The difference between categorical and non-categorical privilege is that categorical privilege is based on someone belonging to a category, like their race or sex or sexual orientation and non-categorical privilege is a more individualistic concept, denoting that specific people seem to, through their speech or actions, have an easier ride in life than others in some way or another.

[…I]n a forum, the discussion would quickly turn into one of categorical privilege, where people would […] assign her categorical privileges like upper class privilege or heterosexual privilege, citing that some category she falls under is clearly the one and only explanation for her flagrant demonstration of privilege. Some less cogent forum posters devolve into rants about how non-privileged they are and all the anger they want to express no longer just at her but the entire category she falls under (upper class or heterosexual).

The irony I see in this sort of behavior and as a problem with categorical privilege itself is that it is precisely the line of thinking that keeps them non-privileged by their own system. They argue that people assume things about them because of their race or sex or socioeconomic status or sexual orientation, yet here they are working backwards from the privilege to the privileged category and claiming that the entire privileged category has some monolithic uniform experience, and that we can assume they will all act the same way because they come from that category. If we can assume all that, can you blame other people for assuming that non-privileged categories will all act the same way because of the category THEY come from? Does this not reduce to the same problem that spawned the idea of talking about privilege in the first place?