History Main / NoGender

Whenever a character has no genitals or secondary sex characteristics. They may identify with a specific gender for reasons other than the physical, or they may identify as something else entirely. This is frequently a trait of spirits and spiritual beings, who don't have physical bodies in the first place.

Compare AmbiguousGender, when the character does have a physical sex but the viewers/readers simply don't know what it is, and AnimeAnatomy, when the body parts in question are presumably meant to be there but are not drawn for censorship reasons. Also compare PurelyAestheticGender when the gender of a video game character is completely irrelevant so that they might as well have NoGender as far as the plot is concerned. A {{Hermaphrodite}} has ''both'' sexes, and is thus both the opposite of this trope and sort of similar.

Note that due to a lack of alternate phrases in the English language, referring to a character as "sexless" does not mean that they're {{Asexual}}, which instead deals with sexual orientation and attraction, nor does it mean that a character does not or cannot ''have'' sex, [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean in the Biblical sense]].
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!!Examples

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* {{CLAMP}} seems to like this trope.
** Ashura in ''RGVeda'' is explicitly said to have no physical sex as part of a curse to end the line of the Ashura clan with him/her.
** In ''{{X1999}}'', Nataku is similarly sexless as a result of cloning. It's implied that his inner self is female in the manga after the person he was originally cloned from, who was a little girl named Kazuki.
** In ''{{Wish}}'', the angels, particularly the lead Kohaku, are supposed to be sexless. However, Tokyopop ended up referring the character with female pronouns, leading readers to assume the character was a girl.
** Ruby Moon from ''CardCaptorSakura'' is explicitly sexless, a point raised when Spinel comments on Ruby Moon's decision to wear female clothing.
* In the ''FullmetalAlchemist'' manga, the true form of [[spoiler:Envy is a large lizard-like thing with the head and shoulders of the people of Xerxes sticking out.]] It doesn't seem to have... parts of any sort. Picture [[http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/9643/scsfmach513637qq7.png here,]] [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel if you're brave enough to see]], and his/her/its [[spoiler:TRUE true]] form is what can best be described as a [[spoiler:fetus.]]
* ''{{Wagaya No O Inari Sama}}'''s Kuugen is a {{Kitsune}} and too old to remember his/her original sex, if he/she ever had one, and just switches between male and female forms on a whim. Justified in that Kitsune are spirits in the first place, and tied to the ''kami'' Inari (see below).

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* All angels in the expanded Vertigo universe, which means they've made several appearances in ''{{Hellblazer}}'', ''{{Sandman}}'' and their respective spin-offs.
* The Preservers of ''ElfQuest'' explicitly have no physical sex, and don't appear to have any genitals.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Metatron, the Voice of God, in ''{{Dogma}}''. And all the other angels. And Serendipity.[[hottip:*:That's not MyFriendsAndZoidberg, Serendipity is in fact a muse, not an angel.]]
* Eli from ''LetTheRightOneIn'' identifies as a girl in the present, but she's physically sexless and was originally male before [[PronounTrouble his]] genitals were cut off.
* {{Satan}} in ''ThePassionOfTheChrist'' is portrayed by a woman with a [[BaldWomen shaved head]] and a voice altered to sound more masculine in post-production. This fits in with Thomas Aquinas' writings, which specifically refer to angels, of which Satan is a (fallen) one as being pure spirits, and therefore not possessing a physical sex (see below).

[[AC:Folklore and Mythology]]
* Many angels in religion and mythology. There was a controversy about that...
* [[TheBible YHWH]] technically doesn't have or need a physical sex. [[EldritchAbomination Being an unfathomable entity,]] this is a given. In the past, God has been arbitrarily assigned male gender nouns and pronouns because 'It' [[ItIsDehumanizing seems disrespectful]] and His people were originally patriarchal. However, feminine nouns are sometimes used in Jewish religious literature when God is credited with female gender characteristics such as nurturing and tenderness.
** ''ThePrinceOfEgypt'' references this by having God as the burning bush speak with a primarily male voice (provided by Val Kilmer) with a whispery female voice layered into it.
* Inari Okami, the {{UsefulNotes/Shinto}} God of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry and worldly success, is generally considered to be neither male nor female, though like YHWH, masculine or feminine aspects are often emphasized depending on the context and the region. This is true for many other ''Kami'' as well.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* GregEgan's ''Diaspora'' features a society of posthuman software people who rarely choose to be gendered, along with invented gender-neutral pronouns (ve, vis and ver) first used in ''Distress'', where meat-humans sometimes elect to become 'asex'. (Some others crank their secondary sexual characteristics UpToEleven, and become 'umale' and 'ufem'). ''Schild's Ladder'' features essentially genderless posthumans but retains both male and female pronouns.
* Carolyn Ives Gilman's ''Halfway Human'': On Gammadis, the modified-human inhabitants have no sex until puberty. Some people never go through puberty and remain unsexed all their lives, being known as "blands." They are considered to be not fully human, are widely believed to be mentally deficient, live segregated, and work as servants.
* Sebrahn, from ''{{Nightrunner}}''.
* In ''Literature/GoodOmens'', being of angelic stock are specifically mentioned as this 'unless they really want to make an effort', the phrasing of which has led to [[UnusualEuphemism Unusual Euphemisms]] among the fandom.
* Comes part and parcel along with EasySexChange in JohnVarley's ''Eight Worlds'' science fiction novels. Some people will always pick "none of the above" if given the chance to choose. For some it's permanent, for others it's temporary. One character describes it as a "vacation from sexuality."
* Golems on Terry Pratchett's {{Discworld}}. Most are referred to with male pronouns, for the usual reasons. In ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' one was arbitrarily declared female because some women on the Post Office staff were bothered by the notion of an arbitrarily male golem cleaning their restroom.
* Very scary example from DeanKoontz' ''The Bad Place'': the villain (child of a {{hermaphrodite}} with him/herself) has four undescended testicles (with a bony shelf in the way) and no external genitalia. He channels his necessarily-repressed sexuality into homicidal rages.
* Subverted with the [[FantasyPantheon Ainur]] of JRRTolkien's works- as pure spirits, they have no biological ''sex'' beyond that of whatever form they've taken at the time, but explicitly ''do'' have gender identities (or at least, identify themselves in a way comparable to mortal gender). Still, it would probably be better to call them ''masculine'' and ''feminine'' rather than ''male'' and ''female''.
* Similarly, in C. S. Lewis's {{Space Trilogy}}, the Oyarsa (basically guardian angels, Earth's being Lucifer) of Mars and Venus can be described as masculine and feminine, respectively, but only because these genders arose from intelligent life imitating them. The other Oyarsas do not conform to either, but each have their own genders.
* The trope is lampshaded in the original book of ''TheBraveLittleToaster'' in regards to its [[EverythingTalks title character]]. The movie [[AmbiguousGender never outright addresses the question of gender]], and occasionally uses masculine pronouns for the toaster, but the toaster's sex, at least, can be assumed to be neutral.
* The Gethenians from ''TheLeftHandOfDarkness'' have no sex for most of the time, except for a few days each month when they go into kemmer and become male or female, returning to androgyny afterwards. The sex during kemmer can change from month to month--a father of one child could be the mother of another.
* Xantcha from the ''MagicTheGathering'' novel ''Planeswalker''. The Phyrexian Newts were created to resemble humans, but the first generation was defective in certain aspects, including lacking a physical sex. Mentally, Xantcha began thinking of herself as female after she was {{Mind Rape}}d by the male demon Gix.
* Yime Nsokyi from ''{{TheCulture}}'' novel ''Surface Detail'' has deliberately had herself neutered. However as everyone seems to identify her as female and the narration always does the same it seems the purpose was more to eliminate sexuality than anything else.
* Chieri, the dominant native race of {{Darkover}} are hermaphroditic but some of their hybrid offspring with humans are 'emmasca' or neuter.
* In the ''FelineWizards'' series, spayed and neutered cats are considered to be the same gender, and not the same as toms or queens.
* In Literature/TimeScout, Armstrong is a character with an ambiguous sexual identity. He could be a feminine man. She could be a masculine woman. She never identifies as either and he can pass for either. His hair is cut short, she wears wigs, and long-necked clothing eliminates the possibility of seeing an adam's apple.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* Warforged from the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' ''{{Eberron}}'' campaign setting are sexless. They may have a gender identity, but given that they have no biological basis for it, they generally either go along with whatever those around them label them, or just pick whichever feels right.
* Angels and demons in ''InNomine'' are technically neuter, although many that spend time on Earth end up acquiring a gender-bias, depending on which sex of vessel they most often have. Elohim don't acquire such biases (they are by nature supposed to avoid bias) and [[BodySurf Kyriotates and Shedim]] switch bodies so often they usually don't imprint on any one gender.
* Orks in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are sentient fungi and have no gender. They ''act'' extremely male, however.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* Koby and Loby of ''The Visit''. Trust me, YouDontWantToKnow [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel why]]...

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* Most ''{{Pokemon}}'' in Generation II and beyond have sexes, but some do not. Some of the sexless Pokémon can breed with a shapeshifting Ditto, and some legendary Pokémon with genders cannot breed (Latios, Latias, Cresselia, Heatran). Certain legendaries, such as Mewtwo, Rayquaza, the Kanto birds, and the Sinnoh and Unova dragon trios have neither sex nor breeding capacity. This last group fits this trope.
** Manaphy is sexless, yet it is capable of producing offspring - Phione, who is also sexless and unable to evolve into Manaphy.
* Comparable to the above examples, the Naaru of ''WorldOfWarcraft''. They get referred to with male pronouns because calling them 'it' would be insulting, but not being even humanoid, the few we've seen appear entirely sexless.
* Some fans have said this about ''[[NightsIntoDreams NiGHTS]]''. Others say that it's a case of AmbiguousGender. It doesn't help that Sonic Team never really gave a straight answer. In ''Nights: Journey of Dreams'', Nights was given a voice actress whom sounded both like a young boy and a slightly older girl at the same time. But it's basically up to the dreamer [[YourMileageMayVary and the player]] as to what gender, if any, Nights is.
* In ''[[http://www.choiceofgames.com/dragon/ Choice of Dragon]]'' when given the choice of gender, you can choose neither, unknown, or simply refuse to answer.
* The Chao creatures in ''SonicTheHedgehog''.
* ''{{Furcadia}}'' allows you to make characters who are 'neuter', in addition to the standard males and females, who have their own portraits. All three sex options use the same sprites.
* Cloud of Darkness, as seen in ''FinalFantasyIII'' and ''DissidiaFinalFantasy'', appears female (particularly in the latter) and is referred to with female pronouns... but as the name implies, she's just the physical form of a literal cloud of darkness, and actually refers to herself with "We". Therefore, she can't be said to ''be'' female.
* The two requisite wise mystic thingies in the EccoTheDolphin series, the Asterite and the Guardian, are a sexless giant strand of DNA and genderless giant psychic crystal, respectively.
* In the Konami series {{Parodius}}, the scoreboard asks your sex. They're prepared for boys, girls, everything inbetween AND everything neither here nor there.
* Forgotten beasts, titans, plump helmet men, and inorganic creatures (fire men, magma men, bronze colossi, magma crabs...) in {{Dwarf Fortress}}. Yes, several of those have "man" in their names. Deal with it.
* The SuperMarioBros series has the [[OneGenderRace Yoshis]], all of which have NoGender.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* Sanyiel from HeroInTraining has no physical sex, although he passes for male. This becomes a bit of a complication when he gets a girlfriend...

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Done on the Disney show ''LloydInSpace'', where one episode featured an alien with no sex. It gains one once it hits alien puberty.
* GIR, from ''{{Invader Zim}}''. But "he" is still referred to as a he... otherwise it would be confusing.
* {{Transformers}} are robots and as such have no sexes to speak of, although male seems to be the default where pronouns are concerned.
* {{WALL-E}} and EVE are canonically without sexes, as are the other robots. The implication of the love scenes is that WALL-E is projecting the gender identities he saw in "Hello Dolly".
* In ''{{Futurama}}'' the characters once met a rock alien whose species has only one sex (neuchachos). Finding the concept of physical sex incomprehensible, he administers a series of tests to see which one was best, eventually deciding that gender only causes division, so he takes away their sexual characteristics. In their neutral state, they find peace and harmony... until they realize they can't have sex ever again and demand their genitals back.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* While a lack of genitals is generally considered a deformity, the [[http://www.neutrois.com/index.html neutrois]] community (which covers several nonstandard gender identities) sometimes considers it an aesthetic ideal.
** Agender people are similar to neutrois but are not tied to a specific body type, and they identify as having no gender whatsoever, rather than a neutral one as neutrois people do.
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<<|GenderAndSexualityTropes|>>

Whenever a character has no genitals or secondary sex characteristics (to put it simply, no sex, but [[DoubleEntendre that could be interpreted]] [[{{Asexuality}} two ways]]). They may identify with a specific gender for reasons other than the physical, or they may identify as something else entirely. This is frequently a trait of spirits and spiritual beings, who don't have physical bodies in the first place.

* Inari Okami, the {{UsefulNotes/Shinto}} God of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry and worldly success, is generally considered to be neither male nor female, though like YHWH, masculine or feminine aspects are often emphasized depending on the context. This is true for many other ''Kami'' as well.

* Inari Okami, the {{Shinto}} God of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry and worldly success, is generally considered to be neither male or female, though sometimes depicted as either a male or female depending on the context and the region.

* ''{{Wagaya No O Inari Sama}}'''s Kuugen is a {{Kitsune}} and too old to remember his/her original sex, if he/she ever had one, and just switches between male and female forms on a whim. Justified in that Kitsune are spirits in the first place.

** Ashura in ''RGVeda'' is explicitly said to have no physical as part of a curse to end the line of the Ashura clan with him/her.

Compare AmbiguousGender, when the character does have a gender but the viewers/readers simply don't know what it is, and AnimeAnatomy, when the body parts in question are presumably meant to be there but are not drawn for censorship reasons. Also compare PurelyAestheticGender when the gender of a video game character is completely irrelevant so that they might as well have NoGender as far as the plot is concerned. A {{Hermaphrodite}} has ''both'' sexes, and is thus both the opposite of this trope and sort of similar.

* [[TheBible YHWH]] technically doesn't have or need a gender. [[EldritchAbomination Being an unfathomable entity,]] this is a given. In the past, God has been arbitrarily assigned male gender nouns and pronouns because 'It' [[ItIsDehumanizing seems disrespectful]] and His people were originally patriarchal. However, feminine nouns are sometimes used in Jewish religious literature when God is credited with female gender characteristics such as nurturing and tenderness.

* Golems on Terry Pratchett's {{Discworld}}. Most are referred to with male pronouns, for the usual reasons. In ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' one was arbitrarily declared female because some women on the Post Office staff were bothered by the notion of an arbitrarily male golem cleaning their restrooom.

* Most ''{{Pokemon}}'' in Generation II and beyond have genders, but some do not. Some of the genderless Pokémon can breed with a shapeshifting Ditto, and some legendary Pokémon with genders cannot breed (Latios, Latias, Cresselia, Heatran). Certain legendaries, such as Mewtwo, Rayquaza, the Kanto birds, and the Sinnoh and Unova dragon trios have neither gender nor breeding capacity. This last group fits this trope.
** Manaphy is genderless, yet it is capable of producing offspring - Phione, who is also genderless and unable to evolve into Manaphy.
* Comparable to the above examples, the Naaru of ''WorldOfWarcraft''. They get referred to with male pronouns because calling them 'it' would be insulting, but not being even humanoid, the few we've seen appear entirely genderless.

* ''{{Furcadia}}'' allows you to make characters who are 'neuter', in addition to the standard males and females, who have their own portraits. All three gender options use the same sprites.

* The two requisite wise mystic thingies in the EccoTheDolphin series, the Asterite and the Guardian, are a genderless giant strand of DNA and genderless giant psychic crystal, respectively.
* In the Konami series {{Parodius}}, the scoreboard asks your gender. They're prepared for boys, girls, everything inbetween AND everything neither here nor there.

* Done on the Disney show ''LloydInSpace'', where one episode featured an alien with no gender. It gains one once it hits alien puberty.

* {{Transformers}} are robots and as such have no genders to speak of, although male seems to be the default where pronouns are concerned.
* {{WALL-E}} and EVE are canonically without gender, as are the other robots. The implication of the love scenes is that WALL-E is projecting the gender identities he saw in "Hello Dolly".
* In ''{{Futurama}}'' the characters once met a rock alien whose species has only one gender (neuchachos). Finding the concept of gender incomprehensible, he administers a series of tests to see which one was best, eventually deciding that gender only causes division, so he takes away their sexual characteristics. In their neutral state, they find peace and harmony... until they realize they can't have sex ever again and demand their genitals back.

Note that due to a lack of alternate phrases in the English language, referring to a character as "sexless" does not mean that they're {{Asexual}}, which instead deals with sexual orientation, nor does it mean that a character does not or cannot ''have'' sex, [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean in the Biblical sense]].

** Ashura in ''RGVeda'' is explicitly said to have no gender as part of a curse to end the line of the Ashura clan with him/her.
** In ''{{X1999}}'', Nataku is similarly genderless as a result of cloning. It's implied that his inner self is female in the manga after the person he was originally cloned from, who was a little girl named Kazuki.
** In ''{{Wish}}'', the angels, particularly the lead Kohaku, are supposed to be genderless. However, Tokyopop ended up referring the character with female pronouns, leading readers to assume the character was a girl.

* ''{{Wagaya No O Inari Sama}}'''s Kuugen is a {{Kitsune}} and too old to remember his/her original gender, if he/she ever had one, and just switches between male and female forms on a whim. Justified in that Kitsune are spirits in the first place.

* GregEgan's ''Diaspora'' features a society of posthuman software people who rarely choose to be gendered, along with invented gender-neutral pronouns (ve, vis and ver). ''Schild's Ladder'' features essentially genderless posthumans but retains both male and female pronouns.
** He first used the pronouns in ''Distress'', where meat-humans sometimes elect to become 'asex'. (Some others crank their secondary sexual characteristics UpToEleven, and become 'umale' and 'ufem'.)

* The Preservers of ''ElfQuest'' explicitly have no sex, and don't appear to have any genitals.

Whenever a character has no genitals or secondary sex characteristics (to put it simply, no sex, but [[DoubleEntendre that could be interpreted]] [[{{Asexuality}} two ways]]). They may identify with a specific gender for reasons other than the physical, or they may identify as something else entirely.

** ''ThePrinceOfEgypt'' references this by having God as the burning bush speak with a primarily male voice (provided by Val Kilmer) with a female voice layered into it.

** ''ThePrinceOfEgypt'' references this by having God as the burning bush speak with a male and female voice layered over each other.

* {{Satan}} in ''ThePassionOfTheChrist'' is portrayed by a woman with a [[BaldWomen shaved head]] and a voice altered to sound more masculine in post-production. This fits in with Thomas Aquinas' writings, which specifically refer to Satan as being a pure spirit, and therefore not possessing a physical sex (see below).