History Main / TertiarySexualCharacteristics

** ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' lampshades this by mentioning Minnie's obsession with hairbows, sometimes making it part of the plot. In one episode Mickey and Donald had to crossdress as their own girlfriends (pictured above) to replace a picture of Minnie and Daisy they broke while playing football inside the house.

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Tertiary_Sexual_Characteristics_2487.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:They've got bows, makeup, pink attire, skirts, visible eyelashes, and high heels. Yup, [[DisguisedInDrag definitely girls]]. We swear that's WesternAnimation/{{Minnie|Mouse}} and WesternAnimation/{{Daisy|Duck}}.]]

* The female Chain Chomp that sometimes appears when the Pocket Chomp item is used in ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time]]'' has a bow on its head.

** A recurring quest in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' requires the player to capture a Goomba and meet up with another, female Goomba somewhere in the kingdom. You can tell she's a girl because she has long eyelashes, {{blush sticker}}s, wears a bow on her sun hat, and--oh yeah--is pink. (Actually, she looks a lot like [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor Goombella]].)

** Pab and Peb wear the same bows. This new Beta Couple in ''Bubble Bobble Plus (UsefulNotes/WiiWare)'' was named in the Title Operations Guide in the Wii Shop Channel before it went down. Became a [[DubNameChange Subtitle Name Change]] for Coro and Kulu since a "Bub's Broadcast" [=YouTube=] video in 2021 ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h61yWIBL8t4#t=3m5s at 3:05]]).

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' uses this for some characters in the GenderBender universe--for example, the female version of [[TheDitz Cinnamon Bun]] wears a dress and bow, while the male version of [[CoolOldLady Tree Trunks]] has a mustache and a bow tie. In the normal universe, neither wears clothes.

** Inklings and Octolings (well, teenage ones, anyway) have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example) -- girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]!

** A recurring quest in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' requires the player to capture a Goomba and meet up with another, female Goomba somewhere in the kingdom. You can tell she's a girl because she has long eyelashes, {{blush sticker}}s, and--oh yeah--is pink. (Actually, she looks a lot like [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor Goombella]].) Atypically for this trope, though, she also wears a red cowboy hat.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Twinbee}}'', one of the ships (not just the pilot of said ship, the ship itself) is female. How can you tell? Winbee is pink. Later adations have also shown that her cockpit is shaped like a heart, though this is somewhat excused - with two rounded bumps on top, it also shows she's the second 'bee ship. Twinbee, the original, has a round cockpit (one "bump"), while Gwinbee, the third, appears to have a rounded arrow pointing down (three bumps on the top part of the cockpit).

* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'''s Inklings and Octolings (well, teenage ones, anyway) have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example) -- heck, girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! On the NPC side, Callie, Marie, and Marina all have long eyelashes, though it could just be makeup, while Pearl has no visible ones like other female Inklings. All of the idols have beauty marks, but while Marie and Pearl wear dresses, Callie and Marina both have shorts.

** Pab and Peb, the new Beta Couple in ''Bubble Bobble Plus (UsefulNotes/WiiWare)''. Listed on the Title Operations Guide in the Wii Shop Channel before it went down. Referenced as a [[DubNameChange Subtitle Name Change]] for Coro and Kulu on a "Bub's Broadcast" [=YouTube=] video ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h61yWIBL8t4#t=3m5s at 3:05]]).

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'''s Inklings have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example)--heck, girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! On the NPC side, Callie, Marie, and Marina all have long eyelashes, though it could just be makeup, while Pearl has no visible ones like other female Inklings. All of the idols have beauty marks, but while Marie and Pearl wear dresses, Callie and Marina both have shorts.
* In {{VideoGame/Pokemon}}, we get [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Primarina_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Primarina]] and [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lopunny_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Lopunny]], which can't be told apart as male or female, while most other pokemon can be (as detailed above), as they both look rather feminine in some sense or another (the former looks similar to the usual mermaid and the latter looks a like a playboy bunny). Adding to this, Primarina's gender ratio is about 87 and a half percent male.

* Played with in VideoGame/TeamFortress2: The Pyro, whose gender is up for debate, has a flower purse in his/her/its locker and a Southern Baptist-styled NiceHat as one of its possible headwear.

* ''Franchise/{{Lego}} Life on Mars theme has the female Martian Cassiopeia, whose gender is distinguished from the male Martians by her eyelashes.
* The ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'' toy line rarely used traditional characteristics; the most female-looking character as definitely Roodaka, the spider queen. However, the line ''created'' an internal Tertiary Sexual Characteristic, the color blue. The only female tribe to get toys was the water tribe, and at least ninety percent of all blue figures were members of the water tribe. So, any figure that was blue was assumed to be female until otherwise noted. Though in the current iteration of the franchise, called Gen 2 by the fans, this rule may no longer apply. Korgot, Protector of Earth, is confirmed as female.

** ''Rainbow Islands'': [[spoiler:Three out of eleven random people who have all been imprisoned in TheAlcatraz and transformed into green bubble dragons are female and thus have a pink bow on their head.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie: Nuts and Bolts'', Rare apparently got tired of the years of people going [[ViewerGenderConfusion "Kazooie's a girl?!"]], so they re-made her appearance. She now has long eyelashes, "curly" hair, and a more curvy look, to make her more obviously female. And then, once you beat the game, she starts wearing a bowtie (yes, it's a bow, but it's a masculine bow). Kazooie even keeps her Eyelashes in Super Smahs Bros. Ultimate to show that she is undoubtedly a girl.

** Pab and Peb, the new Beta Couple in ''Bubble Bobble Plus (UsefulNotes/WiiWare)''. (See the Title Operations Guide in the Wii Shop Channel.)

* Jay Briscoe put a bearded skull on his personal Wrestling/RingOfHonor title belt.

* ''Literature/StickGirl'': All of the female dog characters can be identified by their eyelashes, like Stripes and Karen.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'', all of the stitchpunks are artificial lifeforms with no defining characterisitcs, but 7 has a female voice. Other than that, she shows no feminine habits of dress; if anything, her birdskull helmet and militant stance are so stereotypically male as to create a SamusIsAGirl effect when 7 first speaks. The only notable difference is that her fingers are shown to be smaller than 9's.
* Sabor the leopard from ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'' has no feminine characteristics, and doesn't speak. She however is confirmed to be female and apparently had offspring according to some material. The gorillas too lacked heavy gender differentiation aside from their voices (although Kala has dark eyelids that look like she wears eyeshadows), which led to ViewerGenderConfusion with Terk, who was voiced by Rosie O'Donnell.
* Parodied and subverted in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', where Francis, a male ladybug, has long eyelashes, full lips and a beauty mark, and voiced by Creator/DenisLeary.
-->'''Francis''': SO! Bein' a ladybug automatically makes me a ''girl''! Is that it, flyboy?!\\
'''Flies''': YIKES! She's a ''guy!''
* In the first ''WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp'' film, the Darling's son has an extremely pink bedroom and an equally pink wardrobe. The sequel released decades later swapped it for blue, probably due to pink becoming less unisex since the original film.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Uglydolls}}'':
** Wage, unlike Moxy (listed above), has no defining feminine features. This is due to being a GenderFlip of the original toyline's Wage, who was a male character.
** Similar to Wage, Wedgehead is another male character in the movie flipped to be a female one, with no defining features, save for her voice. However, she is [[AdaptationDyeJob colored bright yellow in the movie]], compared to the dark blue that her male toyline counterpart is.

-->"[[Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife Is it a boy or a girl, doctor?]]"\\

* In ancient Egyptian illustrations, men had darker skin than women.

* There are many species of animals the sexes of which are completely impossible for humans to distinguish visually. Among Albatross for examples, even trained scientists have to use genetic sequencing to tell the male apart from the female in mated pairs (this effort led to the discovery that many Albotrosses live and raise chicks in [[LesYay same-sex female pairs]]).

* Some toilet signs avoid the outdated "women wear dresses" implication by having XX and XY instead, the female and male sex chromosomes, respectively.

* Eyelashes that serve to make the character look androgynous to an extent, while being more subdued compared to those of female characters. In older anime and manga, this may take the form of a "unilash" that juts out from the corner of each eye, often to indicate a {{Bishonen}}.

* Ojo from ''Series/BearInTheBigBlueHouse'' is female, but lacks any human hair, eyelashes or makeup, wears no clothing or accessories, has a TomboyishVoice (keep in mind that prepubescent boy characters tend to be voiced by women) and her fur is a darker shade of orange than Bear's, inverting PaleFemalesDarkMales. Even her name sounds like a boy's name (though it appears to be a derivative of "Jojo", which is typically a girl's name). It's enough to cause some ViewerGenderConfusion.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'''s Inklings have practically no physical differences between genders; the only tells they have are males having slightly larger eyebrows and girls being imperceptibly curvier. Besides that and the different hairstyles, they look identical, act identical, and can even wear the same clothes (nothing is stopping a male Inkling from dressing up as Manga/SquidGirl, for example)--heck, girls couldn't even wear skirts until [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]]! On the NPC side, Callie, Marie, and Marina all have long eyelashes, though it could just be makeup, while Pearl has no visible ones like other female Inklings. All of the idols have {{Beauty Mark}}s, but while Marie and Pearl wear dresses, Callie and Marina both have shorts.

* Parodied and subverted in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', where Francis, a male ladybug, has long eyelashes, full lips and a BeautyMark, and voiced by Creator/DenisLeary.