History Main / SheIstheKing

* ''ComicStrip/Peanuts'' has Marcie calling Peppermint Patty 'Sir'. Initially from some confusion (given Patty's personal tastes and prevailing attitudes at the time), but eventually just out of habit. Which does lead to DontCallMeSir for a while.

** In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', dwarfs have traditionally had mentioning gender to be a faux-pas. Therefore, female dwarfs appear and present as men (or, from their perspective, appear and present as ''dwarfs'', which humans interprete as "men" because armour, battleaxe and [[GirlsWithMoustaches beard]] says "male" to humans in the absence of other evidence). Therefore, it is quite likely that half of the Low Kings have been female, but no one knows. Rhys Rhysson makes this observation in the final speech at the end of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', [[spoiler: before openly declaring herself the first Low-Queen of the Dwarfs]].

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** Technically happens in ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', but only because nobody thought (or dared) to ''ask'' the dragon who'd seized temporary rulership of Ankh-Morpork if it was male or female before they started calling her "King".
** Traditionally, all dwarfs are assumed to be male, so presumably many secret females have taken the title of Low King. [[spoiler: At the end of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', Rhys Rhysson openly announces she is female, and therefore Queen.]]

** Similarly, dwarfs have traditionally had mentioning gender to be a faux-pas. Therefore, female dwarfs appear and present as men. Therefore, it is quite likely that half of Dwarfish Kings have been female, but no one knows. Rhys Rhysson makes this observation in the final speech at the end of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', [[spoiler: before openly declaring herself the first Low-Queen of the Dwarfs]].

* In ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'', the supreme dwarf ruler is always and ever "the Low King", no matter what genitalia the current King has. Discworld dwarves have historically refused to recognize gender at all, although it has been hinted several times that the current Low King might be female and unashamed of the fact. [[spoiler:Confirmed in ''Literature/RaisingSteam''.]]

** Traditionally, all dwarves are assumed to be male, so presumably many secret females have taken the title of Low King. [[spoiler: At the end of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', Rhys Rhysson openly announces she is female, and therefore Queen.]]

** Similarly, Dwarves have traditionally had mentioning gender to be a faux-pas. Therefore, female dwarves appear and present as men. Therefore, it is quite likely that half of Dwarven Kings have been female, but no one knows. Rhys Rhysson makes this observation in the final speech at the end of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', [[spoiler: before openly declaring herself the first Low-Queen of the Dwarves]].

** While under current law women are barred from the line of succession, eight women have ascended Japan's Chrysanthemum Throne during its history. All of them used the same title as their male counterparts: "''tennō''". While the title is normally translated as the masculine "Emperor", the literal translation is "Heavenly Sovereign", which is gender-neutral.

* Elagabalus was a third-century Roman emperor who much to the dismay of his subjects preferred to be referred to as "empress", and who would (probably) be considered transgender by today's standards.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': [[spoiler:Saber is [[Myth/KingArthur King Arturia "Arthur" Pendragon]]. She was pretending to be a male King Arthur, but according to the narrator, most people in her inner circle (besides Merlin and "Arthur"'s official wife, Guinevere, who both already knew) either realized or at least suspected that she is a girl, they just [[SelectiveObliviousness chose to ignore it]]. In fact, some of them didn't even care as long as she was able to prove herself the best choice for ruler. Arturia was prophesied to become king, but due to the sexism and misogyny of Ancient Britain, she had to disguise as a man to prevent the hysterics that would arise if a woman became king. Arturia was seen as TheGoodKing, but the fall of her kingdom was ironically not because the people found out her true gender (in fact, it was never revealed), but because she believed that she had to abandon emotion and use cool logic to make the best choices possible. This in turn started leading her people to see her as an inhuman king who never truly understood them, and when the Lancelot-Guinevere affair happened and [[WellDoneDaughterGal Mordred]] was tactlessly rejected as an heir, the latter used the former to help incite rebellion among the kingdom.]]

This trope is frequently employed as a means of GenderMisdirection.

In terms of the ranks of AuthorityTropes, the tropes that are equal are GodSaveUsFromTheQueen, TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask, TheHighQueen, TheGoodKing, and PresidentEvil. The next steps down are TheEvilPrince, PrinceCharming, PrinceCharmless, ShelteredAristocrat, WarriorPrince, TheWisePrince, and all PrincessTropes. The next step up is TheEmperor.

* In ''LightNovel/IveBeenKillingSlimesFor300YearsAndMaxedOutMyLevel'', the King of Demons is a traditional title and does not change for the gender of the one currently holding it. As of volume 2, it is held by Provato Pecora Ariés, a female demon.

* ''ComicBook/'XMen'': The Hellfire Club has always used chess motifs to indicate rank. The King is in charge, the Queen acts as his Lancer and wears one-fifth the clothing, and the Rook and Bishop are high-ranked minions. When former White Queen Emma Frost returned and took over following a split with the X-Men, she took the title Black King to let everyone know who was in charge.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'': This is more of a [[ChessMotifs chess motif]] during a Rating Game. An example would be Rias herself who is considered a King because she's the most important person in that particular game. The inversion, a male with title of Queen, appears at least once as well.

* ''[[LightNovel/Overlord2012 Overlord]]'': The Wise King Of The Forest that everyone is terrified of turns out to be a female giant hamster.
* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': Hunter J's {{mook}}s always call her "Sir."

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the Lord of Nightmares, "''She who shines like gold upon the Sea of Chaos''", the supreme creator goddess of the ''Slayers'' universe.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'': Alice refers to Fanatio, vice-commander of the Integrity Knights as "Sir Fanatio" in the Crunchyroll subs (she uses the extremely respectful gender-neutral honorific "-dono" in the original Japanese). Considering that Fanatio uses a full-face helmet to hide the fact that she's a woman, this would be an example of a woman disguising herself as a man, but it's revealed in Volume 15 that Alice has long been aware of Fanatio's gender.

* [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen The Hellfire Club]] has always used chess motifs to indicate rank. The King is in charge, the Queen acts as his Lancer and wears one-fifth the clothing, and the Rook and Bishop are high-ranked minions. When former White Queen ComicBook/EmmaFrost returned and took over following a split with the X-Men, she took the title Black King to let everyone know who was in charge.

* ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'': All Abh noble titles are gender-neutral in [[ConstructedLanguage their native language]]. This occasionally leads to some confusion in the translations that leave the Abh terms intact.

* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', with its ChessMotifs, this is seen in some teams with male characters taking the "Queen" position.

* In one episode of ''Anime/{{Slayers}}'', one of the queen's consorts (in a matriarchal society) was able to hide the crown prince's gender, as well as the gender of multiple members of the royal guard. The queen does NOT take this well. Nor does Zelgadis, who had a crush on said prince.

** Similarly White Cosmos, the White King, [[spoiler: head of the Acceleration Research Society and Black Lotus's elder sister]]. Purple Thorn both uses this trope as the Purple King and averts is with her [[RedBaron nickname]] ''Empress'' Voltage

* The German word for "The Girl" is a gender-neutral word ("Das Mädchen")[[note]] because it's a diminutive and all diminutives are gender-neutral (the same is true for "Das Bübchen" or "Das Knabchen", which both mean "a little boy"). The original word for "a girl" is "Die Madel", but for some reason, it fell into disuse. [[/note]] This has UnfortunateImplications to modern ppeakers, implying that young girls are property instead of a human being. When it is used to refer to a specific person, the word will retain neutral articles (Such as "The" and "A" in English) but will use the feminine third-person pronoun. Some speakers have taken to using the feminine "Die" instead of "Das" as well, though it does sound forced. This isn't a problem inherent to just the word girl, as most German words seem to have little logic behind their gender. Additionally, loan words are [[AlwaysMale always masculine]] for no reason. In this case, a female robot (a loan word) would use masculine articles ("Der") but take feminine pronouns ("Sie") instead of masculine ones ("Er").

* Likewise, in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Kuvira names herself "Earth Emperor". Earlier in the series, there was an Earth Queen who took over from her father, the Earth King from the first series, but Kuvira has higher ambitions than that and likely wants to avoid any association with the previous ruler.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', clone troopers always refer to their Jedi commanders as "sir," regardless of gender.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2: [[LongTitle The Grimoire of the Rift]]'' features the {{Bonus Boss}}es, the Five Kings of [[GratuitousFrench Cinquleur]], the Red, the Blue, the Green, the Black, and the White, each focusing on that type of ColorCodedWizardry. They are all called "kings", even though the Red and the Green are part of the female OneGenderRace of Viera.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2: [[LongTitle The Grimoire of the Rift]]'' features the {{Bonus Boss}}es, the Five Kings of [[GratuitousFrench Cinqueleur]], the Red, the Blue, the Green, the Black, and the White, each focusing on that type of ColorCodedWizardry. They are all called "kings", even though the Red and the Green are part of a female OneGenderRace.

* Knights in ''Franchise/DragonAge'' use the honorific "Ser", which you may recognize from [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire a certain other]] [[Series/GameOfThrones fantasy franchise]], only in this case it's used for male and female knights. It can also be used as a formal address equivalent to "sir", as in "yes ser". The difference is exactly the same as calling someone sir to be polite and the actual title "Sir" which is used for British knights.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the ruler of Kamigawa holds the title Emporer, regardless of gender (and is only ever called The Emporer, being otherwise NoNameGiven). The current Emporer of Kamagawa is a young woman.

* In the {{UsefulNotes/Philippines}}, as a result of Tagalog's LanguageDrift more or less caused by the influence of the Spanish language due to colonization, many titles that used to be gender-neutral are now given exclusively to males, making these examples below retrospective cases of this.
** "Hari" was a title given to the highest ruler, male or female. Nowadays, it only refers to male rulers, hence why its modern English translation is "King" when its closest neutral translation would've been "Monarch". In contrast, the Tagalog word for "Queen" is "Reyna", a Spanish loanword. This usage can still be seen in [[TheArtifact old translations]] of Roman Catholic prayers referring to UsefulNotes/TheVirginMary, such as "Aba Po, Santa Mariang Hari" ("Hail Holy [Marian] Queen").
** "Ginoo" is also a common term used to address UsefulNotes/TheVirginMary (i.e. "Aba Ginoong Maria", the Tagalog version's incipit of the "Hail Mary"), since it was bestowed upon persons who were considered of utmost respect. Nowadays, it's a male honorific equivalent to "Sir" or "Mister".

** "Hari" was a title given to the highest ruler, male or female. Nowadays, it only refers to male rulers, hence why its modern English translation is "King" when its closest neutral translation would've been "Monarch". In contrast, the Tagalog word for "Queen" is "Reyna", a Spanish loanword. This usage can still be seen in [[TheArtifact old translations]] of Roman Catholic prayers referring to UsefulNotes/TheVirginMary, such as "Aba Po, Santa Mariang Hari" ("Hail Holy Queen").

* In the {{UsefulNotes/Philippines}}, as a result of Tagalog's LanguageDrift more or less caused by the influence of the Spanish language as a result of colonization, many titles that used to be gender-neutral are now given exclusively to males, making these examples below retrospective cases of this.

* "Hari" was a title given to the highest ruler, male or female. Nowadays, it only refers to male rulers, hence why its modern English translation is "King" when its closest neutral translation would've been "Monarch". In contrast, the Tagalog word for "Queen" is "Reyna", a Spanish loanword. This usage can still be seen in [[TheArtifact old translations]] of Roman Catholic prayers referring to UsefulNotes/TheVirginMary, such as "Aba Po, Santa Mariang Hari" ("Hail Holy Queen").

* The German Word for "The Girl" is a gender-neutral word ("Das Mädchen")[[note]] because it's a diminutive and all diminutives are gender-neutral (the same is true for "Das Bübchen" or "Das Knabchen", which both mean "a little boy"). The original word for "a girl" is "Die Madel", but for some reason, it fell into disuse. [[/note]] This has UnfortunateImplications to Modern Speakers, implying that young girls are property instead of a human being. When it is used to refer to a specific person, the word will retain neutral articles (Such as "The" and "A" in English) but will use the feminine third-person Pronoun. Some speakers have taken to using the feminine "Die" instead of "Das" as well, though it does sound forced. This isn't a problem inherent to just the word girl, as most German words seem to have little logic behind their gender. Additionally, loan words are [[AlwaysMale always masculine]] for no reason. In this case, a female robot (a loan word) would use masculine articles ("Der") but take feminine pronouns ("Sie") instead of masculine ones ("Er").

*** In 2013, the UK abolished male-preference primogeniture in favor of absolute primogeniture, so it's possible that in future generations the heir apparent will always be called Prince(ss) of Wales regardless of gender.

** Because the records from the end of the 18th Dynasty are so fragmented due to attempts to obliterate Akhenaten and his family, there was serious speculation for a time that the pharaoh Smenkhkare was Akhenaten's widow Nefertiti ruling as a male. Today, they are pretty sure that Nefertiti ruled as a woman under the personal name Neferneferuaten. It's accepted now that Smenkhkare was someone else, specifically Nefertiti and Akhenaten's son-in-law (married to their eldest child Meritaten) who took the throne either before Nefertiti (as a co-regent of Akhenaten) or after her. The confusion arose partly because they both used the throne name Ankhkheperure ("Life and Transfiguration of Ra" or perhaps "Living/Enduring Are the Forms of Ra"[[note]]Throne names of the form "[Whatever]kheperure" were common throughout the Eigteenth Dynasty, starting with UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}}'s great-great grandfather Amenhotep II Aakheperure "Great are the Forms of Re" and ending with the last one Horemheb Djeserkheperure "Holy are the Forms of Re". Some kind of repetition was probably almost inevitable.[[/note]]).

** Because the records from the end of the 18th Dynasty are so fragmented due to attempts to obliterate Akhenaten and his family, there was serious speculation for a time that the pharaoh Smenkhkare was Akhenaten's widow Nefertiti ruling as a male. Today, they are pretty sure that Nefertiti ruled as a woman under the personal name Neferneferuaten. It's accepted now that Smenkhkare was someone else, specifically Nefertiti and Akhenaten's son-in-law (married to their eldest child Meritaten) who took the throne either before Nefertiti (as a co-regent of Akhenaten) or after her. The confusion arose partly because they both used the throne name Ankh-kheperu-re ("Life and Transfiguration of Ra" or perhaps "Living/Enduring Are the Forms of Ra").

** Hatshepsut crowned herself king and maintained an elaborate legal fiction of maleness. Because the king was, mythologically speaking, the son of Ra, he had to be a man, even if he was a woman. She even insisted on being called "''His'' Majesty". Statues of her go so far as to depict her with a male body, but an obviously female face.