History Main / UnsettlinggenderReveal

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As with all tropes concerning sex/gender identity and presentation, this is rife with UnfortunateImplications, as playing up the comedy and drama of one character's {{squick}} can be deeply hurtful to viewers who identify with the other party— doubly so if it's the reaction of other viewers.

As with all tropes concerning sex/gender identity and presentation, this is rife with UnfortunateImplications, as playing up the comedy and drama of one character's {{squick}} can be deeply hurtful to viewers who identify with the other party.

This can happen to any gender and sexuality. A straight male might be shocked to find the girl he's been crushing on is a male all along. A straight female might be confused to realize that hot guy she's been daydreaming about was actually a woman. Her male GayBestFriend, who was also daydreaming about the guy (who is really a girl) will probably feel similarly. Almost always there is shock upon TheReveal, possibly even some disgust, anger or disappointment on the part of the character who was feeling the attraction, but usually the two characters can reconcile by the end and become friends. Other times it might not bother them, or after a period of consideration, they'll decide IfItsYouItsOkay.

-->'''Brian:''' And you had sex with two Filipino women. And a man.\\
'''Quagmire:''' You mean three Filipino women, right?\\
'''Brian:''' ...\\
'''Quagmire:''' ...'''''Aaugh!'''''

* In the "Who Can Bone More Women?" Contest on ''Kenny vs. Spenny'', Kenny hires a pre-op transsexual (who is incredibly convincing) to get all buddy-buddy with Spenny. Spenny racks up points like crazy until The Big Reveal at the end. He is not happy.

* ''There's Something About Miriam'' features a sexy lady called Miriam and a group of stud males trying to woo her attention. Except that Miriam is actually a pre-op {{transsexual}} - something the participants had no idea of but which the audience knew right from the start of episode one. The whole thing led to some of the competing men suing the TV network. And as one can imagine, transgender advocates were not thrilled at the show setting the movement back to the stone age.
* Similarly(ish): post-op Transsexual Nadia Almeida, who won the fifth series of ''BigBrother UK'' didn't tell her housemates of her... "situation". Said Bridget was Dropped upon evicted housemates in her post-eviction interview, until LGBT right campaigners complained about five weeks into the game.

* One episode of ''LawAndOrderSVU'' involves a pre-op transsexual who appears female in every conceivable way except actual plumbing, who apparently killed a friend of her boyfriend's to prevent a public revelation. When the SVU team confront the boyfriend (ignorant of the fact that the boyfriend had no idea his girlfriend was biologically male), he runs in, grabs her by the groin to determine sex, and then runs out to commit suicide with an overdose of heart condition pills.\\\
ItGotWorse. A judge then decides to send the extremely convincing transsexual to a men's prison because of her plumbing. She is promptly gang-raped and beaten. We are shown the aftermath, with her headed to a hospital, strapped to a gurney, basically a solid swollen bruise.

** Another episode has the team realize that the victim was a post-op male-to-female transsexual. [[spoiler:This had absolutely nothing to do with the murder.]]
* An episode of ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' plays this straight (as it were). The victim was an MTF post-op TS, and Steve had been flirting with her before she was killed. To the show's credit, the victim was portrayed as a sympathetic character and none of the main characters freaked out about it. In fact, [[spoiler: she was killed by her former military buddy because he was {{squick}}ed, and the murderer is portrayed as a JerkAss.]]
* ''WillAndGrace'': Jack freaks out when he gets turned on by the stripper at Leo's bachelor party, until he finds out the stripper is a pre-op who dances to raise money for her operation.

* ''NipTuck'': In an early season, Matt starts a relationship with an older woman named Ava, much to the displeasure of his three parents. (Sidenote: It's f* ck'n' FamkeJanssen! WHO WOULDN'T!?) Christian seduces her in an effort to get her to stay away from Matt and immediately deduces she used to be a man.
** After Matt finds out about Ava and she has disappeared, he trolls bars until he finds an obvious transsexual, but as they start making out, Matt discovers [[BerserkButton she is pre-op]] and beats her violently.

* DoubleSubverted in ''TheITCrowd'' when, in a B-plot, Douglas embarks on a successful relationship with a post-op transsexual woman -- but it comes crashing down when he realises that she was saying "I used to be a man," not "I'm from Iran."

* [[spoiler: Erica]] from ''{{Catherine}}'' is actually a post op {{transsexual}}. However, Vincent, Orlando and Jonny are aware of it. But not [[spoiler: Toby]] who lost his virginity to [[spoiler: her.]]

* GrantMorrison's ''Zenith'' had the title character propositioned by Metamaid, an attractive pre-op transsexual superheroine. After Zenith finds out, he passes the buck to the naive young superhero TNT Tom by suggesting that he and Metamaid might like to get acquainted. At least it apparently ends happily for both parties.
-->'''Zenith:''' TNT Tom left with a smile on his face, mind...

Compare with ShapeshiftingSquick, DudeLooksLikeALady, {{Bifauxnen}}, GenderBlenderName and SamusIsAGirl. Often accompanied by AttractiveBentGender. Contrast JumpingTheGenderBarrier and ShesAManInJapan.

Also absolutely brilliant is the moment when Cleveland DOES tell him. it's not heard, you only see the two men gesturing.. the dad [[VomitIndiscretionShot vomits for thirty seconds.]], as well.

* ShugoChara: Nadeshiko/Nagihiko, whose family has a long-standing tradition of making its boys dress, act, and, for all intents and purposes, ''be'' girls for about the first twelve years of their lives. He had to repress all boyish desires, no matter how slight, and was forbidden from revealing his true gender to anyone.
* Juubei-Chan 2. Dropped on the audience ''and'' on Jiyu, who spent the entire series thinking this person was either chibi spirit Koinosuke or reincarnated baby Koinosuke... only for it to end up being Koinosuke's never-before-mentioned daughter who looks exactly like him.

* In The Secret Devil-chan: Kurosaki Sou, discovers this about Devil-chan, after just 10 pages into the manga.
* Happens to people of both genders in ''AxisPowersHetalia''.

* ''SailorMoon'':

* ''RanmaOneHalf'':

* ''{{Gundam00}}'': Tieria Erde, although his voice and personality help to only keep the viewer in the dark for parts of the first episode. Still, his girly looks and the fact that he wears a fuzzy pink sweater when not burninating the countryside in his Gundam cause enough of a double-take to fit him in here. To add to the confusion, IIRC [[WordOfGod the people making the show]] claim Innovators have no sex (or maybe it was gender). They actually, meant that they were androgynous. It was just badly translated and underwent MemeticMutation before the correction came around.

* ''DetectiveConan''

* PG version in CardCaptorSakura. When Sakura, Kero and Tomoyo have to catch a Clow Card that has taken residence in a painting, they meet with a boy named Yuuki whose DisappearedDad is the artist who painted it. At the end of the episode Yuuki's nice hat falls off and reveals ''very'' long RapunzelHair, thus showing the trio (and us) that Yuuki is a tomboyish girl.
* The "tomboyish girl wears a NiceHat and then TheReveal happens when the hat's dropped and you see her long hair" also happens to Kunimitsu Tezuka from ThePrinceOfTennis, when he meets Miyuki Chitose. Except it's GirlishPigtails instead of RapunzelHair.
* Much to the shock of the heroes of SamuraiChamploo, this is not the case with the [[MachoCamp tourist]] they meet in one episode. Granted he IS surprised to find out the kabuki actor he had a crush on is a man, but it's a pleasant surprise.

* Inverted in MayoChiki. The butler for a local rich girl, Konoe Subaru, is actually a girl. She was allowed to be a butler, which is a men's only profession, on the condition that she can hide her gender from the students at school. Her cover is nearly blown when OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Jiro accidentally finds it out. But luckily for her, he agrees to keep it a secret (largely due to blackmail from said local rich girl, who also promises to help cure his gynophobia, or fear of women, as he suffers from nosebleeds anytime a woman touches him).

* ''CodeGeass'': In the Turn 9.34 picture drama C.C., Kallen, and Lelouch dress up as belly dancers to sneak into the Chinese Federation. C.C. and Kallen introduce Lelouch as their "beautiful older sister" and the men ogle him. Of course, Lelouch has a masculine voice, so when he speaks, they realize that he's a guy.

* A slighly different version used in the sequel to ''AVeryPotterMusical'': the gay Dumbledore falls for the rather mannish Professor Umbridge (who, incidentally, is played by a man), and is shocked and horrified when he discovers that she doesn't have a penis.

* In KamenRiderW, the heroes use Wakana as bait to attract the Liar Dopant. [[spoiler: Of course they couldn't really put Wakana in the line of fire. It's Philip in a dress and wig.]]

* ''ArrestedDevelopment'': Shows up in more than one context:

* In Wilfrido Vargas's ''Macho Man'', a guy falls for a pretty girl that he later finds out, while they are almost intimate, is a pretty boy; he freaks out and runs away, losing his shoes in the process.

* ''FinalFantasyIV'' has a certain dancer in the town of [[spoiler:Fabul]].
* ''FinalFantasyV''. [[spoiler:The leader of a band of pirates called Faris is assumed to be a male due to occupation, but once the party gets halfway through the second dungeon it turns out he is a she. To quote a boss later on in the game, ''And now we shall fight like men. And women. And women who dress like men.'' She even occasionally mistaken refers to herself as male.]] It's clearer in the original Japanese, where gender is reinforced by speech much more than in English. (For example, Japanese has gender-specific first-person pronouns, not that this [[{{Bokukko}} stops]] some [[OreOnna people]].)
* ''FinalFantasyVII'': It's possible to get the Don to choose Cloud, in which case he reveals that he was in drag. While the idea of the Don picking Cloud over Tifa and Aerith may seem silly and unlikely based on the graphics in the original game (and their low polygon count), the Don's decision becomes much more understandable if one looks at Cloud's character design in Advent Children, especially if Cloud-in-drag appeared anything like [[http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y4/madamhydra/FF7AC/female-cloud.jpg THIS]]. [[StupidSexyFlanders Stupid Sexy Cloud]].

* In ''FateStayNight', there's a reason why Guinevere had that affair with Lancelot, [[spoiler:since her husband, KingArthur, aka Saber, turns out to be a woman (a very cute young woman, tho), but Guinevere agreed to the marriage for political reasons. Which just strengthens the already present implication that Saber is [[GirlOnGirlIsHot is actually]] BiTheWay]].

----

* ''TheClevelandShow'' has an absolutely brilliant moment in the Thanksgiving special wherein Cleveland gets revenge on his wayward and emotionally abusive father by not telling him that the "woman" he's about to get in bed with is actually a man (and totally ''[[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed not]]'' TylerPerry / Madea). As it happens, the "woman" in question is actually Uncle Kevin, who disguised himself as a woman so Donna would have a positive female

* [[{{Hellsing}} Alucard]] pulls this off as Girlycard in ''Webcomic/AndShineHeavenNow''. Granted, the person he fooled is [[JeevesAndWooster Bertie Wooster...]] And then many years later did it to [[RODTheTV Maggie Mui...]]

--> — Mark Henry, ''{{WWE}} Monday Night RAW''

* ''TheClevelandShow'' has an absolutely brilliant moment in the Thanksgiving special wherein Cleveland gets revenge on his wayward and emotionally abusive father by not telling him that the "woman" he's about to get in bed with is actually a man (and totally ''[[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed not]]'' TylerPerry / Madea). As it happens, the "woman" in question is actually Uncle Kevin, who disguised himself as a woman so Donna would have a positive female role model after her mother passed away.\\\
Also absolutely brilliant is the moment when Cleveland DOES tell him. it's not heard, you only see the two men gesturing.. the dad [[VomitIndiscretionShot vomits for thirty seconds.]], as well.
* ''{{Futurama}}'': There is the Valentine's Day episode in which [[GeneralFailure Zapp Brannigan]] is on a blind date with a very burly man in drag, who leaves unexpectedly early...
-->'''Zapp Brannigan:''' Honey! Wait! You didn't show me your surprise!
* ''BatmanBeyond'' sees Ra's Al-Ghul transferring his mind into his daughter Talia's body... and Bruce Wayne has quite the history with her [[CelibateHero (Well, as much as he does with anyone)]]. What transpires thoroughly creeps both Bruce and Terry out.
-->"I did not mean for you to find out this way. But I suppose what's done is done...[[LarynxDissonance DETECTIVE!]]"
---> or
-->[While Terry is rescuing Bruce]
-->Terry(to Talia): Lady, you are really creeping me out.
-->Bruce: You? She kissed ''me''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Super Junior member Kim Heechul's friend was once yelled at by his girlfriend because she saw the two of them eating lunch and thought he was cheating on her with another girl.
* [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/raven.jpg Raven]]. Also known as StephenColbert in drag for ''{{Wigfield}}''. Stephen's own ''brother'' was fooled by the photo.
* Brazilian soccer player [[OnlyOneName Ronaldo]] was arrested after a confusion in his apartment, when he discovered three prostitutes he hired were transvestites (although the chief of the trio said Ronaldo knew they were men). This turned the footballer [[NeverLiveItDown into joke fodder]] for months.
* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Kingsporch.jpg Think any of these guys are handsome?]] ''They're all women in drag.''
* During WorldWarII, some Jewish boys had to pretend to be girls when under false papers declaring them to be Gentile, as otherwise they might have been found out if someone did a check and saw that they were circumcised.
* Danny Bonaduce had an infamous encounter with this.
* Brett Ratner, director of the ''RushHour'' series, included a woman taking off her hair in the third film because of a [[http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid47827.asp sexual encounter with a man]].
* A internet show here in Minnesota did a game show at Anime Detour 2010 based on this trope. They showed a dozen images to people and they had guess if it was a [[UnfortunateImplications ''Tap'' or was it a ''Trap''?]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSUKzVT65o Here it is.]]
* In Turkey, tourists are sometimes exposed to a sensual belly dance show by an attractively slender, veiled person. At the end of the show the person removes the veil to expose clearly masculine features.
* Chinese spy [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Pei_Pu Shi Pei Pu]] was a male opera singer who disguised himself as a female while working as a spy. He began a sexual relationship with a French embassy employee that somehow lasted for ''twenty years''.
* Japanese model Kayo Satoh is well known as a high-level ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' player and has been kicking the asses of many pros. [[OneOfUs Yay for a star-level]] GamerChick! Then she confessed that she was [[{{Transexual}} raised as a male.]]
* A RealLife example provided the inspiration for an episode of ''LawAndOrderSVU'' An MTF transsexual named [[http://dawn.thot.net/Synthia_Kavanagh.html Synthia Kavanagh]] was sent to a Canadian prison for murder in 1989, but because she had not had SRS (she had transitioned many years earlier and undergone hormone treatments) she was sent to a men's prison. In addition, her hormone treatments were cut off as a result of Corrections Canada's policy at the time to "freeze" the gender of a prisoner at the time of incarceration. It took her four years of legal battles to get her hormone treatment restored, and ten years to get SRS and be transferred to a women's prison.
[[/folder]]

----

This can happen to either gender of any sexuality. A straight male might be shocked to find the girl he's been crushing on is a male all along. A straight female might be confused to realize that hot guy she's been daydreaming about was actually a woman. Her male GayBestFriend, who was also daydreaming about the guy (who is really a girl) will probably feel similarly. Almost always there is shock upon TheReveal, possibly even some disgust, anger or disappointment on the part of the character who was feeling the attraction, but usually the two characters can reconcile by the end and become friends. Other times it might not bother them, or after a period of consideration, they'll decide IfItsYouItsOkay.

This can happen to either gender of any sexuality. A male might be shocked to find the girl he's been crushing on is a male all along. A female might be confused to realize that hot guy she's been daydreaming about was actually a woman. Her male GayBestFriend, who was also daydreaming about the guy (who is really a girl) will probably feel similarly. Almost always there is shock upon TheReveal, possibly even some disgust, anger or disappointment on the part of the character who was feeling the attraction, but usually the two characters can reconcile by the end and become friends. Other times it might not bother them, or after a period of consideration, they'll decide IfItsYouItsOkay.

** And even more amusingly, fans that are new to the series often assume that the author of the comics is a woman. Imagine their surprise [[http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia/411243.html?thread=11932523#t11932523 when they're told that Himaruya is a male]] and realize they had a Bridget dropped on ''them''.

** And the readers themselves will have a Bridget dropped on them if they compare [[ShesAManInJapan Zoisite in the original Japanese version]] and the [[{{Macekre}} American dub]].

* While technically androgynous in the new fluff, Daemonettes from ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' will drop a Bridget on one of their victims just to watch them squirm. Because, yanno, that's what they do. (And then they gut their victims like pigs with their claws, which can go through PowerArmor like a knife through butter.)

* In ''DragonAge'', it turns out that [[spoiler:Shale]] was actually once a [[spoiler:female dwarf]]. Thanks to TheFogOfAges, even the character in question is stunned by this, making it a rare case of the character in question themselves having a Bridget dropped upon them.
* In ''MetalGearSolid 2'', Raiden, a shameless {{Bishonen}}, drops a Bridget on the President of the United States. He literally grabs Raiden's package to check his sex, reacting in suppressed shock when he learns the terrible truth -- the script says he'd misidentified him as the similar-looking female terrorist leader, Olga Gurlukovich, but Raiden's decidedly male voice and obvious bulge should have put that suspicion out the window. Besides, why didn't he just ask Raiden?... What was he planning to do to Olga?! ''Who voted for that?!''

* ''TheWotch'' manages to drop a Bridget on ''both'' participants, [[http://www.thewotch.com/index.php?epDate=2003-09-10 here]] when Jason is transformed into Satyr Sonja he has random flirty outbursts he can't control. When he "puts the moves" on Robin they both freak out. Jason continues to flirt-and-freak throughout the arc. And one flirt-and-freak recipient winds up wanting to date "Sonja" later.

* ''VenusEnvy'' has this happen to Lisa when she assumes that Chris is a male-to-female {{transsexual}} only to discover that he's actually just a WholesomeCrossdresser. Chris gets a reverse Bridget dropped on him when he first meets Lisa and Zoe, assumes they're crossdressing boys as well, and grabs Lisa's breast while telling her it "looks totally fake". They beat him up.

* [[{{Hellsing}} Alucard]] pulls this off as Girlycard in ''Webcomic/AndShineHeavenNow''. Granted, the person he dropped the Bridget on is [[JeevesAndWooster Bertie Wooster...]] And then many years later did it to [[RODTheTV Maggie Mui...]]

* On the adoptable petsite {{Valenth}}, one of the [=NPCs=] is the person of intelligible gender of the week, [[http://valenth.com/lore/Elliot Elliot Christoph]]. Considering many of the humanoid [=NPCs=] are like this, and all of them as such are men (plus the masculine name), many of the users expected Elliot to end up being male, referring to her as Sir Christoph and such. ''Every single one'' got a Bridget dropped on them when Elliot later is referred to as being female about twenty pages into the thread. The real kicker was the fact that she never bothered correcting them once. [[DudeLooksLikeALady Lady looks like a dude]] indeed.

** Pervert Glen Quagmire gets quite a Bridget dropped on him when he tells Peter and the gang that he loves Taylor Hanson from the 1996 boy-band Hanson.

** Quagmire tends to catch Bridgets fairly often. An episode where Brian is recruited by the force as a drug dog has Quagmire coming off a plane from Manila, where Brian comments:

* Bridget-dropping works both ways. [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Kingsporch.jpg Think any of these guys are handsome?]] ''They're all women in drag.''

* A RealLife example provided the basis for an episode of ''LawAndOrderSVU'' An MTF transsexual named [[http://dawn.thot.net/Synthia_Kavanagh.html Synthia Kavanagh]] was sent to a Canadian prison for murder in 1989, but because she had not had SRS (she had transitioned many years earlier and undergone hormone treatments) she was sent to a men's prison. In addition, her hormone treatments were cut off as a result of Corrections Canada's policy at the time to "freeze" the gender of a prisoner at the time of incarceration. It took her four years of legal battles to get her hormone treatment restored, and ten years to get SRS and be transferred to a women's prison.

** This actually happened. Sort of. An MTF transsexual named [[http://dawn.thot.net/Synthia_Kavanagh.html Synthia Kavanagh]] was sent to a Canadian prison for murder in 1989, but because she had not had SRS (she had transitioned many years earlier and undergone hormone treatments) she was sent to a men's prison. In addition, her hormone treatments were cut off as a result of Corrections Canada's policy at the time to "freeze" the gender of a prisoner at the time of incarceration. It took her four years of legal battles to get her hormone treatment restored, and ten years to get SRS and be transferred to a women's prison.

* Even DCComics' woman-lovin', homicidal, AntiHero {{Badass}} {{Lobo}} has had a Bridget Dropped on Him. In "Lobo's Big Babe Special", he is hired as a bodyguard for an intergalactic beauty pageant. But each of the ladies in the pageant has one nasty surprise or another (even the ones he knew!) and were subsequently eliminated. Each of them, that is, except the extremely busty T.V., the one Lobo has been drooling over the entire time. Once T.V. was crowned the winner, the horny Main Man made his move, despite "her" subtle hints that it wasn't a good idea. Finally, T.V. tells him to "put your hand ''here''." [[MeaningfulName I think Lobo and everyone reading now knows what the name "T.V." stands for...]]

* A reverse Bridget shows up between [[{{X-Men}} Scott, Jean and Warren]] in ''Marvel1602''. Jean is a {{Bifauxnen}} who has been disguised as "John Grey" as part of her education, and when Warren shows up, he starts hitting on her. Scott confronts him angrily, revealing the secret that Warren must have obviously glimpsed... only for Warren to reveal he had no idea "John" was a woman.

* Francis the ladybug in ''ABugsLife'' has to constantly do the Bridget drop. And given he's voiced by Denis Leary, he does it in the most caustic way possible.

* ''Film/TheAssociate'': A gender-swapped version of this trope occurs when Camille Scott, a business associate of main character Laurel Ayres (a black woman), goes public with a story about being pregnant with the child of Ayres' business partner, Robert Cutty (an elderly white man) after Cutty refuses to sleep with her when they meet privately one evening. The Bridget is dropped at the climax of the movie, when Cutty reveals that "he" actually ''is'' a [[LatexPerfection well-disguised]] Ayres.

* At the end of ''Film/{{Tomboy}}'' this happens. Earlier in the film Laure, then passing herself as a boy, is possibly found out by a boy after she's caught peeing; but he doesn't tell anyone. Later after [[spoiler:getting into a fight with another boy, said boy's mother comes to their house and tells Laure's mom that their "son" beat up their kid. Her parents didn't know about this so they get somewhat mad, and her mom ends up putting her into a dress and making her apologize to the boy again.]] She also goes to visit [[spoiler:her girlfriend, thus dropping the bridget on her too]].

* There is a pornographic story that was [[GenderNeutralWriting written in first person]], in which the narrator makes love to a man. In the last sentence of the story, it is revealed that the narrator is also male, dropping a Bridget on the ''reader''.

* In the novel ''{{Trainspotting}}'', it's Renton who gets a Bridget dropped on him, not Begbie. Furthermore, he doesn't panic, but admits to always being curious about what it would be like to sleep with a man. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he ends up getting to third base; however, his friends then walk in on him, scaring Renton off any same-sex encounters until he finds himself in London without a place to spend the night.

* In the episode of ''QuantumLeap'' [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/63211/quantum-leap-what-price-gloria---october-16-1961 What Price Gloria]], Sam [[spoiler:uses this trope to enact revenge on his (female) [[FreakyFriday host]]'s boss for his treatment of her best friend. Sam convinces him that his host, the woman he'd been lusting after all episode, is secretly a man, giving him a full-blown case of Dropped a Bridget on Him even though the host really is a woman.]]
* In ''CoryInTheHouse,'' Newt Livingstone has a Bridget dropped on him when Cory [[DisguisedInDrag poses as his sister Raven]] (for reasons too convoluted to get into here) and Newt [[AttractiveBentGender falls for him]] despite "her" clearly being [[WigDressAccent his best friend in a dress and a wig]]. Then again, WigDressAccent was a staple of ''[=CITH=]'''s parent show ''That's So Raven'', and [[RalphWiggum Newt is very stupid]].

* ''{{CSI}}'' has had at least two murders traced to violent reactions to a Bridget Drop.

* One episode of ''LawAndOrderSVU'' involves a pre-op transsexual who appears female in every conceivable way except actual plumbing, who apparently killed a friend of her boyfriend's to prevent a public Bridget-dropping. When the SVU team confront the boyfriend (ignorant of the fact that the boyfriend had no idea his girlfriend was biologically male), he runs in, grabs her by the groin to determine sex, and then runs out to commit suicide with an overdose of heart condition pills.\\\
ItGotWorse. A judge then decides to send the extremely convincing bridget to a men's prison because of her plumbing where she is promptly gangraped and beaten and we get shown the aftermath (headed to a hospital, strapped to a gurney, basically solid swollen bruise).

** [[http://hiimdaisy.livejournal.com/23570.html This comic]] offers another perspective.

* Tsubomi and most of the fandom got one dropped in ''HeartcatchPrettyCure'' -- Itsuki turns out to be a {{Bifauxnen}}.

* Gets a bit more hilarious in ''FinalFantasyXII'' with Larsa. Due to his very young age (around 13 more or less), his voice isn't deep and his physical features borderline on feminine. A good portion of fans have mistaken him for a girl.

* ''{{Pokemon}}'':
** One of the {{Mons}}, Gardevoir, happens to particularly resemble a human female. Now, this aforementioned {{Mon}} can be of both genders (including ''male''), a fact which managed to displease the {{FanDumb}} (who view Gardevoir as female, and wish "her" to be viewed as such) highly.\\\
It doesn't help that the middle stage of its evolutionary line, Kirlia, looks like a young girl in a skirt, or that the 4th Generation of games added a male-only alternate 3rd stage evolution, Gallade, that looks like a male version of a Gardevoir.
** Gothilselle and family. Enjoy your 1-in-4 chance of your gothic lolita Mon being a dude.
** Oreburgh Gym Leader Roark's long hair and ambiguous facial structure can make it rather easy to mistake him for a fairly attractive girl. It's doubly funny considering that Roark is the son of one of the manliest characters in ''Pokémon''.
** Likewise, Silver, who has a very similar look to Roark, especially in the remakes.
** What about Bugsy, the gym leader from Azalea Town? A CuteShotaroBoy with long purple hair and short shorts. In the manga he even got asked out on a date by Gold.
** [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Will Will]], on the other hand, has purple hair, a magenta jacket (with matching pants), and a purple undershirt. Attire aside, just take a look at those [[HartmanHips hips]].
** Frontier Brain Tucker of Hoenn has been mistaken for a girl at times, particularly due to his choice of clothing.
* The new ''TheIdolmaster'' DS game features three protagonists. One of them just happens to be in fact a crossdressing CuteShotaroBoy.
* Bonita Soleil in ''{{Psychonauts}}'' has long eyelashes and feminine curves despite speaking with an obviously male voice. He/she is the muse of a definitely-female character, so it's possible Bonita is just supposed to be jarringly mannish. Or maybe not.
* ''{{Persona 4}}'':
** Teddie, a cute blonde girl who dresses up like the Persona [[AliceInWonderland Alice]] to win a beauty contest. Except "she" is actually a cute blonde {{bishonen}} ''guy'', and that was a cross-dressing gag paegant. And "he" is actually [[spoiler: a lonely [[TheHeartless Shadow]] who's assumed that form to try to fit in with humans]]. Agh, [[BrainBleach my eyes]]! The fact that Teddie's first introduced to the player as a NonhumanSidekick does ''nothing''!
** [[spoiler:Naoto]]. You had to crawl an entire dungeon and go through a boss fight mostly because of that reverse-Bridget having been dropped onto [[spoiler:Kanji]]!
* ''PrincessWaltz'' offers us Chris Longfield, who is so Bifauxnen, the PLAYER occasionally has to remind themself she's actually a girl. The fact she acts and wants to be a boy only makes this more confusing. And, considering this is an H-Game, well...
* Long before Bridget, a 90's fighting game titled ''Daraku Tenshi'' had a character named Yuiren, who was a young man disguised as a singing waitress to attract customers at his bar. Despite the characters knowing this fact, most newcomers to the game don't realize it until later on. And to throw a bit of irony into the mix, his sister dresses tomboyishly and is usually [[{{Bifauxnen}} mistaken for a boy by players.]]
* Strange case in ''GuitarHero World Tour'': When the song "Monsoon" by Tokio Hotel is played, the game selects a female avatar for the singer. The lead singer of Tokio Hotel is (just barely) a man.
* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' MAY be pulling this on players with Chromie, a very [[RuleThirtyFour popular]] bronze dragon whose humanoid form is that of a female gnome. Thing is, all dragonflights have so far used strict ThemeNaming; Chromie's full name is Chronormu, only male bronze dragon's names end in -ormu, females all end in -ormi.\\\
There are, however, instances of Bronze dragons called "Tick", male Blue dragons whose names end in -on instead of -os and one Bronze called Anachronos, who you'd expect to be a Blue if you followed the naming conventions so strictly. The naming system isn't 100% reliable for determining the nature of a dragon.
** WordOfGod is that Chromie/Chronormu is in fact female. The name is not explained.

* Shika in ''VisualNovel/KiraKira'' makes for an [[AttractiveBentGender uncomfortably convincing girl]] when he's on stage. In fact, even before this a guy fell in love with him when he was forced to cross dress at an earlier point in time. Two years later, he was shocked to realize that Shika was in fact male, [[IfItsYouItsOkay but quickly got over it]] even offering to ''be his wife'' since the idea seemed to make him uncomfortable.
* Iita in ''BlazeUnion''. Oh, ye gods, Iita. She's a perfectly adorable little FilleFatale, cute and squeaky and very girly. Then night falls, and the other half of her SplitPersonality takes over -- the side that is male, brash, HotBlooded, and downright thuggish. Her male half cheerfully announces to the stunned women of the game's cast that "oh right, sorry, I forgot to say: I'm a man at night". Equally shocking to people who first see male!Iita and then realize that what they thought was a boy dressed in girl's clothes is actually still physically female.

* Pretty much happened to the whole community that plays ''{{Pangya}}'' when the designers introduced a new character, Nell. Everyone assumed that it was another loli... until it was revealed that Nell was a [[WholesomeCrossdresser boy that liked to crossdress]] and had a pretty face. It does ''not'' help that the US is turning Nell into a girl. One wonders what they're going to do for the [[YaoiFangirl White Day or Valentine's Day events]]....

** YourMileageMayVary on that one, because this troper can still tell that Cloud is a guy.

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' Vivian the ghost, despite a female name and appearance is, yes, a dude. ShesAManInJapan. It doesn't help that the American version changed his gender out of political correctness, since he's a transvestite and even kisses Mario at some point.
** [[YourMileageMayVary That's up for debate, actually]]. Given the way Japanese language works (short version: just about everything about who you're speaking to has an effect on ''how'' you speak to them) there's a theory which holds that Vivian is a girl after all, but Beldam deliberately speaks to her as though she's a man to demean and abuse her (given that she's already intensely abusive to Vivian, this theory does hold some water).

* The [[TropeNamer name of the trope]] is a pun on DroppedABridgeOnHim which references Bridget, the WholesomeCrossdresser teenage boy in a nun habit from the ''GuiltyGear'' series. For those unfamiliar with the series, in Bridget's birth town there was a superstition that if twins of the same gender are born, disaster will come. And because of that, baby Bridget was taken into the custody of the local convent's nun, then raised as a girl. It was that, or killing him. It should be noted that Bridget's gender is never a secret in the game. It's spelled out right at the beginning of his storyline, and he never intentionally hides that fact (anymore. Long story). The problem is that most people simply ''assume'' he's a girl, because he's lived most of his childhood as one. Over here in RealLife, people have found it quite amusing to show Bridget to those who aren't familiar with the Guilty Gear series, and get their reactions ''before'' dropping the bombshell, as it were. One of the reasons they're called "traps." (The other being sometimes they're so attractive it's [[EvenTheGuysWantHim hard to remember your sexual orientation]] [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer even if you do know]].) As the meme says... "Everyone is gay for Bridget".