History Main / SamusisaGirl

* In the one-shot crossover ''ComicBook/SpiderMan vs. ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'', both heroes are on the trail of Wolverine's former partner, named "Charlie", which is given as being short for: "Charlemagne". When Wolverine finally catches up with Charlie, the rogue agent is revealed to be a "she". Wolverine naturally knew all along, but Spidey, as well as the READER were kept in the dark by clever avoidance of gender-specific pronouns (not to mention a flashback where "Charlie" is deliberately shown in gender-neutral disguise). It's implied that Charlemagne uses the ambiguous nature of her name as an additional cover to her identity.

* The 1953 Creator/ECComics story "Judgment Day", although [[spoiler:the example is racial rather than sexual]]. The planet the story takes place on is populated by orange and blue robots. They are identical but for outer casings and programming, [[FantasticRacism but the blue robots sit at the back of the bus, recharge in different stations, live in their own sector in town]]. The human evaluating the robot society does not let them progress to space until they can get over that, noting that Earth was like this once, and only owned the universe after humans learned to live together. In the last panel of the story [[spoiler:he takes off his helmet, revealing that he is black]]. UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode Authority even tried to have the revelation removed from the story prior to publishing, but the publishers fought them, and they backed down, although it was a PyrrhicVictory for EC Comics, which were eventually harassed into shutting down.

!!Examples:

* The infamous [[spoiler:"[=TheLegend27=]"]] from ''VideoGame/GameOfWarFireAge'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCiDfm9i9rQ ads.]]

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034221 Meeting Someone New,]]'' a ''Film/TheHobbit'' fanfic on Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn, new settlers come to Erebor, and Kíli hates one of them, a brave warrior, at first sight, because he's everything Kíli is not. When the stranger starts to court Kíli, hate turns to love. When the other dwarf reveals that she is a woman, Kíli is surprised, but not shocked. As all dwarves have beards, no helmet is required for the misunderstanding to happen.
* In ''Fanfic/AshesOfThePast'', Ash's Pidgeot turns out to be female [[BerserkButton and does not like being mistaken for male.]]

* In the ''Film/{{Brightburn}}'' fic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13300152/1/Dies-the-Fire "Dies the Fire,"]] after fifteen years conquering the world, Brandon is lured back to Brightburn and confronted by a warrior in a suit of armour. The full-body suit and modulated voice lead Brandon to assume the warrior is male, and it's only after his opponent has revealed their access to grenades based on the radiation generated by Brandon's ship that he does enough damage to the suit to realise that his opponent is female, and he only identifies her as his old crush, Caitlyn Connors, after she's done enough damage that he's begging for his life.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/BewareTheEqualizer'', the titular character wearing PoweredArmor and a CoolHelmet and wielding a MagicStaff is revealed to be none other than [[spoiler:[[StepfordSmiler Starlight Glimmer]]]].

* ''VisualNovel/HenchmanStory'' has Shining Nova, a superhero who wears a masculine-looking suit of PowerArmor and uses a voice changer to disguise the fact that she's really a petite young woman. It's one of the many, ''many'' measures she takes to keep her secret identity under wraps.

* The music video for Music/TheProdigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" is shown from the point of view of a person who goes to a bar, gets drunk, gets into a fight, and gropes women before returning home and passing out in front of a mirror, which reveals the the person is a woman. The trope was likely used to counter claims at the song's release that it was misogynist.

* The original Ronin in ''ComicBook/NewAvengers'' turned out to be Characters/{{Daredevil|MattMurdock}}'s love interest Echo (after a minor RedHerring that it was DD himself).

-->She woke up like she did every day: slowly pulling her motorcycle helmet off, then shaking her head slowly back and forth to reveal a long, blonde ponytail. Everyone gasped. “That’s right,” she said, kicking the winning football goal before sliding into a sheer, sexy camisole under a blazer and playing as hard as she worked, “I’ve been a girl ''this whole time''.” One of the guys, the real sexy one, shook his head in slow motion, as if to say “wh-wh-wh-whaaat?” You know the kind. His mouth was kind of open while he did it. He was totally blown away.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheWarToEndAllWarsTheMovie'': During "Lady of the Dark", an Austrian soldier knocks Milunka Savić's hat off and is astonished when the feminine long hair she'd kept tucked under it falls free.

* Mekhane from the WebOriginal/SCPFoundation is an odd case. Mekhane’s gender is DependingOnTheWriter, but in the earlier days of the site, they were most often depicted as a male. In recent times, however, Mekhane is now most frequently depicted as a goddess, likely stemming from their name being a feminine noun in Ancient Greek.

* In a 2018 Shiseido ad titled "[[https://youtu.be/dPhxC6YzAvo?si=gNVtgJa6bJ6YCG6_ The Party Bus - I can't tell you that I love you]]", a young woman cosplaying as Princess Kaguya at a Halloween party in a bus struggles to choose between two suitors, one of whom is cosplaying as Dracula and another is cosplaying as a samurai wearing a skull mask before leaving the bus to follow the latter who then removes the mask and is revealed to be female.

'''Lana:''' Well...Samus is a veteran of many impossible missions! Samus is a super-powered cyborg! Samus is the greatest space hunter in the Galactic Federation! ''[Samus removes her helmet]'' Samus is a...woman?!?!\\

* ''ComicBook/{{The Sandman|1989}}'':

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/PussInBoots'', Puss's first meeting with Kitty Softpaws has him face her off in a DanceOff. When it ends, he's shocked when she removes her mask to reveal a feminine face and voice. Being a cat, she didn't need to do anything else to hide her gender (though she wasn't trying to keep it a secret).

* ''Manga/MetroidSamusAndJoey'' paints Samus as the mercenary equivalent of a ReclusiveArtist. Even InUniverse most people think that Samus is a man, and [[YouDidntAsk Samus doesn't bother to correct them]]. Mostly because she's [[IWorkAlone a lone wolf]] who HatesSmallTalk and doesn't really care what people think of her as long as they keep giving her work, though it's also implied she might be encouraging [[ShroudedInMyth some of the crazier rumours]] so that people won't recognize her when she's off-duty. Joey manages to go on multiple adventures with Samus [[DramaticIrony without realising she's a woman]], even thinking of her as a ''substitute father'' of sorts, until she removes her suit in front of him before they part ways at the end of the final chapter.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}''[=/=]''Literature/{{Worm}}'' play-by-post game ''Roleplay/HatchlingQuest'', PRT's Head of Image brings this up when [[http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/hatchling-quest-worm-metroid.22540/page-19 he remarks that Samus could easily pass for a boy while wearing her Power Armor]]. This trope befittingly becomes something of a RunningGag throughout the story: Samus keeps a SecretIdentity, and even though it's been publicly stated she is a girl from another universe, there are many people who nonetheless think the story is a cover-up and that she's either a boy or a robot. Even those who accept the official explanation are still surprised to find there's a blond, teenage girl under the power armor.

* One of the stories in the ''Metroid'' anthology fanfic "See You Next Mission" involves this. [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2391151/8/See-You-Next-Mission The second half of a two-parter]] has a fellow bounty hunter that Samus recently teamed-up with be [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes jealous of the Varia Suit]] and desiring to steal it for himself. He catches Samus off-guard while she's lounging around in her ship and manages to get away with the armor, but assumes the woman he just knocked unconscious was a dumb prostitute that Samus bought the services of. Then when Samus naturally starts hunting for him, he "realizes" that the woman was really Samus Aran's lover and that he's probably waiting nearby; he doesn't learn the truth until he sees Samus wearing the suit (sans helmet) moments before he dies.

* In the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] fic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/31456490 The Artist's Garden at Madripoor]]'', Steve Rogers assumes that the Power Broker is male (which [[TheGadfly Natasha Romanoff]] plays along with) and is shocked to discover that Sharon Carter (whom Steve thought had disappeared during The Snap) is the Power Broker.

** It was frequently implied and later confirmed in ''ComicBook/ImmortalXMen'' that Destiny didn't just share her real name with ''Literature/SherlockHolmes''[='=]s Irene Adler, but actually was Irene herself. While this ''isn't'' an example of it, what's tied to it is: it was also implied and later confirmed that Holmes "himself" was, in fact, Characters/{{Mystique}}, Destiny's lover.

[[caption-width-right:350:Samus's gender: a {{late arrival spoiler}} since 1986!]]

** The spinoff novel ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'' also reveals [[spoiler:Mordred]] to be female.

* The 1953 Creator/ECComics story "Judgment Day", although [[spoiler:the example is racial rather than sexual]]. The planet the story takes place on is populated by orange and blue robots. They are identical but for outer casings and programming, but the blue robots sit at the back of the bus, recharge in different stations, live in their own sector in town. The human evaluating the robot society does not let them progress to space until they can get over that, noting that Earth was like this once, and only owned the universe after humans learned to live together. In the last panel of the story [[spoiler:he takes off his helmet, revealing that he is black]].

* A racial example occurs in the 1953 story "Judgment Day" in ''ComicBook/WeirdFantasy'', in which a human in a space suit is judging a RobotRepublic's fitness to join TheFederation, but the robots are [[FantasticRacism racist]] against their members with blue outer casings, so the human refuses their application. After returning to his spaceship, the human judge removes his helmet to reveal that he's black. The Comics Code Authority even tried to have the revelation removed from the story prior to publishing, but the publishers fought them, and they backed down.

Perhaps nobody mentioned her gender because YouDidntAsk. Or because she's just one among a whole BadassArmy, so nobody paid attention specifically to her. Or because she's a complete stranger that nobody had seen before. Maybe she is a VoiceWithAnInternetConnection, and no one has ever seen her in person. (Audiences' disbelief that a woman could really be doing all these things may be bolstered by the fact that it often ''isn't'' in live-action productions, since CastAsAMask allows the use of male suit actors until the reveal scene.) This is notably harder to pull off in some languages. [[note]]Some languages don't use gender-neutral descriptors that much. It's one thing to say Samus is a bounty hunter in English, but in some languages -- like German, or all latinate languages -- all words are inherently masculine or feminine, and Samus would have to be explicitly described as a "bounty huntress"; likewise, a male character would have to be talked about using clearly masculine word endings. Characters that ''do'' know about Samus' gender and just don't care to elaborate to the listener couldn't just call her a bounty hunter without stretching suspension of disbelief. It's one thing to trick the viewers by clever terminology, but when you completely break your language to do it, the effect becomes not so much "Hey, that's right, the gender was never actually mentioned!" as "Um, why have you been calling her a man this whole time?" Whether this works in Mandarin may even hinge on the medium; this is because Mandarin "he" and "she" are pronounced the same but written differently. Even the ''time period'' can make a difference, as "man" in English or "他" in Classical Chinese both used to be gender neutral, but is now explicitly masculine. But in other languages like Japanese and English, it is becoming more common to use the "masculine" or "gender-neutral" term when referring to women. For example, female comedians are almost never referred to as comediennes these days, and waiters and waitresses are often known as just servers.[[/note]]

[[folder:Other]]
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d%27Eon Chevalier d'Eon,]] 18th Century French spy and diplomat, who presented as male for most of his life, until his political enemies began to circulate rumors that he was secretly a woman. Rather than dispute the rumor, d'Eon inexplicably elected instead to live openly as a woman for the remainder of their life. A post-mortem examination revealed that d'Eon was biologically male (albeit with some mildly feminine characteristics). Theories that they may have been transgender or intersex still abound.
* There was a stagecoach driver in the American West named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Parkhurst Charley Parkhurst.]] One-eyed Charley was known for his toughness and could handle anything, up to and including armed bandits. After his death (at age 67), the person who laid him out discovered "Charlie" was biologically female, and his birth name turned out to be Charlotte.
** A tribute of sorts is given in the second and fourth ''Blackadder'' series, where a girl named Kate pretends to be a young man named Bob Parkhurst.
** A similar discovery was made about jazz musician [[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1060/whats-the-story-on-the-female-jazz-musician-who-lived-as-a-man Billy Tipton (nee Dorothy Lucille Tipton),]] following Tipton's death. Even Tipton's adopted sons and at least one sexual partner didn't know Tipton's true sex.
* Lots of people tend to call unfamiliar dogs "boy" on first sight, [[FemaleFelineMaleMutt assuming they're male]] until proven otherwise. This used to be {{inverted|Trope}} in some parts of Israel (particularly in UsefulNotes/{{Jerusalem}}), where every unfamiliar cat was referred to as female until proven otherwise. In the past couple of decades this has reversed, so that now the trope is played straight.
** Some languages such as Spanish or French have every nouns gendered, including animals name. Therefore an unknown animal might be given the gender associated with his species' pronouns until it's actually confirmed.
** Insects and spiders are often assumed to be female. justified because this is the most active gender of these species while male are less common outside of the nest.
* A non-human example is Cher Ami, a pigeon who saved many lives in World War I. She was thought to be male, and her gender wasn't discovered until after her death. She's still referred to as male sometimes, however.
* ''My God! It's a Woman'', the biography of Australian aviatrix Nancy Bird.
* The ScienceFiction author James Tiptree Jr. was discovered, after much controversy and one prominent author penning an essay on how it was ''impossible'' and ''inconceivable'' that James could be a woman, to be a lady named Alice Bradley Sheldon. The fact that she wrote many stories where gender took a major role did not help. George Sand, birth name Lucile Dupin, also qualifies.
* Creator/JKRowling. Apparently, some people were surprised to learn the real name. This was [[MoustacheDePlume deliberately invoked]] by the publisher because their initial target audience was young boys who they felt might be put off by a female author.
** This is pretty common with female authors who write outside traditionally "feminine" genres. [[Literature/TheOutsiders S. E. Hinton]]. Creator/KAApplegate. Creator/CJCherryh. [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries D. C. Fontana]].
** In July 2013 it emerged that "Robert Galbraith", author of the crime novel ''Literature/TheCuckoosCalling'', was in fact Rowling. Sales on Amazon promptly jumped ''150,000%''.
* In the olden days, women who ran businesses would often take advantage of this or run the business through their husband, the legal owner.
* Inverted after ''Literature/EqualRites'', where many assumed Creator/TerryPratchett to be a woman based on the book's feminist themes.
* Jack Prelutsky's children's poem "The New Kid on the Block" describes the titular new kid as a terrible [[TheBully bully]] who "likes to fight and picks on all the guys"; and ends with the line, "I don't care for her at all".
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whEVftJWBjA&NR=1#t=2m8s A beautiful real-life example, except for the fact that it says "Samantha" on the side of the cockpit.]]
* GenderFlip: The video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBd-UCwVAY "It's Time,"]] shot from the perspective of someone who falls in love with a man and builds a relationship with him. The video ends with the man proposing marriage, and the camera pulls back to reveal that the point-of-view character was [[QueerRomance another man this whole time]]. The video was heavily promoted by gay marriage advocates, causing many people to [[ItWasHisSled not even realize that the POV character's gender was supposed to be a]] TwistEnding.
* In the 2012 Orange Bowl, a West Virginia player celebrated by tackling the Orange Bowl mascot. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsK6OKfLCqo This]] is his reaction upon learning that the mascot was played by a woman.
* The first trailer for ''The White Queen'' has this [[RuleOfThree three times over]].
* In UsefulNotes/{{Chinese|Language}}, the words for he and she are pronounced exactly alike (but are written differently). In spoken Chinese, this can lead to [=SIAG=] moments if the subject has a GenderBlenderName or the listener does not have enough context from the sentence to get gender.
* Creator/VCAndrews, AKA Virginia Andrews, said in an interview for ''[[http://www.completevca.com/art_fear.shtml Faces of Fear]]'' that many of her readers were unaware that she was a woman. This resulted in fan mail referring to her as 'Sir' and even female readers sending photos with little or nothing on! Inverted after Andrews' death with her ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman. While long time fans have known the truth, some newer readers are unaware that the books written after 1986 are written by a man.
* M. Brundage, cover illustrator for Magazine/WeirdTales, and one of the TropeMakers for the association of MonsterMisogyny, GoGoEnslavement, and several other forms of covers with fantasy and science fiction. Like many people today, both contemporary fans and MoralGuardians were surprised to learn that the "M" stood for ''Margaret''.
* A chain email circulated around the internet with the joke of showing a letter sent back home to the farm, from a new Army recruit at boot camp. The farmer exults in the joys of "sleeping in until 5 am" and only having to run around and do push-ups instead of hard work. The farmer signs the letter with "Your loving daughter ..." with no prior implication she was female, showing that even farm girls are tougher than city slickers!
[[/folder]]

See TheFaceless and the {{Hackette}}, a SubTrope that relies on the myth that ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet (TheCracker in question being not only contradicting evidence, but better at it than they'd expect her gender to be). Contrast UnsettlingGenderReveal (where characters/some audience members are physically/romantically attracted to this person in their mistaken gender), SweetPollyOliver (Samus Is a Girl from a viewpoint that already knows she's female), ViewerGenderConfusion (where the audience, not the characters, don't know what gender Pat is) and SupernaturallyValidatedTransPerson (where the story reenforces a character's gender rather than using it as a twist). See also GeekyTurnOn, which is sometimes related to this. FemaleMonsterSurprise is a similar trope, but with a monster. May involve GenderMisdirection. Not AlwaysFemale, but usually, due to the typical gender roles where everyone assumes the action hero is a dude; the cast being composed of Amazons is one example where this may be reversed. Also see YourTomcatIsPregnant for when pet-owners make incorrect assumptions about their pets.

* Inverted in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. LadyOfWar Saber is obviously a female knight, but it isn't until later on that we learn she is actually [[spoiler:the legendary Myth/KingArthur]], who used magic to disguise herself as a man because [[spoiler:[[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask she felt that the British probably wouldn't obey a Queen]]]].