Ambiguous Gender in Literature.
A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples for any serialised stories shouldn't be added for 3 months after the ambiguity is introduced (or not until end of season, if the serial uses season breaks). This is to allow time for the story to develop the character and resolve ambiguity. There is no waiting time for non-episodic works.
By Author:
- China Miéville:
- Taken to the extreme in Iron Council, where one of the characters, devotee of a god of secrets, doesn't even know their own gender. Followers of this deity forfeit knowledge about themselves to honor their patron, and this particular priest lost knowledge of what sex they used to be.
- In Railsea, Dr. Fremlo is agender in the more usual way, and their physical sex is never revealed.
By Work:
- In The Android's Dream, Sam Wentworth is never referred to in gendered language. This was apparently unintentional on the author's part at first; later in writing, he noticed and decided to run with it. Word of God is that he himself doesn't know what Sam's gender is or whether Sam has one.
- In the original Japanese version of Another Note, A is not given a gender. All we know about A, in fact, is that A was being groomed as a successor to L, liked math, and was ultimately Driven to Suicide due to the pressures of the L Program. (And also that they must have meant something to B, because B goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after A's suicide.) However, many translations give A as being male, likely because of the relative lack of prominent female characters in the Death Note universe. Given the ambiguity, though, it is not uncommon to see fanworks describing A as a girl.
- Soulcatcher from The Black Company is this in the first book. 'Catcher is a centuries old sorcerer who always goes around in a leather outfit and mask which completely conceals their features, and their voice constantly shifts between numerous different ones, implied to be the voices of 'Catcher's victims. 'Catcher is usually referred to as "he" and considered male by the narration, but he's very slim and androgynous, and if you look at him closely enough you can see very slight curves that might be female hips and bust, or might just be a trick of the light. Soulcatcher is a woman, as revealed at the end of the book, and this is simply treated as a given in later volumes.
- The three Bedsheet Ghosts in The Blue-Nosed Witch not only never show their faces, their gender is never indicated. They're only referred to by their height.
- In Bridge to Terabithia, Jess isn't sure whether Leslie's a boy or a girl when they first meet, and gets frustrated that the name could go either way as well, but guesses (correctly) that she's female. The book includes a picture of her, showing her looking very androgynous, with a boyish haircut.
- A Christmas Carol has the Ghost of Christmas Past, a Perpetually Protean figure whose appearance changes constantly, resulting in it having features of a man, a woman and a child all at once; Scrooge calls it "sir" and the narration first likens it to an old man, but the description is so inconsistent that it's difficult to trust either of these. Some adaptations give it the Gender Flip treatment by depicting it as the only female member of the spirits, but others lean right into the ambiguity, usually by making it a small, androgynous child.
- In Chrysalis (Beaver Fur), it's explicitly stated that the Terran Was Once a Man, but it's unclear what their gender was in life, or, in light of their new status as an uploaded consciousness with an inhuman body, if they even have a gender now. The Terran creates a simulation of themself with a human body watching television in a living room, but even this fails to enlighten. Chapter 10 reveals that the Terran is an extreme example of a Mind Hive, as the minds of five separate human researchers of mixed sex merged into a single consciousness that behaves like- and entirely believes itself to be -a single entity.
- The Dinosaur Lords has street urchin Petit Pigeon. Rob can't decide whether he should call them girl or boy, and can't find a way to ask without being laughed off. Pigeon's fellow kids seem not to know either.
- Discworld:
- Dwarfs all look male, including with beards, and their language only has one third-person pronoun, usually translated as "he". There are a handful of dwarves known to be female (Gloria Thogsdaughter, Cheery Littlebottom, Lars Skulldrinker, Dee, and Rhys, later Blodwen, Rhysson) and one dwarf known to be male (Casanunda). Almost all other dwarves are, simply, dwarves.
- The idea is played with in Feet of Clay, in which he introduces a dwarf keen on asserting her femininity (Cheery, above) with techniques such as makeup. However, she refuses to shave her beard because, though she is proud to be openly female, she felt that doing so would be denying that she was a dwarf.
- Later in the series, the possibility of new ambiguity is introduced when it's acknowledged that being openly female doesn't mean the dwarf's identity has to line up with their appearance, nor do either of those things indicate their anatomy. There's nothing stopping a male dwarf from wearing skirts and make-up. In fact, unlike Cheery, openly male dwarf Casanunda *does* shave.
- Inverted in the case of the golem that looks over Moist von Lipwig in Going Postal and Making Money. An employee who considers herself a Moral Guardian insists that only a female can clean the women's restroom, so Moist stuck a dress on one and called it "Gladys" to keep her quiet. Gladys took her assigned gender to heart.
- No-one knows what sex Great A'Tuin the Star Turtle is, although a lot of people are interested in finding out. It's obviously heading somewhere, what if it's migrating to a mating ground? Suppose it met another star turtle, would they fight or mate? If they mate, who's going to be on top? The matter is never settled, though it's at least revealed that it was actually checking on its offspring who were just about to hatch.
- Lisme in Dragon Age Last Flight is genderfluid, choosing to appear as male on some days and female on others.
- The gender of secondary character Merideth in Vonda N. McIntyre's Dreamsnake is left entirely up to reader discretion. (Quite tellingly, when asked who would play the character in a film adaptation, McIntyre mentioned both Jaye Davidson and Tilda Swinton as possibilities.)
- Eclipse Trilogy: Set in the mid-21st century, it features a famous Minimono (in-universe, a music genre) star who was born male, but had his private parts removed to be more androgynous.
- The Extreme Monsters book Battling Bigfoot mentions that one of Team Pendant's new athletes is an ogre who is described as being hard to tell if male or female.
- A Fly Went By: It's unclear whether the sheep is a ram or a ewe, since unlike the other characters, who are referred to as "he" or "she", it is only referred to as "it".
- The gender of Hilary Tamar, the protagonist of a series of mystery stories by Sarah Caudwell, is never revealed.
- In How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Feathers, the protagonist of the story's gender is not revealed. It has eyelashes, so maybe it's a girl, but it's still hard to determine. The doctor and the "food voice counsellor"'s genders also haven't been specified.
- In the Imperial Radch series, all Radchaai citizens are this, as their culture does not mark gender differentiation in any way; in the text, Translation Convention means all characters are referred to as "she" unless Breq is speaking in another language.
- In the novel Provenance, a standalone in the same universe, Radchaai are noted to be disconcertingly difficult to gender to the Hwaean people.
- Inheritance Cycle: We eventually learn that one of the Ra'zac is female, but her sibling remains unknown. Also, we briefly see a Helgrind priest(ess) who is so mutilated that their gender can't be identified.
- Mallory's gender in the Jacob's Ladder Trilogy is ambiguous and the narration goes the great lengths to keep it that way; though it does slip a couple of times and calls Mallory 'he'. Mallory claims at one point to not be a man, and has a penis, masculine body, breasts, and a feminine face, but due to the nature of the setting it's inhabitants are able to change their physical traits at will, so everyone tends to conform to whatever gender they feel they are. Similarly, Nova has some trouble in the second volume to settle on a gendered pronoun and keeps switching back and forth. That is said to be due to being an amalgam of several people of different genders.
- King Crow: The crow's gender is not revealed. It's only referred to as "the crow".
- A Lion in the Meadow:
- The dragon's sex is never said.
- In one version of the book, the boy has a sibling, but their gender is unclear because, while they have short hair, they're only a baby, and they lack any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics. The family also has a cat in this version, but its gender is also unrevealed (though it is a ginger cat, so it's statistically more likely to be male).
- Magistellus Bad Trip: Frey(ja). They freely transform between a man and a woman (though it's suggested that this might just be an elaborate disguise) and express attraction to both genders.
- Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas features a dialogue between people of intentionally unspecified gender, named Chris, Pat, and Sandy (interestingly, in the context of a discussion of the life of Alan Turing). When translated, the translators used epicene names in their own language, such as Dominique in French.
- "Mr. Widemouth" is told from the first person perspective of the narrator, so their gender never comes up.
- Pwt in Muse Magazine. The subject is one of constant argument on the Muse Mail page. There was one cartoon in which the crow sings a limerick about how pleased he is Pwt, having a cold, can't keep up with him to chase him. He repeatedly refers to Pwt with male pronouns. Perhaps he just felt the need to use pronouns and flipped a coin or something, but it was once cited in a letter as proof Pwt is male.
- The Angel Islington of Neverwhere is, well, an angel: androgynously beautiful with obviously no gender and is correctly referred to as "it". A few characters do call it a "he" at some points, but always go back to calling Islington an "it", implying that they only do so because they're not used to talking about a genderless nonhuman being. The narrative suggests a certain ambiguity about its nature.
- In Catherynne M. Valente's The Orphan's Tales, there is a whole religion whose acolytes present to the world (and to each other) as androgynes. They live in the Tower of Hermaphrodites, and they find the sacred in perfect balance between opposites, starting with "male" and "female".
- Alex, the protagonist of Pharmakembru: The Face never has their gender stated.
- In The Princess Diaries, there's a character called Perin in Mia's French class. Mia and her friends can't figure out whether Perin is male or female until their French teacher calls Perin a boy, leading poor Perin to have to point out in front of her entire class that she's actually a girl.
- Yuu Valentine from Project NRI. In-text, the pronoun used for Yuu is 'they'."A... man? A woman? Noriko couldn't tell, but with their chiseled features and gentle demeanor, they were certainly very beautiful."
- In Raptor, Thorn (the main character) is intersex. "He" lives most of his life as a male but lived in a convent for a year and can easily pass as attractive members of both genders (voice midway, taller than some men but shorter than some women, etc.). Early in the book, he deliberately dresses in ambiguous clothing, confusing his hunting companion who simply can't figure out his gender (and won't ask, since he figures Thorn is deliberately hiding it). He meets another one. They have lots of sex. Then the second one turns out to be a real bitch.
- Realm of the Elderlings: In the Farseer trilogy, there's the Fool, who the narrator Fitz believes is male. The Liveship Traders trilogy has a totally different dramatis personae, including the female Amber. It's never stated that these two are the same person, but more and more clues are dropped as the trilogy progresses, and because Amber advises Althea on how to disguise herself as a boy, we start to think they're really female and was disguised as male in the earlier books. But in the Tawny Man trilogy, where we and Fitz are told outright that both characters are the same person, there's a section where Fitz inhabits the Fool's body and can presumably tell what genitals they have, but not what gender they are. It doesn't matter anyway, since it never tells us anything, regardless. Fitz implies that the Fool's kind are so different from humans that neither gender is appropriate — but then there's the Pale Woman to account for, who is clearly female, leading to the conclusion that not all Whites are the same. This is in line with the Fool's claim that where he comes from, people don't insist on the existence of only two genders.
- Sadako Yamamura of The Ring is intersex; though she appears feminine, her genetic makeup is stated differently several times throughout the films, novels and manga.
- In River of Teeth, Hero's gender is kept a secret throughout the story, and the narration uses gender-neutral pronouns when talking about them. It is made clear that Hero does not conform outwardly to any gender and several characters seem confused, though only the bad guy makes any verbal note about it. Hero seems prepared to avoid questions regarding their gender and is surprised when Houndstooth does not pry any further even after they become lovers.
- RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant: In the two fairy tales about origin of the Faunus (The Shallow Sea and The Judgement of Faunus), the god that created the Faunus is always referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. Whether this is because the god has particular views on their gender or the Faunus themselves do is not clarified, but the term "god" is always used in a gender-neutral way and never means "male god". This is in stark contrast to The Tale of Two Brothers, where the two divine brothers are always referred to as male by both each other and the story itself; these two gods are cited as being the creators of humanity in a tale that makes no mention of the existence of the Faunus.
- The Person of Indeterminate Gender from A Series of Unfortunate Events, who is called "he or she" or "it" even by other members of Count Olaf's troupe. The closest we get to a name is "The Big One". Possibly due to the unfortunate implications of this writing in the TV adaptation they are changed to an overall more pleasant person who seems to be interested in social issues.
- Nyumba in Someone Else's War. Actually, her gender is never officially stated, except that the narrator assumes she's a girl.
- Star Wars Expanded Universe: Aftermath: Life Debt: The pirate Eleodie Maracavanya is referred to as male, female and the gender-neutral "zhe" or "zher". The author has stated Eleodie is Human with a non-binary gender (the first such character in a Star Wars work).
- Swan's Braid & Other Tales of Terizan: Tribune Two, who's one of the Thieves' Guild's leaders, could be a man or woman, Terizan isn't sure. Called an "androgyne" once, they are never given any pronouns.
- Terra Ignota: Very nearly everyone. Gender pronouns have been greatly depreciated by Mycroft's time, to the point that whenever he does use them, he apologizes to the readers. Sometimes he even admits that his pronouns aren't matching an individual's biological sex, but he still uses the pronoun he does because the person acts so stereotypically masculine/feminine, no matter what their biology.
- The Traitor Son Cycle: The Outwaller shaman Walks On Clouds is always referred to as "he/she" in the narration, and POV characters who meet them for the first time find themselves at loss as to their gender or biological sex. They eventually claim to be a "changeling", able to take on a more masculine or feminine quality at will, but how far does this stretch is unclear.
- Who Wet My Pants: We know that there are six males (Reuben, Jared, Oskar, Tim, Teddy, and Bigfoot), two females (Julia and Linzie) and one unknown (Kelly, which is a unisex name) but (with the exception of Ruben, Tim, and Bigfoot), we don't know who is who, so it's hard to tell which are boys and which are girls. We at least know the tortoise uses masculine titles, since Reuben calls him "Mr. All-the-Answers" and the hippopotamus and hedgehog are happy to wear dresses.
- Andy Lafayette of The Wizards on Walnut Street is never gendered because of The All-Concealing "I", but Word of God says Andy is non-binary.
