms experienced by non-heterosexual employees in their customer interactions so that service systems might be better designed in ways that reflect diverse identities.

Next, while our conceptual model is built on data collected from service employees navigating concealable sexual stigma, the model could apply to other contexts of employee stigma management, including stigma associated with concealable features such as religion, disability or nationality as explored in earlier literature. For those employees with concealable stigma relating to their accent, for example, similar processes of environmental scanning (based on customer-, role- and self-oriented factors) may inform their perception of felt stigma and therefore drive their decision to pass (e.g. by adopting an accent aligned with a dominant social group), albeit at a potential cost to their self-authenticity and self-consistency. Broadly, our model extends stigma theory by offering a transferable lens for understanding how service employees negotiate concealable stigma at work, satisfying calls to extend the application of stigma theory in marketing contexts to achieve more transformative ends (Rocha and Veloso, 2024).

Our work also contributes to and extends emerging literature exploring service actor vulnerability, specifically relating to frontline employee vulnerability. The majority of literature exploring service actor vulnerability has focused on customers’ experiences of vulnerability, with comparatively less consideration for employees in these interactions (Riedel et al., 2023). Our findings demonstrate the role of contextual factors in shaping FSE vulnerability through varying experiences of stigma. Importantly, we provide empirical support to Riedel et al.’s (2023) conceptualization of employee vulnerability by showing that not all non-heterosexual FSEs experience similar levels of stigma in their customer-facing work, nor are experiences of vulnerability static for each employee. Through this, our work also supports state-based conceptualizations of market actor vulnerability, where the vulnerability of actors is situationally dependent (Baker et al., 2005).

Notably, our research reveals that felt stigma is a powerful source of vulnerability for FSEs. Existing literature has unearthed the role that enacted stigma from customers, in the form of overt discrimination, plays in driving experiences of vulnerability in service employees’ work (e.g. Mills and Owens, 2023). We expand on this literature to show that felt stigma, or the anticipation of these more overt instances of discrimination, is a much more widespread yet covert source of vulnerability. Its subtle nature highlights the importance of addressing both visible and invisible sources of workplace stigma to improve the well-being of employees.

Finally, our study answers the call for further inquiry into how service research can contribute to the UN’s SDGs, particularly in the realization of decent work for employees at risk of experiencing vulnerability (Russell-Bennett et al., 2024). We contribute to the academic discussion around how we, as service researchers, can enhance the psychological well-being of young non-heterosexual FSEs who may be experiencing vulnerability in their roles. Through this study, we provide a foundation for service researchers to devise and implement policies that support these FSEs, particularly in line with SDG 8. We present these next.

Practitioners must first recognize that non-heterosexual FSEs’ experiences of stigma are detrimental to their well-being at work, regardless of whether they choose to pass or not. With this said, when non-heterosexual identities are legitimized at work, the motivation to pass with customers is reduced as felt stigma diminishes. To improve the well-being of stigmatized employees, organizations should look to reduce employees’ motivations to pass by driving structural and cultural change that provides FSEs with supporting resources, thereby also lessening their vulnerability to harm in their work (Riedel et al., 2023).

At a structural level, service organizations can legitimize stigmatized identities by implementing inclusive recruitment and employment policies and ensuring diverse representation in organizational decision-making and leadership (Kelly et al., 2021). It is also important that organizations look to balance customer sovereignty with employee dignity, beginning with the humanization of FSEs. Low-barrier changes such as displaying visible symbols of inclusion (such as posters or badges) in customer-facing areas can signal support to stigmatized FSEs while shaping customer expectations of respectful behavior toward all employees. Likewise, equipping managers with the skillsets to detect and intervene promptly in customer interactions that might threaten the dignity of stigmatized FSEs would also help ensure that employees feel supported and safe without compromising the overall service experience.

At a cultural level, service managers can support the psychological well-being of employees through their everyday practices, such as modeling inclusive language in their workplace interactions, encouraging collegial storytelling and recognizing significant cultural days for diverse communities (for example, IDAHOBIT, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia). These sorts of changes can work to reduce the commonly perceived discrepancy between employees’ work and stigmatized identities, supporting authentic identity expression in customer interactions and minimizing their exposure to self-authenticity and self-consistency tensions. Importantly, these changes will work to enhance psychological safety across the entire workforce – all employees, whether experiencing stigma or not, are also likely to benefit from clearer behavioral expectations of customers, inclusive leadership and a work environment where identity expression is respected and supported.

While these changes may work to limit stigmatized employees’ exposure to felt stigma in customer interactions, they may not entirely eradicate it nor protect employees from enacted stigma. Having pathways in place for employees to voice their experiences of customer-derived stigma can be a valuable coping strategy for employees experiencing vulnerability (Kim and Woo, 2024). Equipping service managers with training in supporting colleagues facing identity-based stigma through debriefing would be valuable; short, structured conversations held between employees and managers after stigma-based incidents can help FSEs process challenging interactions, validate their experiences and identify further needs for support (Wittkower et al., 2022). Service organizations might also set up internal reporting channels to capture customer incidents and offer tailored support (such as counselling) to impacted employees.

Most importantly, any initiatives should be designed and implemented in consultation with stigmatized FSEs wherever possible. Overall, our findings reveal that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to supporting FSEs would likely be ineffective. Employees experience differing levels of felt stigma based on context-specific factors (customer-, role- and self-oriented), shaping differing needs and preferences for support. For example, in more professional sectors such as finance or consultancy, organizations might look to foster professional peer networks (such as ally networks) to signal support for inclusion and encourage FSE authenticity in organizational interactions. For organizations with higher levels of customer turnover such as retail or hospitality, visible symbols of inclusion may be especially beneficial in setting expectations of inclusive customer behavior. Ultimately, it is important that practices be co-created with employees to reflect service context and ensure that support mechanisms are meaningful and effective.

The benefits of supporting decent work for non-heterosexual employees by improving their well-being in customer interactions are also likely to extend to other service and societal outcomes. When employee well-being improves, employees tend to be more productive (Pichler et al., 2018) and deliver higher quality service to customers (Benitez and Medina, 2022) – by supporting employee dignity, organizations can actually improve service quality. Crucially, supporting authentic identity expression at work will increase the visibility of non-heterosexuality in service roles. Over time, this visibility can help to normalize sexual diversity in service settings and challenge the heteronormative assumptions that often underpin everyday market interactions (Mills and Owens, 2023).

While our study offers foundational insights into the experiences of non-heterosexual FSEs who identify as men, we recognize that our findings are shaped by the relatively homogeneous composition of our sample. Most respondents were white, cisgender men, which limits the transferability of our findings to other sexuality- and gender-diverse service employees and may have led to early thematic convergence within our sample. This includes non-heterosexual women, as well as transgender and non-binary people, whose experiences of stigma management in customer interactions may differ in important ways. Future research in this transformative space should explore how stigma and identity are negotiated in customer interactions across a broader range of intersecting identities (Uduehi et al., 2025), and assess if (and how) our findings apply to these intersectional contexts. In addition, while we sought to keep our sample size small to more deeply engage with our respondents and their experiences, this likely also limits the generalizability of our findings to other stigmatized groups. Future research with a larger sample may allow for a greater exploration of within-group differences and further support the emergent themes we have identified here in wider applications.

We acknowledge that men who are more highly engaged in passing behaviors (such as those who are not “out” at all) may have been less likely to participate in a study of this nature and may therefore be underrepresented in our sample. This includes people who do not identify as gay, such as bisexual or pansexual men, and who are generally less likely to be “out” because of harsher perceptions and experiences of stigma (Feinstein et al., 2019). As a result, they may have been less visible within the referral networks through which our sample was constructed, which is reflected in our sample that consisted mostly of gay-identifying men. This is a common limitation in research on stigma, where the very individuals most affected may be the hardest to reach (e.g. Herek et al., 2009). This limitation highlights the importance of ongoing research that adopts diverse and non-threatening recruitment strategies for those whose experiences may be overlooked in TSR and offers future research opportunities exploring the vulnerability experiences of these employees. On the other hand, our sample also did not include any FSEs who reported completely opting out of passing in customer interactions. The experiences of employees who choose not to pass at all may reveal interesting positive aspects to a blanket approach of non-passing while also potentially revealing more frequent or intense examples of customer reactions. Examining these dynamics would offer a valuable extension to our study and to services literature.

Finally, the goal of SDG 8 is to secure decent work around the globe; however, we acknowledge that Australia and New Zealand are culturally relatively tolerant of non-heterosexuality (Bettinsoli et al., 2020). Thus, the findings from this research may not be applicable in those countries in which non-heterosexuality is more, or less, accepted. While we provide a foundational understanding of employees’ experiences with sexual stigma in customer service work, more research is required in countries around the world to ensure the universal progression of SDG 8.