In society, taking care of individuals who do not fit into normative schemes is an intensive and continuously complex task. Many people are oriented this way in confined spaces with limited contacts with the outside world. Being placed in a medico-social institution (which represents one of these confined spaces) is a profound source of stigmatisation which involves particular ways in which it is produced for those who engage with it voluntarily or otherwise, and control for those who suffer it. Based on covert participatory-observation in such an institute, this article studies how stigmatisation occurs in the inmates’ social life. It also focuses on the resources which inmates possess to counteract the effects of the stigma in order to protect their social identity.