Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
Contrary to everyone's first impression, there's a penis in there somewhere.
Snake: [Yoshi] lays eggs and throws them, right?... Then it must be female. Otacon: ... Actually, it's a "he". At least, that's what it says.
You have been watching this series for a while, be it since childhood or since yesterday. You are just in the middle of an exciting scene where Miss Lovecuddles reveals that she was actually behind everything that... wait a minute, Miss? He's not a boy?
Congratulations, you've just become a victim of Viewer Gender Confusion!
Sometimes this is because a cheap dub uses badly Cross Dressing Voices, sometimes because the language you're enjoying your story in doesn't have gender differentiated pronouns, or because they have a name rarely used for that gender, or it was clear from the beginning and you were just holding the Idiot Ball for the day and missed it fabulously.
Compare She's a Man in Japan, where the character's sex actually was changed while adapting, and Bifauxnen and Samus Is A Girl, where you are expected to be mistaken at first. Contrast (or compare?) Dude Looks Like A Lady, when it's other characters who are confused.
See also Ambiguous Gender for characters who have no canonically stated gender. May be solved with the use (or lack) of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics. Can be seen as the viewer-perspective version of Dropped A Bridget On Him.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Art
- Nearly any modern portrayal of Mori Ranmaru falls heavily into this if you aren't already aware of the historical figure. Historical artwork of him is a bit better.
- Recent artwork of Hindu gods or goddesses tends to portray them all as quite Bishonen. This is only partly true for historical depictions; while male figures were still drawn or sculpted as lithe, slender, and smooth-skinned, the secondary sexual characteristics of females were... much less ambiguous.
Films — Animation
- One of the strangest examples is the title character of The Brave Little Toaster. Fans are pretty evenly split between "the Toaster is male" and "the Toaster is female". The film actually seems to support this confusion, though the character was masculine in the book of its basis. You never hear anyone referring to Toaster by a pronoun (except for a single line of dialogue — yelled over a roaring waterfall) and Toaster's personality is fairly gender-neutral, unlike any of the other characters. And thanks to Cross Dressing Voices, the fact that Toaster's voiced by a female is no help. And we're still talking about a machine.
- Blanky is just as bad. The fact that he/she/it is The Chick in the Toaster's Five Man Band doesn't help.
- Some people really need to get over the gender binary. It's not even accurate for humans!
- This comment really needs to get expanded and put up in the main description for this trope. Seriously, people.
- While watching the movie, no-one could possibly mistake Bambi's gender for female. Unfortunately, the fact that it's been a long time since anyone's actually seen Bambi, and that outside of the film he's always portrayed in his cute young form, a lot of people are rather surprised when they watch the movie again and Bambi gets a girlfriend.
- The leader of the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. Female, right? I mean, she's got that high-pitched voice (most of the time), red lips, and she falls in love with Jeremy in the end, right? That's totally what that psychedelic sequence was all about! And the eyes! But... what? She has a mustache? Max calls her "Sir?" Ho Yay? But it sounds so female! But that deep growl it gets when it's mad...! W-w-what... What is it?! *cries*
- The makers of Monsters VS Aliens themselves seem to be confused over the gender of Insectosaurus. A behind-the-scenes book labels the creature as a "she" while, within the canon of the actual film, the monster is a "he".
- The twin dolls 3 and 4 in 9 look completely identical (save for their stamped-on numbers), act alike, and never speak, making it completely ambiguous as to what gender either of them is. This is compounded by the fact that, as living ragdolls, they don't have any external characteristics indicative of sex. The creator has urged fans to come up with their own theories regarding the two.
- In the Chinese animated film Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (1979), the title character is a little boy but he looks and acts more like a little girl — the hair style, clothing, and voice don't help either.
- The starfish, Peach, in Finding Nemo. Its voice actor is a woman, but her voice is just masculine enough to make it sound like a guy.
- Tarzan: Anybody else have to be reminded that the gorilla Turk (voiced by Rosie O'Donnell) is female? I had no frikkin' clue.
- I have to admit, I was confused by this to no end as ever since I first saw the movie. I KNEW she was female, but her mannerisms and voice often made me rethink my position.
- Lampshaded by Tantor in ''The Legend of Tarzan'.
- A large number of viewers of trailers for Kung Fu Panda, who were unaware of just whom Angelina Jolie had been cast as, were in for a shock when they finally saw the film and Master Tigress spoke for the first time. In everyone's defense, not only did the lack of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics make it very hard to tell her gender, even her voice actress originally assumed, when the casting call was made public, that Jackie Chan would be playing the tiger. This confusion only added to the Stupid Sexy Flanders associated with the character (although for some viewers it didn't lessen the appeal).
Films — Live Action
- Many a viewer of the original Stargate genuinely thought Ra was a woman; Jaye Davidson is just that pretty.
- That Stargate SG-1 shows us that Goa'uld don't really care overmuch about the gender of their hosts doesn't help.
- In-universe, this would likely be why there's such gender confusion among the gods. Notably, Osiris has a female host. (Something of an inverted Samus Is A Girl, actually; she's very clearly a woman, but the viewer is meant to assume she's Isis until The Reveal.)
- Destoroyah from the Godzilla franchise is officially a male Kaiju. However, that hasn't stopped fans from thinking he's a female due to the fact that some aspects of his body structure are similiar to that of female crabs.
- And, then there's also Mothra Leo from the Mothra Film Trilogy. For the record, Leo is a boy. Yes, you heard me. A Male Mothra. (Mothrus?)
- Even the dub of the films had trouble with this and constantly referred to Leo as both a "he" and a "she" and even an "it".
- And then there's the 1998 remake where that version of Godzilla could reproduce asexually.
- An interesting variation of this occurs with the monster Rodan. In the original 1956 film Rodan, both a male and a female Rodan are featured. Since then, fans have argued whether or not the Rodans(?) featured in later films are male or female.
- The Showa Rodan is a male. Likewise, so is Fire Rodan from the 1993 film Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II. On the other hand, it's never made clear which gender the Final Wars Rodan is.
- Some people have mistaken Gigan, a male cyborg kaiju, for a female due to his high-pitched roar.
- Battra, Mothra's Evil Twin, has also been mistaken for a female.
- There are people out there who think the Newborn from Alien Resurrection is a female. For the record, it's a hermaphrodite. The actual prop used for the film had both 'male and female genitalia. This does not make the Newborn an "it", but it reminds us that English seriously needs better pronouns.
- Of course, this can apply to all members of the Xenomorph species. Even the Queen, who is commonly referred to as a "she" by the fanbase, technically doesn't have a single clear gender. This is because H.R. Giger intended the Aliens to be neither male nor female but merely a blurring of both sexes.
- In other words, they're hermaphrodites.
- Some viewers of The Year of Living Dangerously were surprised to learn that Billy Kwan was played by a woman.
- The Michael Cera character in Year One. He's practically half the size of Jack Black, more covered up but his little caveshirt has a sort of v-neck going on, slightly better-groomed, much less hairy, has a high-pitched little voice, and has a completely androgynous face. I figured it out the second time I saw a trailer, but for a while I was utterly perplexed.
- Legolas from the 1978 The Lord of the Rings film. And how!
- Jodie Foster's daughter in Panic Room (played by the then 11-year old Kristen Stewart) has a fairly gender neutral haircut, somewhat androgynus looks and wears uni-sex pyjamas and can easily be mistaken for a boy on first viewing.
Literature
- In Hungarian, pronouns aren't gender based, leading generations of The Lord of the Rings readers thinking that the Witch-king was killed by Merry, not Éowyn. And coincidentally, neither the appendices nor the prophecy (No man shall kill him — it was a Hobbit!) contradicts this. But it's clear in the original.
- This happened in Sweden too, but for an entirely different reason. The translator simply thought it was more appropriate for Merry to be the one to slay the Witch-king, so he substituted "she" for "he". This is far from the only change made to the original Swedish translation, and one of the reasons why the books were re-translated once the movies were released. At the time, Tolkien himself (who, remember, was a philologist and polylinguist) critiqued the original Swedish translation and sent the publishers a lengthy letter stating that he could write a better Swedish LOTR than they could... leading said translator to start a personal crusade against all things Tolkien, accusing him and his fans of, among other things, drug peddling, devil worship and neo-Nazism.
- For a long time, half of the Harry Potter fandom thought Blaise Zabini was a girl. (Well, how many Blaises do you know? Apart from Blaise Pascal, that is.) Some used "her" extensively in Fan Fic.
- If you're well-informed enough to know that the Groke of the Moomin series is female, try figuring out Thingumy and Bob, or the Fillyjonk's children from the anime. Too-ticky can also be misleading because of her appearance, but it's pretty clear she's a woman.
- Too-ticky is at least partly based on Jansson's sculptor girlfriend, which may account for her relative butchness.
- In the original Swedish, the Groke is called Mårran which manages to sound both feminine and threatening.
- Thingummy and Bob wear dresses, and in the original are named Tofslan and Vifslan - so there is no "Bob" to confuse people. (Their particular way of speaking is an in-joke on the lingo Jansson and a female friend used. "Tove" becomes "Tofslan" when you speak like that...)
- Actually, that "female friend" was her first girlfriend, Vivica Bandler. The whole plot about the Ruby and the Groke is a metaphor for them having to hide their relationship back in the days homosexuality was still a crime and taboo in Finland.
- A milder form of this occurs in the Honor Harrington series of books. The Royal Manticoran Navy has nearly 50-50 gender equality, and many characters are referred to as their title, i.e. Admiral, Captain, Exec., etc. To compound this, many of the women are given masculine nicknames, like Michelle becoming "Mike." You may need to take notes.
- Max, from the Maximum Ride series. Considering that the book is written entirely in first person and her masculine name, it's no wonder. It's not clear at all that she's female until at least about fifty pages into the first novel, when she is finally referred to with a female pronoun.
Live Action TV
- Data's cat Spot from Star Trek The Next Generation. It couldn't seem to make up its mind on what gender (or even what type of cat) it was supposed to be.
- Grace Polk from Joan of Arcadia, although it was addressed in the first episode when the character got mistaken for a "very rude boy" by another character.
- George from the British kids TV show Rainbow. Despite being pink with long eyelashes, having an effeminate voice and being the girly one of the group ("ooh, you are naughty!"), the character was male. The name should have been a clue, but the hugely popular kiddie book series The Famous Five did feature a girl called George...
- Snoop from The Wire confused a lot of viewers. She dresses exactly like the men, hides her braided hair under baseball caps, makes suggestive comments about other women, has a very gravely voice, and generally makes her way as a stone killer in a man's world. The only time she wears feminine clothes in the entire series, she's also wearing a face-convering motorcycle helmet on a drive-by shooting. Unless you paid very close attention to the dialogue, you'd miss that it was the same person.
- Alpha Centauri, in the classic series Doctor Who serial "The Curse of Peladon" (and "The Monster of Peladon", its sequel). A bit different, given its not even vaguely human. But both stories generally depict it as being female.... it doesn't help that the voice and body mannerisms are all very definitely feminine.... when, in actual fact, its an "it" (it has no specific gender). Further viewer confusion is gained by nearly every character refering to it as either "he" or "him", despite the visual and aural indicators being for the opposite.
- Trippitaka from Monkey. She's played by a very pretty Japanese actress, has a pretty female voice in the English dub, and basically apears in every way to be a female, However, all the other characters refer to her as a "Him", and on the reare occasions when she sins (she IS a Budhist monk) she comes on to women. It's not even like, "Is that a girl? Is it a boy?" It's more like "That's a woman!
 but everyone's calling her a man for some reason.
- Actually, that was done deliberately. It's less genderbending and more to display the gender neutrality of Buddha. The character is male, and played by a female actress.
- Though it's quickly apparent if you watch the show, many people who hear of Angel assume it stars a woman, thanks to his Gender Blender Name. (The show Dark Angel probably didn't help.)
- He's also a vampire, just to make the name more confusing.
- The title character of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was female — people tend to mistakenly refer to her as a "he" (then again, Skippy is nowadays primarily known through Popcultural Osmosis). Major clue that Skippy is a girl: she has a pouch.
- Only females have pouches? (Yeah, I know that, but it could be a case of the You Fail Biology Forever on the viewers' part.)
- Uni Sax from [[Superhjaltejul Super Hero Christmas]]. Even in the illustrations that accompanied the credits, she could be either or. Then again, this is largely justified, considering her goal was to make everyone look and seem the same, which includes having nothing to define who or what you are.
Music
- Taylor Hanson from the teen pop group Hanson: ambiguously pitched voice, long hair, and gender-neutral name. So... yeah.
- And it turns out Quagmire made the exact same mistake. How'd I miss that quote?
- And the youngest Hanson claims to have seen a pretty girl in a magazine and wondered who she was... and looked closer, and realized it was himself!
- Kalan Porter from Canadian Idol definitely confused many people.
- Pick a J-rock band.
- Particularly male jrockers that dress in Goth Loli, like Mana.
- Two Words: Visual Kei.
- This is where it gets interesting: The crossdressing in Visual Kei has been such a massive part of the style for so long that the vast majority of fans now take it for granted that It's A Man. No matter what they look like, what they're wearing... even what they sound like- It's A Man. As a result, the shock and surprise comes when one of the people in elaborate makeup and a dress turns out to be an actual woman.
- Pick any J-Pop boyband, especially those under Johnny's Entertainment. Those guys make prettier girls than most of their fans.
- Back when the Culture Club was all new, a good few people assumed Boy George was female.
- Bill Kaulitz◊ of Tokio Hotel is this trope personified. You cannot convince me that that... person... is male. It is apparent that to some extent, it isn't his fault, as his identical twin brother is also somewhat effeminate. However, Bill obviously chose to play it up, while his brother went in the opposite direction.
- Many were surprised to find out that Noodle of Gorillaz was a girl. Less so now that she's being depicted as a teenager who sometimes sports makeup and more feminine clothing, though she still leaves a few confused.
- Jody "I'm not a girl" McBrayer fits this trope nicely. He must definitely looks masculine, but if you don't know who's singing... Well, just listen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb8kgaa3Xsg
- Tracy Chapman. Judging by her voice, rather muscular physique, and most pictures, it can be pretty tricky to tell. Her gender-neutral name doesn't help.
- The lead singer of Placebo, Brian Molko, has confused many with his highly effeminate appearance.
- An anecdote from the early days of ABBA relates how Bjorn Ulvaeus initially got a number of letters from fans who thought he was female. The explanation he gave was that the letters had come from Eastern European countries, where photo quality broke down through multiple copying, leaving his defining characteristics as his androgynous clothing and long hair. But it probably didn't help that he dressed more effeminately than Benny usually did, either...
- MarilynManson : this trope is actually one of his trademarks.
- Amber from the Korean pop band f(x) to the point where her group members even thought she was a boy at first. It doesn't help that she's "pretty" enough to look like most male pop stars or that SM Entertainment always puts her in masculine clothing, such as a boy's school uniform or a male hanbok.
Puppet Shows
- Big Bird from Sesame Street is a boy?
- This may be because of his voice actor's Gender Blender Name. Yes, Carroll Spinney is male.
- The Dutch version of Sesame Street features a blue Big Bird called Pino, who started out being played by a man. When he retired an a woman got the role, there was actually some debate among the creators about whether they should make the bird a pink girl and rename her Pina. In the end they chose gender confusion over gender bending.
- The German version once got a snail called "Fienchen" *
"chen" is a German diminutive - i.e. literally means little/small, can be used in nicknames as an expression of endearment . Fienchen started out beeing male, but due to his "cute" name and high pitched voice, he caused so much gender confusion, they actually changed him into a girl.
- That's the one case where gender confusion would be appropriate. Snails are hermaphrodites.
Toys
- Bionicle. Period. The toys have little room for Tertiary Sexual Characteristics due to their modular nature (it is a Lego product line), so the only reliable way to pick out which one is the girl is the series' color-coding (the blue ones - at least the blue heroes - were the girls). Same thing in-story, but at least the characters can use voice and body language to tell genders apart. Roodaka, despite wearing black instead of blue, is the only woman with an actual feminine figure - but we've never seen males of her race, so for all we know they cause confusion in the other direction.
- One prime example was with the "Mistika" characters, as Word Of God had said one of the three Makuta in the set was to be female, and since none of those three were blue the color code wasn't going to be any help. When the fanbase got pictures, many guessed it was Krika, a sleek white character with a feminine-ish name and an elongated head/mask reminiscent of a ponytail. It turned out that the female was actually Gorast; a short, squat, green-and-black hag with four arms.
- And did we mention that when the series got ReTooled with a new setting, the color code ceased to apply to gender? (The girl is still blue, but there's also a male blue character.)
- The Beanie Baby Erin. Paired up with the Princess Diana bear. Green, as opposed to Diana's more feminine purple. Especially if you were unaware of the differences between Aaron and Erin (phonetically identical) as a child.
- The toyline-only character Sonar from Beast Wars is considered female by some fans due to the lack of gender-specific pronouns on the toy's bio.
- Confirmed in the comics, which took advantage of the lack of pronouns to add another female to the ranks.
Video Games
- Slippy Toad in Star Fox 64.
- Parodied in one VG Cats comic, where Leo and Aeris try to see which bathroom Slippy uses. Doesn't work. "It's peeing in the fucking break room!"
- However, in the original game, as well as Star Fox Assault, Slippy has a male voice. It's only the N64 title where the confusion happens.
- This has happened to Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog a few times, even though in the first games in which he speaks, he was actually voiced by a boy.
- It's All There In The Manual, of course, since his given name is the unambiguously male Miles Prower.
- Doesn't help any that in the spanish word for "tail" is feminine. And this hit the dub like a bolide hit Earth 65 million years ago
- A large portion of this is due to the Urban Legend that Tails was originally designed as a girl but was changed at the last minute. Said legend is prevalent both in Japan and the US, leading to double the confusion. Whether or not it's true has yet to be proven, but most informed fans believe it quite false.
- Due to no voices, prepubescence, hair clips, and small graphics, some viewers originally thought Pat from Mega Man Star Force was a girl. The Japanese names for the character, Tsukasa and Hikaru, are both androgynous names at best, which didn't help; English names "Pat" and "Rey" attempt to keep this impression (or lack of it). You'd almost think it was deliberate...
- Not to mention that the first time fans got a look at him was during the opening of the anime, where his hair was incorrectly colored blond. Needless to say, it didn't help.
- Zero in Mega Man X comes equipped with long hair and, well, there's no other way to say it — booblights, causing some confusion until Mega Man X4 added his ridiculously manly voice, and ironically enough X's ridiculously girly voice.
- Zero was initially designed as a girl. Only late in the development process was he changed to a guy. The design at that point was pretty much finalized. So says Word Of God, anyway...
- Even worse was Harpuia in the Megaman Zero series: a bishonen named after a always-female monster with a soprano voice in the first game. Later games pitched it down an octave or two.
- And then there's Cubit Foxtar◊, which the Complete Works states as male (an oblique reference to kitsune, well, pretending to be women), and Polar Kamrous◊, who has a gruff voice to match her (this time the story stated it explicitly) build, from Zero 3 and Zero 2, respectively.
- The first images of the "enemy Rockmen" in ZX Advent showed them in armored form, leading many to believe that Atlas (Model F) was a man and Tethys (Model L) was a girl; the names didn't help (Atlas was a Titan, Tethys a Titaness in mythology), and neither did the fact that they were boss-Expies of Fefnir and Leviathan, also a man and woman, respectively. When the unarmored pictures and gameplay videos came out, Atlas had a visible bust and Tethys sounded like a boy, albeit young. They rapidly became known as "Trap" and "Reverse Trap" in the fanbase. The dub makes Tethys sound older and more boy-like, at least.
- In the original ZX, if you never hear Hurricaunce's voice, you could think she's a guy.
- Serenade from the Mega Man Battle Network series, one of the strongest Navis in the world. His gender was changed for the US version and kept vague for several years in Japan, leading to a lot of heated debate. Finally a profile book was released where his profile stated he was "a male Net Navi with the appearance of a young girl".
- Cronosonic at 211.30.181.144 wonder how the hell did we get this far without mentioning Lumine?◊ He's male. If anyone thought that was the case on first glance, he will be shocked.
- Yoshi in Super Mario Bros — "she" laid eggs for crying out loud. It really doesn't help that "Yoshi" is used to refer to either one individual or his entire species.
- Fan Wank often involves thinking of the "eggs" as more like poop, given the method of their production. Apparently Yoshis learned their combat techniques from monkeys.
- Word Of God says male Yoshis lay exploding eggs used for combat, females lay actual eggs, and the Yoshi usually seen with Mario and friends is in fact male.
- Conflicting evidence comes from Japanese text from a Super Smash Bros. trophy, claiming that Yoshis all have no gender.
- Kamek from Yoshi's Island and New Super Mario Bros Wii is male.
- Watt, the living spark in Paper Mario, has no obvious gender identifiers. The text usually uses feminine pronouns for Watt, but switches to male in at least one place.
- Link is not a stranger to this trope, thanks to being the main character in a game called Zelda and people occasionally mistaking his tunic for a skirt. It doesn't help that he tends to be really pretty...
- Sheik is definitely a contender for King/Queen of this trope. Word Of God has it s/he's female, but would you know that on your first playthrough of Ocarina of Time, what with the Nintendo 64's limited graphical horsepower? S/he single-handedly divided the entire Zelda fanbase on the issue of her gender, and continues to do so today. Of course, this one is interesting because Sheik is actually the (quite obviously female) Zelda- the real issue is "is she disguised as a man, or does she transform into a man?" The manga said she transformed (more like brainwashed, if you pay attention), while Smash Bros manual said it was just a disguise. What version counts as Word Of God depends on who you ask.
- Due to the artstyle making no body-built differences between male and female characters, quite a few players also thought Tetra, (who's basically Sheik's The Wind Waker counterpart, minus the mysteriousness) was a boy, right until Link's little sister Aryll exclaimed "How terrible! The girl fell into the forest!!". Tetra is the only one in the game who suffers from this, since she's the only female character who is wearing pants.
- How exactly can you be confused by this when you don't even meet Tetra until after Aryll says that line? Maybe you'll be confused for about five seconds, but not any longer.
- I was refering to the people who came to know Tetra through her artwork, which is common for Zelda characters, since the artwork is usually the very first thing revealed of a Zelda game. And it's a fact that a high percentage of players guessed her gender wrong from that leaked artwork, right until they played the game.
- The mandatory Final Fantasy examples:
- Most protagonists all the way back to Cecil from the fourth game, who, upon armor removal, had long flowing hair and a tiara. Furthermore, he's got black lipstick in his concept art. Not to mention a fair few of the antagonists, until the tentacles and spikes and roots come out.
- Speaking of Cecil, in Nintendo DS remake of his Final Fantasy IV game, he is given light blue armor and a blue hairband. He's still got the lipstick in the CGI, though. The voiceacting kinda helps, as well.
- Many people mistake the White Mage/Wizard sprite in Final Fantasy I as female, despite the fact that the Light Warriors are all male. The popularity of 8-Bit Theater, where the character is female, doesn't help. In the remakes, the characters are all made more androgynous, to be passable as either.
- Minwu from Final Fantasy II is frequently thought to be female, despite being called a man when he is introduced, the robes, veil and powerful healing abilities are major reasons why.
- Fans of Final Fantasy VI love to speculate on Gogo's gender, especially given some of the more popular fan theories.
- Kuja from Final Fantasy IX, anyone? The pic up here truly speaks for itself. He even has feminine hips and waist, which arguably falls into "cheating". The only thing keeping him from being a woman, visually, is that we can't see the boobs or junk.
- This is lampshaded when He confronts Queen Brahne after she (expectedly) turns on him, and she says, "It's about time you showed your girly face here."
- And lampshaded again in Dissidia Final Fantasy where Panelo gives her descriptions of all the characters and claims that she dislikes Kuja since no boy should look prettier than she does.
- For that matter, at least one FFIX player mistook Zidane for a girl. But considering that they're brothers, maybe androgyny runs in the family.
- All the Terran clones look identical to Zidane, even the girls, so no surprise there.
- When Zidane specifcally asked another of his kind whether they had males or females, they responded by saying that yes they do because asexual beings would lack the capacity to adapt to new environments.
- Chances are that 75% of the people who have played Final Fantasy XII have mistaken Larsa for a girl. Alas he is a boy. A very girly boy. With very pretty shoes. A very twelve year-old boy. Shotacon, anyone?
- Sorceress Adel from Final Fantasy VIII, obviously. Despite being a sorceress, the first reaction is generally "That's a man, baby!" due to her tattoos and overall masculine appearance.
- Ramza from Final Fantasy Tactics.
- Interestingly enough for the dorks in the crowd, Ramza's technically androgynous when it comes to the game's statistics system: He gets physical growth like a man and magical growth like a woman.
- Many fans of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance thought that Marche looks like a female, with near-feminine hair and his shy personality. Luckily, when the bullies teased Marche "quiet like a girl", Ritz response made the fact that Marche is indeed a boy.
- And after so many Bishonen protagonits through the series, while they weren't many, there were some that originally thought Lightning was yet another girly male protagonist!
- Zelos in Tales of Symphonia upon first glance when you see him on the cover of the game... and sometimes second and third glances too. Once you meet him in the story and figure out he's a male-voiced Handsome Lech, you might be in shock for three more hours of gameplay.
- Ion from Tales of the Abyss. Not only is he incredibly androgynous and has a very female-like voice, other people refuse to use pronouns to refer to him and instead say 'Ion'.
- The Japanese version is slightly more difficult to confuse because his voice is more masculine and he uses a masculine pronoun to refer to himself... Mind you, there's a whole fetish around girls who do that, but most of those oddly act less feminine than Ion.
- When gamers first saw the NA cover art of Tales Of Vesperia, many assumed that the box was depicting the hero and heroine of the game. Nope. The feminine looking one with the long black silky hair is the Hero of the game. The Guy with the blond hair is the rival. The actual heroine of the game is on the back of the box.
- Girly men and Fire Emblem go hand in hand. There have been many scattered cases throughout its history, such as Sephiran and Chainey, but the most amazing ur-example is Lucius, with his bright blue eyes, long, flowing blonde hair, and monk robes that made him look like he's wearing a form-fitting dress. Not a single person thought he was a man when they first saw his official art. His gentle, feminine, almost Staff Chick personality really didn't help. Nor did his child-bearing hips. Or the fact that his main support conversation (and the only one with a double-ending for Lucius) is with another guy.
- Starlow from Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story had some of this, at least in the English version. She's just a floaty little ball with feet and a star, and there is only one line referring herself as female. However she has little eyelashes in the official art, but not in-game.
- Kingdom Hearts always had its share of gender confusion. If you started playing the series with Chain of Memories, it takes quite a while to get everyone's chromosomes right, no thanks to the confusing pixel anatomy and strange, quasi-corset Organization coats making EVERYONE have an hourglass figure.
- Marluxia◊ was originally intended to be a woman. Due to "her" already slightly masculine appearance and the fact that this trope is par for the course for Square-Enix, they didn't actually have to change anything when they decided to make the switch. Amazingly enough, the Organization features only one lonely female◊ (but no shortage of estrogen).
- When the promo images of Kingdom Hearts were first released, there was a debate on a Disney forum about weather Riku was a boy or girl.
- Which is weird considering how buff Riku is.
- Rhyme from The World Ends with You. Of course, she's a young girl, so unless others are talking about her with pronouns, there's no way to tell. Another example of going by the game cover; it's obvious in-game. Not making it any easier for those playing Subarashiki Kono Sekai — turns out Rhyme is a Bokukko.
- Kazooie, from Banjo-Kazooie, can be very confusing, given her brash character and utter lack of feminine traits. Rareware apparently got sick of it, though, since The Revival gave her a few Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
- Many players have mistaken Terry from Banjo-Tooie as a female, since he gets mad because he thinks you've stolen his eggs, and no gender is immediately given, you'd think that he laid the eggs and is the female. But according to the game's instruction manual, as well as some random dialogue from Zombie Jingaling, Terry's wife has left him, and therefore he is very protective of the eggs.
- Kanan from Soul Nomad and the World Eaters. In fact, you'll probably need to pick a certain path in the main campaign to find out "she" is really a "he".
- Gunstar Red from Gunstar Super Heroes is a girl. It's though the fact that either by reading the manual or by her gender being expressed ONCE that you would know this.
- Lotte from the obscure SNES game Clock Tower is commonly confused for a guy... Despite having noticeable breasts, among other things.
- The Game Overthinker summed Square-Enix's propensity for this rather nicely: "... Oh, wait, I think that's supposed to be a guy... Fucking Squaresoft!"
- The Pyro from Team Fortress 2 is this trope — nobody knows what he/she/it is, due to the muffled voice — there's a purse in the locker, but the character plays air guitar and makes Street Fighter references. May be a flaming homosexual.
- The purse may also be a keepsake from someone Pyro lost in a tragic fire-related accident — there are so many theories about the character that one more doesn't hurt.
- But wouldn't a woman who plays air guitar and references Street Fighter be hot?
- Now Valve are giving us confusing hints. In the recent Sniper/Spy updates, one of the posts reffered to the Pyro as a "she" (before it was removed), and the Meet the Spy video has that alert board complete with "is a man", "is a woman", "is a robot", etc.
- In the recent Halloween update, a paper bag was released as a hat. For every class, it depicted something relating to it. The demo had a cyclops, the soldier's monster eyes were covered by hair, and the pyro had a duck. Seemingly random, but if you think if it as a chick it makes a lot more sense. This one doubts Valve will ever tell us the true gender and is laughing at us.
- Ron Delite from Ace Attorney. He has all sorts of female characteristics, such as a pointy "egg" head shape, hair like that of Princess Leia and somewhat of a female face. Doesn't help that he's very kind, gentle and shy, and that his Mask☆De Masque costume is very husky.
- Nick and Deanna from the Shining Force Gaiden series are some of the worst examples of this, ever. Just look them up, and be confused. It doesn't help that Deanna has a name that's a woman's name everywhere but in this game.
- Calintz, main character of the Magna Carta game (at least the one released in the West).
- He's also the main of the original PC game... despite it otherwise having a totally different plot and setting. And he was, by reports, ridiculously feminine there, as well. The artist for the series apparently likes feminine men and ridiculously busty women.
- Suikoden's secondary characters can invoke gender confusion in the player. Most notable of the examples is Milich from Suikoden 1 thanks to his extremely extravagant fashion tastes, the flower-themed palace, and noblewoman's laugh. Fortunately there is a way to know for sure if one is really that curious.
- Some people had the same problem with Luc and Sasari in Suikoden II, looking at their portraits. The problem was rectified in the sequel, where both men had obviously male portraits and character models.
- While almost immediately refered to as "Prince", preventing any confusion, the hero of Suikoden V is downright girly. Only when you look at him at a certain angle (And while wearing certain clothes) does he even begin to look male. Most of the time, he looks pretty hot.
- Of course, he does take after his mom, not to mention those clothes... ergh. It would've been better had he continued using McDohl's clothes.
- The Night Dancer in Final Fantasy Tactics A 2 plays with this. He appears to be the first female bangaa ever in the series, but once you try to uphold the law in any mission he appears it quickly turns out that he is, in fact, a crossdresser (and no, the game doesn't generalize by race when it comes to unique characters, even though the law sounds like it).
- On the same note, aversion of Non Mammal Mammaries means that there is really little way to tell the difference between the genders of Bangaa and Seeq. FF XII does in fact have at least one female Seeq, and Revenant Wings reveals that one of Ba'Gamnan's hangers-on is actually a genuinely female Bangaa.
- The Harvest Moon-iverse has Julius, who's... Well, just LOOK at him!◊ His favorite items are even things like jewelry and perfume! If it weren't for his name, it'd be next to impossible to tell that he's supposed to be a dude. And yes, you can marry him if you're playing as a girl.
- Sort of a shame, since there'd certainly be players who would marry him if he were in fact a woman.
- He doesn't even have the name to help him in Japan, where his name is Juli. The whole joke was that Candace/Kotomi was bullied by Juli as a child, and always thought he was a girl. Then she grows up, meets him again after so many years, and is shocked to discover that the girl who bullied her was a boy the whole time.
- There's also Jamie from Magical Melody, who is always the opposite gender of your character, but they have the same sprite regardless (and hides this fact well by having Jamie wear a poncho the whole game).
- In Fallout 3, many viewers were led to the impression that Fawkes was female, not because of any physical characteristics, but due to misunderstanding a laboratory log in game. After a bitter, lingering controversy, stoked by public comment from the voice actor who played Fawkes, the issue was finally resolved by TheWordOfGod.
- Thanks to voice acting being brought into the second game, Nights from said titular game now speaks with a posh woman's accent, causing many people to think that they're a woman despite it being confirmed that Nights has no gender.
- Birdo, the bow-wearing egg-shooting foe from Super Mario Bros. 2, has this description in the manual: "Birdo is a male that believes he is female, and would rather be called Birdetta" This, surprisingly, went unremarked for years before Nintendo started catching flak and made Birdo a female.
- Nintendo of America, that is. In Japan, the same character has always been female and named Catherine.
- Emilio Michaelov from Psychic Force, at least in the Japanese version, has a very feminime, timid voice, combined with his wings and even androgynious body shape and hair The US voice acting does remove this doubt, at cost of the quality of his voice.
- Dynasty Warriors characters:
- Zhange He — Long hair, sometimes butterfly wings, pink and purple clothes, flowers EVERYWHERE. The only way you can tell his gender isby his voice.
- Lu Xun — tiny, pretty, big eyes, slight body, looks like a prepubescent girl.
- Shinta Kikuchi from Osu Tatakae Ouendan. Look at him/her.◊
- 3 in Three. You might think a talking number would be neuter, not feminine...
- Would you believe THIS, from Ty The Tasmanian Tiger had me thinking she was male? In all fairness, the voice acting sounds like a man trying to sound female, and bungling it, and from a decent distance, you can't make out the breasts. Also, Ty backs away in panic.
- Arno from Summon Night 2: Swordcraft Story. Is it a boy, or a girl? Th characters never find out, Arno never goes by any sort of pronoun and him/herself a "child of the wind," and doesn't know their own gender...The only clue we ever get is one of the villains shouting "you neutered freak!" And it's not even a big clue at all. Seriously, you tell me.
- The japanese version seems to suggest s/he's female.
- Mao in Shadow Hearts: From The New World. That's a man's voice coming out of that cat, and yet it's supposedly a female. Since Mao's a cat without any form of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, the confusion gets racked up. (She only refers to her gender a small handful of times, easily missed.)
- Meet Bob. Bob is a kitty in Animal Crossing. Bob is purple. Bob loves to wear pretty dresses. Bob is a dude.
- Wriggle Nightbug from Imperishable Night is sometimes mistaken for a boy, due to her being one of the few Touhou characters to wear pants instead of a dress.
- Teepo. Long purple hair, acts like a tomboy, doesn't get referred to using a pronoun until literally the end of the game. Yes, he is supposed to be a boy.
- Many people confuse Ammy from Okami as a male. Issun constantly referring to her as a god rather than a goddess doesn't help.
- Kanon from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni can be easily confused for a woman.
- You can make this happen yourself with the custom players in Backyard Sports: you can make a boy wear girly clothes and sound like a girl, or a girl look and sound like a boy.
- Giygas falls under this. Officially, Giygas is a "he". But, thanks to a random NPC in the game, several members of the fandom have mistaken "him" for a female.
- In Japan, Giygas/Gyiyg/whatever has an ambiguous gender; it's never defined as explicitly male or female, but that's much easier to avoid in Japanese than English.
- King croacus from Super Paper Mario is such, despite his obviously masculine title, he has girly eyelashes, a beauty mark, and big red lips.
- Grandia: Thanks to the way he's drawn in promotional art (and his appearance in general), you could easily mistake Justin for a girl until you learn his name or hear his voice.
- Wartech: Senko no Ronde: Cuilan. Here◊ HE◊ is◊.
- Vivian, from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. In the Japanese release, she's transgendered and her sisters treat her poorly because of it (arguably also out of jealously that a male could be so much more effeminate than they are). Like Birdo, this was changed for the US release, making her female from the start and pretty much destroying any real reason for her sisters to be so cruel to her.
- To Vivian's defense, given that Goombella and Mario are likely writting the enemy-information files, it could just as well be that her sisters calling her "male" is actually just an insult that got taken seriously by them. Of course, there's no way to prove or disprove this theory, but Vivian being male would throw the male:female ratio of the party out of balance, which is a bit odd for a Paper Mario game...
Web Comics
Web Original
- One of the quote on top of the page comes from the Rifftrax of Jurassic Park. Weird Al repeatedly stops commenting what's actually going on in the movie to ponder what is the gender of the kid seen at the beginning of the movie (the one Grant threatens with a Raptor claw).
- Heyoka, of the Whateley Universe. Heyoka used to be a girl before manifesting as a mutant who can change shape when absorbing a spirit and its power. Normally very attractive and very androgynous, Heyoka has looked very feminine, and very masculine, at different times. even the authors have trouble with the pronouns.
- The Nostalgia Critic did a game show version of this when doing a retrospective of You Can't Do That on Television.
Western Animation
- Toby's cowcatchers in Thomas the Tank Engine resemble a skirt.
- And Percy has a rather high-pitched voice, and was sort of a scaredy-cat.
- Rusty looked pretty androgynous when he first appeared, and they never said his gender (he was a "he" in the books). Then fans had a fit when the new writers called him a "she" in one episode.
- In early episodes of the My Little Pony, it was never explicitly stated that Dream Valley was the ultimate Lady Land. Therefore, some fans assumed any deep-voiced Pony was male. Apple-Jack and Skydancer tend to suffer this kind of confusion the most. (This example was brought to you by an alto. And to it, she says, ;_;)
- Some people still refuse to acknowledge that, despite being dubbed by a woman, Grumpy Bear of The Care Bears is actually male.
- What dub were you watching? in the English version he has a deep male voice.
- The Care Bears and their friends, even in their original American English series, may be the most gender-confused characters in any series for little kids. In some cases, even the creators themselves couldn't agree who was what. A 2004 edition Swifheart Rabbit whose tag description actually avoids using gender pronouns altogether! Several of the characters have had their genders changed over time. Secret Bear, Swiftheart Rabbit, Funshine Bear, Cozyheart Penguin and several others swap genders and colors depending on the writers.
- The latest Care Bears TV series has actually done its damnedest to shake off this trope, giving the characters much less ambiguous voices and even giving every cast member unique, typically gender-specific, accessories. (It doesn't hurt matters that Funshine is now voiced by Scott McNeil.)
- Funshine was a girl, but did a gender-bender when the series was revived for the new milennium.
- Countless fans insist that Brightheart Raccoon is female despite all official sources saying otherwise.
- The fact that Brightheart had Gay Jungle Fever for Champ Bear didn't help anyone with gender pinpointing.
- Garfield's Nermal is a male kitten, despite him given an obviously feminine voice in the cartoon. This might have been just to highlight Nermal's obnoxious cuteness before the mistake was caught, and wouldn't be really relevant except Nermal is still referred to as "he" in the show.
- It's just as bad in the comic, where he has long, thick eyelashes but is referred to as "he".
- They've seemed to fix this error in the most recent 3D movies by giving him a male voice actor which makes him sound like a boy in the beginning stages of puberty.
- The Spanish dubs of the cartoon for Latin America actually went and decided to say Nermal was a girl, except for at least one episode.
- Strika◊ in Transformers Animated caused a bit of this when her picture showed up, due to not conforming to the usual female mold. Beast Wars Airrazor had a similar problem, leading to Shes A Man In Japan.
- Strika actually caused surprisingly little of this... Because her Beast Machines counterpart looked pretty much the same, and was also female, which meant that the genser confusion had already been gotten out of the way.
- One of the most oddly persistent examples is the German-Austrian-Japanese co-production Wickie und die starken Männer, known as Chiisana baikingu Bikke in Japan. Many, if not most, of the German-language viewers would swear that the title character is a little girl. This is slightly jarring, as he is regularly referred to as male — and the captain's son. There was even a scene where he was shown skinny-dipping, complete with a cutesy hint of male genitals. However, clothed, he certainly looks quite girlish. The impression is not only supported by the female voice actor, but also by a confusing bit in the title theme: one of the lines urges the character "Wickie, zieh fest die Segel an" ("Wicky, pull the sails tightly"). This was commonly misheard as "Wicky, sie fässt die Segel an" ("Wickie, she fässes the sails"). Sure, the word "fässt" doesn't exist, but what do little kids know about sailing?
- Also, on the translation to Dutch, the character was called Vickie, a typical female name in dutch.
- I beg to differ: "fässt (an)" is third person singular present of "(an)fassen" which mean "to take hold off" or "to grasp" or "to touch". Mishearing the line can be explained by some crappy songtext writer as it is perfectly normal german. No small wonder nobody was really sure about it...
- Edd from Ed Edd n Eddy is often mistaken for a girl by many people when they first saw the series.
- Don't forget Jimmy.
- Edd's gender confusion is even lampshaded in The Movie. Eddy's brother refers to Edd as a girl multiple times, and even think's Edd is Eddy's girlfriend.
- Moose from Pepper Ann. She's a girl, just very unfeminine. Even characters on the show have mistaken her for a boy due to her deep voice, refusal to wear dresses, and playing sports that are more commonly associated with boys like skateboarding, hockey, football, soccer, and softball.
- Flaky from Happy Tree Friends is thought to be a boy because unlike Giggles and Petunia Flaky doesn't have eyelashes but is given a distinct feminine voice, it shows neutral characteristics for either gender but the voice actor suggests female, even the creators are undecided.
- The early 90s animated Babar TV series featured a character called Pompadour, dressed in
pink light orange, very effete and fussy, with a high-pitched voice and a tiny little bit of Ho Yay with Cornelius.
- Tweety Bird from Looney Tunes is actually a guy, although the high-pitched voice and eyelashes often leads to gender confusion, especially in foreign dubs where he is often voiced by a woman (while in English his voice was provided by a man, Mel Blanc). This is alluded to in an episode of Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries: When Tweety has to use the bathroom, he flies towards the female restroom before entering the male one and says "I bet you all thought I was a girl, didn't you." I know, I know, I didn't believe it either at first.
- Alluded to in an Around the World in 80 Days parody, where Tweety is seen coming out of a male (bird) restroom and says something to the tune of "See? I am a boy."
- This has not been helped by Warner Bros in the past few years, who noticing this, played it up — selling a line of Tweety Bird clothing for girls with him wearing bows and flowers in his
hair head feathers.
- Those might have featured his Tiny Toons counterpart, who really is female.
- True, though most Tweety merchandise still has him surrounded by flowers. Not sure what's going on in the minds of the Warner Bros. marketing department.
- Another source of confusion might be the title of the 1952 short Ain't She Tweet (although, in the context of the cartoon, "she" refers to the character of Granny).
- His creator Bob Clampett explains that he's a boy during an interview when the host referred to Tweety as a girl. He has eyelashes and the high-pitched voice because he is supposed to be a baby bird.
- Rorek, from Teen Titans (not the dragon) was mistaken commonly for a girl with the scarf over his face.
- Smellerbee from Avatar: The Last Airbender was assumed to be male during her debut episode. However, since she was given a minor role, had an ambiguous voice actor (Nika Futterman, to be exact), hadn't hit puberty yet and was in a team of Lost Boys-style Freedom Fighters, you can't really blame the fans. Even the official site described her as being a boy. It wasn't until Season 2 that more fans realized she was female.
- Lampshaded, as Iroh refers to her as a "young man" when they meet, making her rather upset.
- Another case of am ambiguous voice actor: Cooper from Ben 10. He had neck-length blonde hair and big blue eyes. At least in its Time Skipped sequel, Ben 10 Alien Force, Cooper got himself a haircut and a new voice actor.
- By the way, Cooper was voiced by a woman in the original.
- A parent once wrote on the comments of the blog for Pocoyo that he/she (can't remember) was having a debate with his/her child over Sleepy Bird's Gender. The argument for Sleepy Bird being female is that she gives birth to a Baby Sleepy Bird in one episode, but the child argued that Sleepy Bird looks like a boy.
- The original Spanish name of Sleepy Bird is Pajaroto (which reads as male), and the creators based its design on a male colleague's appearance and surname (Maroto). However, there's an episode where Sleepy Bird lays an egg, and even the creators express their puzzlement about this issue in their blog.
- That little guinea pig from Wonder Pets who wears a cape and baseball hat is female. She is the gender neutral character in the gang, is hardly ever referred to as female, and always chooses to wear masculine or gender neutral clothing. Plus, she is supposed to be the age equivalent to a five year old, so you don't know if her voice is supposed to be feminine or it's just a five-year-old boy's voice.
- Cleared up in the newest episode, the circus episode, where Linny's voice sounds (slightly, really slightly) more feminine, she wears a costume that vaguely resembles a dress and is outright referred to as "she" by the ringmaster during her act.
- There have been a few episodes to showcase her gender, though most people seem to have been confused at first (her name sounds enough like "Lenny" to make that mistake, too). The irony here is that all 3 main voice actors are girls, though there's no mistaking by how Tuck's voice sounds that he's a boy.
- The title character on Blues Clues, Blue, is female, though many viewers believe her to be male. This is likely due in large part to the color blue being traditionally associated with boys. However, anyone who watches the show long enough will eventually learn Blue's gender, thanks to phrasing such as "I'm looking for my puppy, Blue. Have you seen her?"
- Dear god, this happens a lot. Random minor characters are more often female on this show.
- Green Puppy is a good example — it doesn't help that she is voiced by a male, Adam Peltzman — one of the program's writers.
- The character of Snail in the children's cartoon series Franklin certainly caused a lot of confusion for viewers. The character was a soft lavender color and had a voice that sounded female causing people to think Snail was a girl. (Actually, it didn't just sound female — it was female. Snail was voiced by Kristen Bone, Maggie of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast.) However, Snail is a boy. OK, technically snails are hermaphrodites... but since this is a kid's show... yeah....
- Then there's Rabbit. Another character people tended to think was female, but was really male.
- On the other side of the coin, there's Badger. Hmm... badgers are usually tough, fierce, and rather rowdy by nature... traits stereotypically associated with males. So, Badger must be a male, right? Wrong. Badger is a girl.
- Likewise, Skunk is a girl but people have mistaken her for a guy.
- Rocky of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame is referred as a he, but there is nothing masculine about him whatsoever. June Foray's voice for the character is distinctively female.
- Snooky Wookums the kitten from Krypto The Super Dog is said to be male but much like Nermal has an obviously feminine voice and long eyelashes. To make it more confusing, in the episode where the dogs are turned into puppies they call Snooky "nanny"; then later when Mechanikat turns into a kitten he calls "him" "Poppa".
- In Code Lyoko this is sometimes done by the production staff themselves. There are a lot of male background characters with effeminate names or appearances, which causes some confusion, such as boys standing in girls' bathroom lines. Emmanuel Maillard, a boy cursed with long hair, an effeminate name, and a necklace, has a girl's voice in one of his two speaking appearances. (His name was "Mike" in the other one.)
- Poof from The Fairly OddParents, to the point where even his parents weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl when he was first born.
- A large number of Ka Blam! fans were shocked when they realized that June was female (she's got tomboy written all over her). Um, HELLO! Her name is JUNE!
Real Life
- Seiyuu Yuuki Hiro looks, sounds, and acts like a 12-year-old girl despite being over 40 years old. Getting his sex right the first time is probably rarer than mistaking it. Also, another seiyuu, Miyata Kouki, says he's been frequently mistaken for a woman because of his high, effeminate voice.
- Two female seiyuu examples: Romi Park is often mistaken for a "New-Half" because of her "husky voice". Also, Kujira plays completely convincing older males (including Orochimaru, who also has his own entry in this page) because she sounds exactly like a guy. Whenever a female character has a suspiciously masculine voice, it's probably her. Actually, she's managed to create double Viewer Gender Confusion situations — at least I have once thought a woman played by her was male because she sounded like a man. Wow.
- Hyenas. The females are more dominant, aggressive, and "masculine" than the males. And the females have certain external characteristics that convinced Greek and medieval researchers that hyenas were hermaphroditic.
- A lot of birds. We humans are so used to the idea of human females being pretty that when one first encounters the world of birds, it can be rather jarring. You see, among many birds, the males tend to be pretty while the females are actually rather drab. This actually makes sense; if the female is the one caring for the young, you don't want her to be the one that's all eye-catching. Leave that to the male, who can draw a predator's eye away from the nest.
- And with birds that color-wise look more or less the same regardless of gender — I'm thinking of raptors here — it's usually the female that's bigger.
- This was invoked in Pet Shop Of Horrors, where Count D invites a group of young society women and young society drag queens to tea at his shop. They watch a pair of feminine-looking dancers — who are in reality, male peacocks.
- Human males used to dress up all pretty, and wear makeup and high heels, and this was perfectly masculine. It's only within the last 200 years that fashion forced men to be the dull drab dressers.
- Not really. It was only in certain time periods, places and social classes that men used makeup. There's no such thing as normal fashion in history, it keeps changing all the time. Except for rags. Rags've been always popular.
- High heels are WEAPONS. The sole reason that they were invented was to allow the smooth metal greaves worn by knights to lock into the stirrups, allowing them to better brace for the shock of striking a target with a lance. Pants were developed for a similar reason.
- Be aware of linguistic confusion here... In the USA pants are trousers, but in the rest of the English speaking world pants are underwear. Odd mental pictures ensue (knights on horseback in the undies...
- That's the reason for heels on armor, yes. The reason for heels in fashion, on the other hand, is because King Louis XIV was short and wanted to look taller... Or So I Heard.
- Quite a few people thought Chris Crocker (of "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!" fame) was a girl. A few still do.
- ZJemptv, a video maker on Youtube (and I guess many other transgender people) has this happen constantly. A brief look in the comments section (of any of his/her videos) will prove this true. (If you really couldn't figure it out, he's a male to female transsexual).
- If you watch his videos, there's no indication of his being a transsexual, and every indication that he just likes to fuck with people. He's just a gay guy, not a transsexual.
- Because his Author Avatar is genderless and one of the characters carried the same name as his, Kagami Yoshimizu, the creator of Lucky Star, was wrongly thought as female by many — he lampshaded one when a male proposed to him at a Taiwanese convention, and now it seemed that even the American DVD release also confused his gender, calling him Ms. Yoshimizu...
- Before Discworld became such a success, many assumed Terry Pratchett was a woman due to the Gender Blender Name and the overtly feminist Equal Rites.
- Lady Gaga is often mistaken for a Drag Queen due to her outlandish style.
- Christina Aguilera was assumed of stealing her style, and she even admit she doesn't know if Lady Gaga is a he or a she.
- Mad Magazine once ran an article about all the plus-sides to the NBA mandating formal attire for public appearances. One of them was "You can now tell the difference between the NBA and WNBA players." The accompanying picture showed a confused autograph-seeker trying to choose between two tall, muscular, short-haired, earring-sporting b-ball players. However, you could just barely make out breasts on the one on the right.
|
|
