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. — Super Smash Bros. Brawl
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 happy 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 gender 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 Unsettling Gender Reveal. Anything that makes the character's sex obvious may act as a Gender Reveal.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Dr. Daedalus of Ergo Proxy, due to cross dressing voices in many dubs and the original.
V.V. of Code Geass. A young boy, voiced by an actual young boy (for once), whose blond hair (longer than his body) and androgynous name throws many a viewer off.
Arion Rosemariné of Kaze to Ki no Uta is bad enough to have confused some scanlators. He dresses entirely in Gorgeous Period Dress, has long blond Princess Curls, and is voiced by a woman in the OVA. The only way many people have realized his actual gender is through the fact that he lives at an all-boys boarding school. In any case, his gender is proved once and for all when it's revealed that Auguste raped him (yes, he raped another one!), and we all know Auguste only goes for pretty boys.
Liliath Florian manages to be an even worse offender. This minor character has Flowers In His Hair, is very effeminate both in appearance and personality, and seems to be flat-out referred to as a girl by other characters... and yet he goes to the very same all-boys school.
Seguchi Touma of Gravitation is feminine enough to pass for a woman for several episodes — even though he was always referred to as male in the subtitles and he had been revealed to be married to Yuki's sister!
Shindo Shuichi can also pass for this. At least in the later chapters of Gravitation. At the beginning, he did, indeed, look like a male. Now he's just basically a chick with the wrong parts. And this especially goes in the anime.
The BL light novel and anime series Sukisho has Team Mom Nanami. Everything about him is completely female and he even goes by a female name. His clothing when outside or at work are rather ambigious, but at home he's usually seen wearing an apron or bunny slippers. The only hint on his male gender ever are the pronouns in the subtitles and in one episodes even the subtitle refer to him as female.
There's also the priest in the hotsprings episode, Chris, not to mention Sunao "Nao" Fujimori.
In the manga of Paradise Kiss, Yukari IDs Isabella as a cross dresser virtually as soon as she meets her. However in the anime this doesn't happen, and no-one makes any reference to the fact that she's actually a biological man until episode 10. Consequently, watching the anime first means there isn't even have a clue that anything is amiss until that point- given how fruity most of the characters were, there didn't seem to be anything odder than usual about her, especially as she's voiced by a woman in both languages.
Fujiwara no Sai from Hikaru no Go. It's not so difficult to see what his gender is if one has a passing knowledge of Heian court dress, but the western audience is left wholly at sea.
Frieza/Freezer from Dragon Ball Z — in Japanese, he is using fairly feminine language. In order to try to approximate this in English, where words are the same regardless of the gender of the speaker, they had him voiced like an elderly woman, which made him come across as a hermaphrodite. It didn't help that he had purple lips that looked like he was wearing lipstick, either, or that his final form had no genitalia. His other forms, however, did have a black speedo.
Gaara's uncle Yashamaru in Naruto, even though the "-maru" indicates a male.
Orochimaru sometimes lapses into this. Not helped by the fact that he had taken over a female body until the Sasuke Retrieval arc.
Deidara and Sai were thought to be female by some. Haku does not help, though in this case, the Dude Looks Like a Lady...
There had been some debate on the gender of one of the Tsuchikage's body guards named Kurotsuchi. The second fanbook firmly settled that Kurotsuchi is indeed female.
Taken to its extreme with the seven-tails host, who is only seen on the splash page of one chapter and an artbook where the author himself stated he was unsure of his/her gender.
People are likewise unsure of the gender of Ameyuri, one of the former members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist resurrected by Kabuto.
Manga readers of Death Note often presumed Mello female by his tight pants and haircut. To combat this, the anime gave him an uber-masculine voice — but then gave Near a female voice actor.
Interestingly, Mello and Near's character designs were mistakenly switched around by the editor - Near's character was originally Mello, and vice versa, so Near would have been the character whose gender was ambiguous.
Even worse than that is Rem, Misa's shinigami. Sure, shinigami only have Purely Aesthetic Gender, but it's still a bit of a brainbreaker to realize Rem is a female. Again, it's more obvious if you hear the voice.
Which isn't helped at all by the movie version, where Rem's voiced by a male and her gender is more ambiguous.
Andromeda Shun of Saint Seiya has a feminine voice in the Japanese dub, wears pink armor, has a slight figure, and is prettier than most of the female cast. In fact, most of Saint Seiya's Bishōnen are prettier than most of its female cast, and have fooled many unwary viewers. It confused even the French dubbers who had a female voice actress dub Shun's lines in the first few eps, until Ikki calls Shun explicitly his "brother". And later, there is this episode stating that female Saints wear masks (and Boobs of Steel), but the confusion's still there.
It's even worse with Pisces Aphrodite (also given a female voice in the French Dub). Even knowing that female saints are supposed to be masked, and thus he has to be male... he's girlier than Shun, wears lipstick and fights with roses... and seriously, he's called "Aphrodite"! Saga even describes him as "the warrior of beauty".
Aries Mu, possessor of a very pretty face and long, shiny pink hair, also got a female voice in the French dub. I wonder why? Also, Virgo Shaka in the Japanese dub. It's the eyelashes (amongst other things).
Aquarius Camus was — in the manga — explained to have long red hair, long red fingernails and feminine features because the Aquarius sign represents the myth of Ganymede and has been seen as both male and female. This didn't transfer into the anime, but it left viewers wondering exactly what other excuses Kuruamada had for all this Ho Yay and Viewer Gender Confusion.
The queen of this trope is Lacerta Misty. Big poofy blonde hair, wears pink, wears pink "lipstick" and says "alrighty"? It took until he was completely naked for most of the viewers to realise his gender — and even then some didn't believe it. Even when his dub voice is none other than Vic Mignogna.
At first glance, Kazuki from Get Backers, with his long flowing hair, long lashes and slim frame, would mislead anyone into thinking he was a girl. It didn't help that he was portrayed wearing female clothes in various points of the manga and anime, and he's grouped with the girls in one of the ending clips and some of the official artwork (apparently, the writers were in on the joke).
Kazuki has a female counterpart, Ren; she appears at first glance to be male, to the extent that the other characters don't realize she's female until she points it out (read: yells it) in passing. Keep in mind that they've heard her speaking. Her personality doesn't help much, either... nor does her previously freaking out after realizing that the person she kissed to deliver a medicine was male (said person being... Kazuki, naturally).
Shido: That's a girl? (muttering) I suppose if Kazuki can be a guy...
Tokyo Pop also made another She's a Man in Japan mistake in Tokyo Mew Mew, referring to Tart as a girl once. Mind, Quiche also looks a girl, and considering they're both boys wearing really short clothes...
A Lopmon in Digimon Tamers was accidentallyturned female for the dub because of his archaic dialect (Japanese "I" pronouns reveal gender; Antiramon/Lopmon's older dialect doesn't) and ambiguous voice at all stages. Also, s/he is pink (that's girly) and brown (that isn't.) It wasn't an intentional case, simply the lack of gender-specific characteristics (Lopmon is a little bunny, Antiramon is a big bunny.) By the time the original language version eventually clarified the point, the dubbed Lopmon/Antylamon had already been dubbed with a female voice; since this added another female character to the cast, some fans didn't mind too much.
Shout Out casting sometimes confuses the issue, too. In the dub of Digimon Frontier, the male Lopmon shares a voice actor with Digimon Tamers' female Lopmon.
Frontier's Patamon actually gets a much more feminine voice than the original Patamon, though no confusion here because we'd met him as the very male Seraphimon first.
Naturally this is a problem for any digimon who doesn't have any overt secondary sex characteristics, including the very young (like Poromon or Calumon) or ones who look very different in certain evolutions. Usually, voices or Tertiary Sexual Characteristics make it clear once more forms are shown. Garudamon, though, has been suspected to be male despite the other forms being obviously female, just because of the body shape (more anthropomorphic the others, yet no boobs. Uh... birds aren't supposed to have those, you know.) This is pure Fan Wank, though - nothing in-show suggests that a sex change happens during form change (that has happened once, long after Garudamon, with someone who was actually in disguise, neither form his true form.
Lately, though, it's been shown that not all Digimon of a certain breed need be the same gender.
Cutemon is Xros Wars' character of questionable gender: it's pink, wears floral-printed headphones, and has a high-pitched voice. And it's...a boy. His use of boku gave him away.
Mucking up the whole business is that since Digimon do not need each other to reproduce, they might not actually have sexes; in the dub, Renamon gives a vague statement to Ruki's mother that Digimon don't have gender (possibly to avoid using the S-word.)
Similarly, Zirconia from Sailor Moon is a decrepit old woman who's initially only seen in shadow, so by the time she was given The Reveal she had already been dubbed as an old man.
Sailor Uranus has occassionally run into this in some adaptations; while she has even occasionally portrayed as female only while transformed, many adaptations find hiding her gender too difficult or ingenuine to bother with.
This is the reason Zoisite was redubbed as a woman in some countries.
And Fisheye, though he is an even worse case, being a Wholesome Crossdresser. Even some dubs that didn't have much problem with crossdressing and homosexuality to begin with managed to get his gender wrong.
Kino from Kino's Journey causes this trope. It's not helped by a certain tendency to use both male and female pronouns on and off. Thankfully, the real gender is a plot point, and a good bit of the character's development and relationship with the audience is developed around the confusion... even if most viewers get it wrong the first time.
The English translation of the first novel moves The Reveal chapter to the start of the book to avoid having to dance around pronouns.
The English dub of the anime gives Kino something of an androgynous voice, so you're not sure if she's a boy or a girl for several episodes until a gender pronoun is used. The Japanese dub has a much more clearly feminine voice. What's weirder is the issue of Hermes, the talking motorcycle. In the English dub, Hermes has a raspy female voice, in the Japanese, it has a clearly male voice.
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S, thanks to her deep voice, baggy clothes, and boyish looks, a lot of people mistook Otto to be The One Guy amongst the Numbers Cyborgs. It wasn't until Jail revealed that all of his cyborgs are pregnant with a perfect clone of him did those people realize that, yes, she's a female too.
In the manga, for some reason, Quattro had told any Numbers that knew Otto's gender not to reveal it.
There were also many viewers who thought Yuuno was a girl when he first apppeared, though that was quickly cleared up.
Nanoha Force had many viewers believing that Fortis Hückebein was a girl for a couple of chapters. He wasn't.
A number of those who saw the first Hellsing anime expressed annoyance that the titular Sir Integra was such an embarrassingly pretty Bishōnen. This is somewhat excusable, what with the author referring to her as "Sir", presumably due to a misunderstanding of British titles. A woman given the honor of joining a knightly order is referred to with the honorific "Lady" or "Dame" (depending on the order and rank).
It was explained somewhere that it is some sort of a legal fiction — to give Integra a chance to inherit the Hellsing name and Round Table position, she was officially registered as a man. So being legally a man, she is entitled to a male honorific.
Note that this is ONLY the anime. One of the first chapter title pages of Integra in the manga feature her rather large breasts.
The Spanish translation of the manga avoids this completely, calling her Lady Integra.
Many were really confused by Schrodinger. One of the seiyuu commented that due to his androgyny, he appeals to everyone. Everyone's gay for Schrodinger?
Now that's several shades of creepy, as he's a catboy, an androgynous shota, a sociopathic Creepy Child and a Draco in Small Hitler Youth Shorts.
[Insert Schrodinger's Genitalia Joke Here].
Many fans mistake Rip for a man, in the anime, at least. She's much more cute and girlish in the manga.
Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin. If some sources are to believed, this confusion is the origin of the (female) character Baiken in the Guilty Gear series, as the designer got the idea after mistaking Kenshin for a woman.
I recall a claim that Kenshin's design was that of the more typical masculine swordsman design, and then the designer decided to make it the other way around.
Not surprising, as his Real Life counterpart, Kawakami Gensai, was said to be of a small stature, slim build and unusually pretty... for the deadliest assassin on the Loyalists' side. Both he and Kenshin had their fair share of being mistaken for a woman — and the latter in-story too.
To boot, his voice actress was (I quote from The Other Wiki) "previously a Takarazuka Revue stage actress and the Top Star of Moon Troupe".
Kurapika from Hunter × Hunter. His gender is hidden for a large part of the manga and he is so perfectly androgynous that it's difficult to make up one's mind.
Let's not forget Killua's little brother, Calluto◊. Had to be confirmed male by Word Of God for many fans to believe it.
And Senritsu's gender is hard to determine at best in the manga (the voice gives it away in the anime.)
Well, aside from her flat-out saying "Actually, I'm a woman." when Kurapika mistakes her for a man, at least in the Viz translation.
A lot of fans were confused in regards to Neferpitou in the manga, what with his incredibly effeminate appearance and mannerisms.
Alluka has been refered to as; son, daughter, brother, sister, he, she and it.
Aphrodi, Kazemaru and Miyasaka from Inazuma Eleven. Aphrodi has the bonus of being named after the goddess of beauty.
In the Koudelka manga, the little boy turns out to be a little girl whom her mother, a prostitute, disguised as a boy to save her from being used as a prostitute in turn.
It was pretty much inevitable in Simoun. Not helping was the fact that the most prominent breasts in the series are also possessed by the most prominent male character.
Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds has two of these, Rally (who is supposed to be a boy, but looks like and dresses exactly like a girl) and Jeager (a lesser version of Same; the lipstick and elf ears don't help).
Luciano is even more confusing. If he wasn't wearing a male uniform, he looks as girly as Rally and Jeager.
It certainly doesn't help those who play the World Championship Series games that, in the 2011 title, Luciano's hairstyle and outfit are only available for female characters.
GX's Doctor Crowler? His voice in the original is very clealry male, but the dub does add quite a bit of confusion to the issue. The dub even lampshades it from time to time, with lines like this (paraphrased):
Student 1: I didn't realize Crowler was a professor! Student 2: I didn't realize he was a dude...
Even worse is Yubel. You're pretty much guaranteed to guess the wrong gender. Because "she" and "he" are both used in reference and Yubel is technically a hermaphrodite at this point. Even the original Yubel is very androgynous, though not to the same cheater level as most of the series.
Well, as Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series said: "There are no women in Yu-Gi-Oh! Only extremely girly men! And I am the girliest of them all!"
Pegasus: Keep telling yourself that.
Have you all forgotten about Bakura? officially he's a male but with the long flowing hair, and voice in the original japanese, leaves everyone wondering. It doesn't help when you find out that he actually had a female voice actor.
The best evidence that Bakura is intended to be a male is that he's a flat-chested character in an anime series. Yes, a trait the target audience (Especially outside of Japan) is only just beginning to understand.
Strange counter-example: Inu Yasha's Jakotsu, the second in command of the Band of Seven. He's a homosexual Villainous Crossdresser who also talks and acts like a woman, and has a female voice actor (in both versions). Despite this, no-one (on his side of the screen, at least) ever seemed to mistake him for one.
Also Shippo the fox demon of Inu-Yasha's group is often mistaken for a girl due to having female voice actors and wearing a bow in his hair.
There was also a filler in which a sibling of an early set of antagonists, the Thunder Brothers, challenged Shippo to a fight for revenge against "his" Brothers. Both actually sound feminine but they're young kids and the practice of hiring women to voice kids is very common practice. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the younger "Brother" was actually a "sister"!
In Ranma ½, there is Tsubasa who is actually a crossdresser and he saw through Uky?'s disguise. Uky? may also have been mistaken for a boy at least in the manga where you don't have a telltale voice. (Not to mention, Uky?o dresses rather masculine, too.)
And later in the manga you have Konatsu the "Genius Kun?ichi", another crossdresser who manage to trick Uky? and the rest of the cast into thinking he's female until his clothes get blown off.
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto admitted straight out in an Omake to an early volume of the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga that Shinji's design is basically Nadia's with a different haircut. So this is understandable.
Nadia nothing; take a gander at Mia Ausa from Lunar. No, seriously.◊
Not to mention that his Japanese voice belonged to a lady who is very well-known for her deep voice. Case in point, she's also well-known as Sailor Uranus, who has her own entry.
Ed from Cowboy Bebop is just so tomboyish she easily passes as a boy. The fact that the Mexican dub gave her an androgynous voice doesn't help. The crew apparently didn't even realize it until Faye shouted it out at the end of the episode she's introduced in.
Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist counts depending on which version of the story you're going by. In the manga, he's stated in an omake as having no true gender, which means that it may or may not be a canon statement. In the anime, however, he is male... well, as long as he's in his green-haired form and his real form.
This caused a serious problem in the Hungarian Animax dub, where he had a clearly defined female voice during his first appearance. This wasn't even the first time Animax made this mistake.
Wrath from the first anime is of similar circumstances to Envy. He's young and has long hair, though he's male. Den is a more typical example, being a dog. She's apparently a girl.
Epsilon from Urasawa's Pluto. What makes it even more difficult is that he's based on the Astro Boy character Neptune (who is male), but shares the name and character traits (such as being a Technical Pacifist) of a female character from the same series. It doesn't help that the fan translation has referred to him as "she" once or twice...
Tieria Erde from Gundam 00. Likely the first response of most viewers the first time he speaks (in a rather masculine voice) is "That was a guy?!"
This spawned a bit of a Memetic Mutation in Japan, as many artists gleefully went right to work in creating pictures of Tieria as a girl... While only having to slightly change some visual details (and in a few cases, giving "her" a somewhat Genki Girl personality).
As if Tieria wasn't bad enough, season two brings a new character named Regene Regetta, who looks almost exactly like Tieria (curly hair aside) and has a very feminine voice (and up until his character design was released shortly before the season started, there was rampant confusion and specualtion over his gender. Then again, his aforementioned girly voiceis provided by Romi Park, of all people).
Not to mention the first drama CD, which contained Tieria posing undercover as a schoolgirl, complete with falsetto and demure speech. Fan response was predictable.
Even worse, episode 8 of the second season has Tieria responding to an invitation by the Innovators' leader and resident Big Bad Ribbons Almack by attending his party... as a woman. A very, very busty woman. In a backless dress. An extremely convincing pair of fake breasts indeed, otherwise the directors have been trolling a vast majority of the fanbase for a while now with the enigmatic comments about Tieria's gender.
The producers may have been playing with this since the beginning. Note that the show's first ending theme's title, "Wana" translates roughly as "The Trap".
The first line of lyrics for the above song goes as far as saying: "Despairis a sweet trap" Coincidence? I think not...
The playful toying extends to the dub where Johan apparently thinks that Tieria would make a pretty hot girl.
Micheal says that actually, the direct quote is "That's too bad. If he were a girl he'd be kind of hot." Apparently many Japanese 'artists' thought the same.
ALL Innovators are basically this. Just try to guess the genders of Revive Revival or (really worst offender here) Hilling Care. Hilling was wearing a tuxedo in Ribbons' party and looks rather boyish, but still uses pronouns and speech patterns that are distinctively feminine.
Word Of God is that Innovators are "gender-neutral" or something like that (except Anew), iirc, though they clearly still have sexes.
Kurau from Kurau Phantom Memory. Even though she has an alternate persona in Christmas, who is obviously female, her ambiguous clothing, hairstyle and seiyuu cause some confusion. It gets better with age, though.
A lot of Pokémon fans are under the impression that Team Rocket agent Hun was given a gender change in the dub despite the fact that the script directly calls "her" a man at one point. It really doesn't help that his dub voice sounds makes him sound like a woman.
This site has the quotation in question, and the webmaster points out that "men" is commonly used as a gender-neutral term. So the jury's still out on this one.
Shaymin in Giratina and the Sky Warrior. Cute little flower hedgehog... forme change to kickass doggy-reindeer thing. Coincidentially, its dub VA is well known for voicing Tails in the more recent Sonic the Hedgehog games and Sonic X.
In the Adventures manga, Gold ends up mistaking Bugsy for a girl on first sight, and even flirts with him.
In reverse is Anabel, who looks like a little boy despite being a girl.
Another Bugsy incident happened in another manga◊, Golden Boys. Their Gold had mistaken Bugsy for a girl but it was a much milder example and was dropped instantly. It doesn't help that he a Bishōnen — Cute Shotaro Boy mix in that manga.
It's kind of mind blowing that Mew's cutesy realistic kitten sounds are done by a grown man: Koichi Yamadera a.k.a. Spike Spiegel.
This can apply for pretty much 'any Legendary Pokémon that doesn't already have a definite gender. For example, the Brazillian dub of Jirachi: The Wishmaker calls Jirachi a female and the English dub calls it a male.
Tate. If it wasn't for the anime and their butchering of Tate, most people would probably think he's a girl.
It also doesn't help that Tate actually can easily be used for a feminine name.
Ash's Pikachu gets this a lot. It's male, but wasn't confirmed this until the infamous Diamond & Pearl episode with Rayquaza and an evil Togepi.
Bedivere in the anime of Fate/stay night. The guy's just as feminine as Saber and has Mamiko Noto's voice. What are we supposed to think?
The Firey in Card Captor Sakura, with roughly equal amounts of evidence for both male (flat chest) and female (all the other elemental/humanoid in the manga Cards are female).
Kuu and Kana from Haibane Renmei, helped by the latter's Wrench Wench status. Even the manager of the cafe where Kuu works thinks she's a boy.
Ladios Sopp in The Five Star Stories, with his shy and soft-spoken demeanor, effeminate voice, baggy yellow clothes, big dewy eyes, and long braided hair is constantly mistaken for a woman. In fact, one character, Voards Viewlards, eventually learns the truth and still flirts with him! It doesn't help that Sopp is the alter-ego of the king of the A.K.D., who is named after the ur-goddess of Japan, and frequently played by a female Body Double while the king is off playing as Sopp!
Many first time viewers of Keroro Gunsou think cutesy, shiny-eyed Private Tamama is a girl. Oh how wrong they are...
An interesting case comes from Girls Saurus. That cute girl getting molested by men on the train and is saved by the main characters? Yeah, that's a guy. But wait, he's got breasts and is wearing a skirt!... Not really: turns out that he's so feminine that the main characters (and, indeed, everyone who meets him, man and woman alike) hallucinate that he's built and dressed like a girl. No, seriously.
Even China himself. Non-fans who know of the series' existence — or even occasionally some unknowing fans — call him a girl.
Well, considering his long black/brown hair, his slim figure and small shoulders (at least in the webcomic), him being the second shortest of the main eight characters, his unisex human name, andhis female seiyu, it's not that difficult to fall prey to Viewer Gender Confusion when concerning him.
Hell, a prime example of Viewer Gender Confusion in regards to China can be found on this very wiki; hetalia WMG.
The newest character New Zealand is currently a source of this. Are they a cute short-haired girl or a simply effeminate looking boy in the vein of Poland and China? Time will tell...
Person 1: Are they lesbians? Person 2: They are two boys. Person 1: *mind fucked* o.o
In universe example in the English dub.
Soldier on seeing Holy Roman Empire's picture of young Italy: Oh ho! Is this the painting of your little girlfriend, or boyfriend, or gender-neutral chibi-thing?
Ranewater Calder from Zombie Powder. It didn't help that he's the leader of a gang called the "Ash Daughter Gang", and it certainly didn't help that he was drawn as being much prettier and feminine than pretty much all the women in the series.
Considering the abundance of white-blonde Action Girls in Claymore, it's likely that most fans assumed that Isley was yet another one until he took off his shirt. Of course, you can hardly blame them — does this◊ look like a man's face to you?
Midriff-exposing, bangle-wearing Toboe from Wolf's Rain apparently caused author gender confusion — an artist's note accompanying character model sheets in the first manga volume jokingly(?) laments "I thought he was a girl... sniffle".
There is some disagreement about the gender of Pierre◊ in Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, which may well be the goal of the author of the original light novels. Pierre's real name, Akeru, is a typical girl's name, although there are no truly fixed rules for that in Japan. Also, Pierre has long braided hair and female mannerims, but in the world of manga and anime (and outside of it) that doesn't have to mean much. Pierre furthermore uses the gender-neutral "watakushi" for "I", which complicates matters even more.
Canute from Vinland Saga amongst both the fandom and in-canon is confused for a girl when he first appears. He's male though, most certainly.
Quite a few people mistake Fai from Tsubasa Chronicle and his "poofy Toma Seguchi coat" for a girl. Even though he is most definitely male, no matter how good he'd look in a dress.
Hermes from series six of Jojos Bizarre Adventure is really masculine. If not for text and the fact she's in a female prison and some of the insinuative events at her first appearance (and other times), one would have sworn she was a he.
Also Narancia from series five, but in reverse as thinking 'he' was a 'she'. His attire and Japanese game's voice actor doesn't help.
Husky, the fish-boy from +Anima. It even gets to the point where the other characters in the manga are confused about what his gender is.
He even has to drop his pants at one point to convince Nana he wasn't a girl, since she refused to believe anything he said to the contrary.
Yuki Kaori has been guilty of making her characters (of either sex) look more like the other's gender thanks to her love of androgyny. She mentioned once about the character Rociel from Angel Sanctuary that she got letters early on asking if he were male or female. Her response was something like "Well, I did say he was Katan's father..."
Speculation on the Youtube comment boards for Glass Fleet continued to wonder why androgynous Michel was referred to as a boy but obviously sounded like a woman. Once that was cleared up, the fans turned to poor Ralph, a child repeatedly referred to as a boy, with a boy's name, but with very feminine mannerisms and an obsessive crush on an older man.
After Art Evolution, Katekyo Hitman Reborn! has suddenly started getting a bunch of them. Chief offenders include the Acrobaleno Viper from the Varia and Kikyo and Daisy of the Real Furneral Wreathes. Only in the latest chapter has the translator been certain that Kikyo is male and no one can is yet certain if Daisy is this or a Bifauxnen.
It's now been confirmed that Daisy is a boy.
Zaji of Letter Bee is thought to be either a boyish-looking young woman or a man. It doesn't help that early on in the series, a girl named Nello who looks a little like Zaji is mistaken for a boy.
Waq Waq's Yoki looks like a woman with a feminine face and long hair, and dresses in loose robes, but is referred to as "he".
Several Saki viewers were quite surprised when Jun shouted "I'm a girl!", partly thanks to her heavy usage of the "ore" pronoun. Guess they just assumed that she was The One Guy in the entire tournament.
Well, she does wear pants combined with a skirt, but perhaps that's considered men's clothing in Japan.
Luppi, a minor villain from Bleach. He looks and acts very much like a woman, leading to some deep confusion among readers of the manga. The anime solved this problem by giving him a very masculine voice, making his gender apparent from the moment he opened his mouth.
In addition, anyone who missed Wonderweiss Margera's "birth" scene could be forgiven for thinking him a young girl, since he does look very feminine and almost never speaks.
It also initially occured with Yoruichi, while she was still in her cat form. It wasn't helped by the fact that the anime gave her a masculine voice. Then she revealed her true form and there's no longer any doubt.
It was implyied in the manga however that she mad at least a deeper, or different sounding voice in cat form as they did refer to her as 'Mr. Yoruichi' until it was revealed Yoruichi was, a woman.
Ill Girl Kayoko Nagato in Ojamajo Doremi has a name that isn't very girly, an androgynous voice, and a very short haircut (her dinosaur tooth necklace doesn't help). The only telltales was her pink backpack and Doremi using -chan when referring to her.
Several characters from the Loveless manga. Yayoi, Kio, and both halves of "Zero" who have longer hair in feminine styles, feminine body structures, and most often baggy/feminine looking clothes. And no voice actors to seek guidance from.
At least in the anime, Yayoi, Kio and Youji are all voiced by blokes, and even Natsuo's seiyuu is best known for voicing young boys. The real prize for this trope should go to Yurio, who appears quite late in the manga, has a very girly hairstyle (bobbed with long curls underneath), has the kanji for "man" in his/her name, and generally gives people a headache as to what his/her actual gender is.
Nachos from Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto is actually a boy, but it's very hard to tell until his gender is actually stated because he has long hair in braids and looks more feminine than his sister, Chips. Their gender-neutral names don't help, either.
Kanon from Umineko no Naku Koro ni. He's even harder to differentiate than usual because not only does he look feminine, his voice looks feminine too. (Hint: Jessica calls him "Kanon-kun".)
A minor detail, but "kun" is gender-neutral, it just tends to be used in regard to males more than females. This does not help.
There is a reason for his feminity, namely the fact that he is just a split personality of Yasu/Shannon/Beatrice, plus the fact that with the reveal of Lion, it's confusing of what gender they truly are.
Fushigi Yuugi's victim is not Nuriko, as his real gender is revealed two episodes after his introduction. It's poor Chiriko who suffers from this, of all people.
In the English dub, Crona is referred to with male pronouns because the dubbers didn't want the dialogue to sound too awkward by avoiding the subject. No one, especially the ones behind the English dub, has a clue behind Crona's gender.
Some people that read Yu Yu Hakusho may have mistaken Kurama for a girl, due to the hair and the way that his shirt is drawn (with a fold at breast-level), only to be embarassed when they find out otherwise. They should feel better when they read the story which has him crossdressing to investigate a haunting at a girl's highschool campus, and several people mistaking him for a girl even when dressed normally.
The Hungarian dub of the anime has a deep but definitely female voice actor for Kurama.
In the Philippines, Kurama initially had a distinctly female VA and started out female. Yusuke was surprised to learn he was a guy on their first assignment in the demon world. The explanation given was that he was male in the demon world but female in the human world. However, all later appearances had him strictly male, regardless of which world he was in. The dubbers were apparently also confused as to Genkai's gender as the name they gave her was Jeremiah and her VA was very noticeably male. It wasn't until after she first transformed into her younger self during the Dark Tournament that she was given a female VA.
There is also the one shot villian Miyuki a very feminine looking demon dressed in feminine clothes with an equally feminine voice, after knocking him unconscious Yusuke and Kuwabara pull down his pants and are shocked that such a feminine demon is actually male.
Kira from Legend Of Himiko can definetly throw off viewers. The fact that her/his higher-ups call her/him "Lady Kira" assure us that Kira is female, but her voice does sound like that of a boy who sounds like a girl.
It's actually amazing how many people mistake an undisguised Kuroshitsuji's Grelle Sutcliffe as a woman. It doesn't help that he refers to himself as one.
Well, Word Of God says that Grelle was born male, but is a Male-To-Female transsexual. So yeah...
Haihane of the disciplinary squad in Sekirei looks like an androgynous man until she loses her jacket (revealing she's female).
Junior in ROD the TV. Letting down his long, flowing hair, after being introduced in boy's clothes has a tendency to cement the confusion,and don't forget Maggie who even does not wear a dress to a party or ball.
Karakuridouji Ultimo loves this trope. The confusion ranges from just some ridiculously pretty Bishōnen to the outright cruel. Take at look at Service.
In Trigun, when you first see Vash and Knives as children they look very much like girls, but once you hear them speak you realize their gender.
Rei of Saint Beast. Especially when the viewer doesn't know the show belongs to the BL genre.
Plenty of people have mistaken Asuka from Zettai Muteki Raijin Oh for a girl due to his effeminate appearance and teeny-tiny shorts, even on this very wiki. His name doesn't help, as it's the name of a female pilot in another, more well-known series; and that his voices in both Japanese and English versions are pretty androgynous. Not that his fanboys care...
While revealed by p. 8 in Volume 1 of the manga, Nakahara Tatsuki from Boku No Tsukuru Sekai, a very convincing Wholesome Crossdresser and Magical Projectionist teacher, is revealed to be a man from his son Ritsuki when he calls Tatsuki "Dad."
Norio Koga in Naru Taru. Apparently, some readers have gone through the entire manga without realising that the character is (biologically) male. It doesn't help that his hair is nicer than most girls, and that he's lusted after by both male and female fans.
While not the most common, Chopper from One Piece in a few cases, being the Ridiculously Cute Critter with a female VA and pink as his main color. On the Drum Island arc commentary, some of the dubbers at Funimation admitted they weren't sure of his gender until hearing his scream about being a man.
Eisuke of Detective Conan. Inspector Sato can sometimes look more masculine than him.
Raenef and Erutis of Demon Diary look like a girl and a guy, respectively. But, of course, it's actually the other way around. Raenef falls victim (rather literally, actually) to Dude Looks Like a Lady at one point, and Erutis rants at the artist for making her look so boyish that the readers get confused.
D Gray-Man has some a lot of bishonen, some of whom reach this level of girliness. Kanda, for example, is easily mistaken for female at first glance due to the long hair, and he's got nothing on the (male) Creepy Twins Jasdero and Devit; both are rather ambiguous-looking, and in combo, well◊... The author actually had to clarify their gender through the Fourth Wall Mail Slot.
Baka Test's Hideyoshi Kinoshita. It's basically the point of the character. It's gotten to the point that the fanbase has considered Hideyoshi to have be its own gender. Also to mention is that he can emulate anyone's voice.
Heroman gives us Joey, the main character. While his name is obviously masculine, his design is androgynous at best and his personality, body language, and especiallyhis voice are much closer to a tomboyish girl than a teenage male. It's enough to make you wonder.
Thick shoulder-length blonde hair, girly voice, short, thin, even a little curvy... Yeah, I doubt there's anyone who knew he was a guy when they saw him for the first time.
Risky from Risky Safety is androgynous, a voice that sounds like it either belongs to a tough girl or a young boy, and...ah, it's just hard to tell. The japanese version never explicitly came out and said anything until about two-thirds of the way through, and even the dub got confused, referring to the revealed-female Risky as male, calling her "him", "he", and having a minor character refer to her as "Mister Shinigami." She also refers to herself as "ore was" in Japanese, adding to the confusion.
Please note this only applies to the anime adaption, as manga!Risky was quite clearly a female.
Huang Chaun from Riki-Oh is a very effeminate man with a slender build, lipstick, long eyelashes, and long painted finger nails, but he has a rather masculine voice in the anime.
In the live-action adaptation, they went further and had him played by an actual woman and voice-dubbed by a man.
The Headless Rider in Durarara!! is ambigious for the first two episodes, as she's only shown from angles that mostly hide her feminine curves, and is referred as male by the people who talk of her as an urban legend. Then it turns out that she was the female narrator all along.
Ryo Kuromatsu from the manga The Magic Touch is a girl but she looks remarkably like a boy and is rarely seen in her school uniform. When first encountered in the manga, her gender is not specified, save for one character calling her "she" in order to surprise Amane Mihime, and the reader who didn't catch the gender drop.
Hansel and Gretel in Black Lagoon. By the end of their story arc, it's still not very clear if they were brother and sister, sisters, or brothers.
Takumi in Gad Guard. He has long blonde hair styled into a hime cut and appears to be romantically linking up with Hajiki in his first few episodes. However, switching to the English-language dub leaves the viewer in little doubt as to his gender as the voice sounds masculine (despite being voiced by a female in the English dub).
Kimba the White Lion: Due to Tezuka's art style which averts Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (even male characters have eyelashes), and due to the Cross-Dressing Voices, people who have no knowledge of the series watching the 90s dub for the first time and caught certain filler episodes have thought that the title character is female.
Tail from Dorothy of Oz, a manhwa take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He looks feminine, has feminine eyelashes, and his personality fits Genki Girl-Big Eater. Just look◊ at◊ him◊. It doesn't help that he appears to have a Sarashi affect with his shirt and give him a "boost". Mara also gives some of this, due to her short hair and somewhat gender neutral appearance.
For people who have not seen Seirei No Moribito from the start, it may be a surprise that Chagum is a boy.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Occasionally happens when Maya is mistaken for Shinji and the other way around. The source of this confusion is that, Word of God, Shinji's character design is actually a female head slapped onto a male body: he's based on Nadia, the main character from Gainax's previous series, "Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water", just with shorter bangs and the jewelry removed. So when people accuse Maya of looking "butch" its actually the other way around: Shinji is based on a girl. Maya is just how Gainax draws generic girls.
It happens a lot in the Alternate Continuity Gakuen Datenroku ("Records of Heaven's Descent"), where Shinji is at his most androgynous and really looks like Maya and where it's sometimes necessary to have a close look to realize that the cute short-haired girl is actually him.
Magical X Miracle inspires a lot of this. For starters, the main character Merleawe is a girl who looks exactly like (and must pretend to be) the male Master Wizard, who went missing. In the bonus art, it's really hard to tell which is which. In addition, several fans have expressed confusion at Yue's gender. He's actually a man, but between the Rapunzel Hair, the Qipao, and the Gender Blender Name, things can get confusing. It gets worse when, in book 2, a female character who closely resembles him (both in looks and Sugar and Ice Personality) was introduced in Glenn's flashback. Perhaps Lampshading that, later in the book, General Lenolora makes fun of himfor looking like a girl.
Steins;Gate gives us Ruka Urushibara, who acts and sounds like a woman, looks more Bishoujo than any other girl, mostly dresses in Miko outfits and feminine-looking clothing. But, he's a guy.
Hana from Michiko To Hana; she even got mistaken for a boy in one episode. She's young (around ten years old), dresses in a boyish manner, and her voice isn't all that feminine. The series takes place in South America, so Japanese Pronouns can't help either in-series.
Beyblade gives us Oliver (at least in the English dub). With his femimine features, girly voice, pink beyblade, and unicorn bitbeast, many people assumed he was female. Some of them even thought his name was actually Olivia, and was just being mispronounced. Eventually everyone got the hint when he was continually referred to as a 'he'.
Beyblade's spinoff, Metal Fight Beyblade, has quite a few guys with questionably feminine appearances. Thankfully, most of them are saved with masculine voices.
Wandering Son is.. Complicated due to it being about Transsexuality and crossdressing. But some characters play this trope straight. Makoto for example is rather feminine looking, round, short, has feminine mannerisms, and typically goes by "Mako-chan".
Gamaran has Ranmaru Itou, a male samurai who looks very feminine.
The main character from Chi's Sweet Home is female; this trope is easily justified since she's a two-to-three-month-old kitten. The verdict is out on her new kitten pal Cocchi from the manga and OVA though; the Japanese version has him/her refer to him/herself with "ore-sama", and the overall interpretation leans toward male. But you never know with kittens, even in Real Life when sometimes you have to check twice.
Un-Go has the detective's assistant, Inga, who apparently is an energetic young boy, although it's hard to be sure. The main issue being that for yet unknown reasons, possibly provoked by how close the 'truth' is in a case, Inga transforms into a vaguely monstrous (it's somewhat feline, and looks to be bigger than a person should be) female who insists to Yuuki that she be told a single question to solve the case.
Zatch Bell has Zophise, who is voiced by a woman in both the Japanese and English versions, has curly hair, and has clothes and a face that inspires resemblance to a demonic doll. Despite all this, he is confirmed to be male.
In The World God Only Knows, Chief Dokuro is typically assumed to be male, despite the fact that all New Devils are female. This extends to the anime, where in the dub she has a male voice actor, and in the sub her voice actress uses such a coarse voice that everyone assumes she's male.
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 Bishōnen. 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.
Renaissance- era depictions of The Beloved Disciple (John) and sometimes even John the Baptist (!) show beardless pretty boys who could be taken for girls. This is probably the reason for the well-known claim that May Magdalena appears in Leonardo's Last Supper.
Comics
Krazy Kat never displayed a specific gender trait of any type, but was in an ongoing love triangle of sorts between two identifiably male characters.
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". 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.
The toaster is the perfect example of a gender-neutral character. The voice acting, dialogue, (most of) the pronoun references, actions, attitudes, fears, thoughts, character development, none of that suggests any particular gender, but it doesn't suggest It's Pat-style androgyny or a robot either. With Slippy Toad the demeanor and voiceover begs the question, but the only reason you'd consider the toaster's gender is if you think about it years after watching, or if someone else brings up the question.
In the book, not only is the toaster explicitly without gender, this is something of a plot point when the group encounters a mated pair of squirrels that cannot conceive of a genderless being. The toaster ultimately convinces both of them separately that it is the same gender as they (male for the male and female for the female) — but really it's just to spare their feelings.
In Bambi, who really can be mistaken for female is Flower, the skunk. When he is a child, his voice and speech patterns sound nothing like a male, he acts shy and bashful, is very fluffy, and spends much of his time smelling flowers. A couple years after his introduction, when Bambi meets him again, his voice has deepened and he gets an only slightly more effeminate girlfriend.
There is the picture book of the Disney movie that actually called Flower a female, and made "her" a ''mother!''
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.
Conceivably intentional, as some varieties of starfish are hermaphroditic.
Tarzan: Anybody else have to be reminded that the gorilla Terk (voiced by Rosie O'Donnell) is female? I had no frikkin' clue.
I thought she's male at first, until I found out she's female. I couldn't convince my sister she's female.
Likewise Sabor, the leopard. Word Of God states that Sabor is female, but even Kingdom Hearts labeled it as male.
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).
Two of the background race cars from Cars: According to their toy bios, the pink race car sponsoring Tank Coat is actually male, and the blue race car sponsoring Rev N Go is actually female.
Laverne, one of Quasimodo's gargoyle friends is apparently female (as far as stone can have a gender). I'm rewatching the film right now and I still don't buy it.
Films — Live-Action
Many a viewer of the original Stargate genuinely thought Ra was a woman; Jaye Davidson is just that pretty.
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 actually applies to all members of the Xenomorph species, even the Queen. H.R. Giger intended the Aliens to be neither male nor female, but an unsettling blur of both sexes.
Some viewers of The Year Of Living Dangerously were surprised to learn that Billy Kwan was played by a woman, Linda Hunt. She's the only actor to receive an Academy Award for playing a character of a different sex.
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.
In I Am Legend, Sam the German shepherd isn't revealed to be female until she gets hurt, at which point Will Smith calls her by her full name of Samantha.
The daughter Marley is this for some viewers. Whenever we see her she has a fairly short hairstyle and gender neutral clothes. It isn't actually said whether or not she's a girl until about an hour into the film.
Vidocq intentionally leaves the true sex of the Alchemist vague for most of the film. The character is covered in loose black robes and wears a head-covering mask. The letters written by the Alchemist vary from demonic threats to feminine coyness, and the character's shrill, metallic voice sometimes has a distinctly feminine edge, especially the moans in some battle sequences. All these are Red Herrings. The Alchemist is male.
In Heroic Trio, the Big Bad looks like an effeminate male but has a female voice. This confusion might only be thr Western audiences who might not be as familiar with Chinese legends concerning eunuchs making for extremely powerful soldiers while simultaneously making them evil and manipulative.
That's because initially the character *was* a girl, played by Matthew (Stymie) Beard's real-life sister Carlena. Even after male actor Billie Thomas inherited the role, the character continued to be portrayed as a girl for several shorts.
Alexa in 50 First Dates, which is intentional on the part of the movie.
Robin Williams' daughter in What Dreams May Come is very androgynous, and it's perfectly possible to go through most of the movie thinking she's a boy.
Dennis, the kid who wanted pancakes, from Cabin Fever. He has very long hair, a somewhat feminine face, has a gender neutral voice, and is prepubescent from the looks of it.
Angel from Rent has some of this, but it's not due to androgyny- it's more like Ambiguous Gender Identity, since they are biologically male, dating a gay man, wear women's clothes, usually get alled she, and at least one character is unsure what pronoun to call them by. Interpretions vary between crossdresser, Mt F, Drag Queen, genderqueer, and everything else.
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 Eowyn. 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.
For a long time, half of the Harry Potter fandom thought Blaise Zabini was a girl, since he's just a name until book 6. (Specifically, a name which is masculine in Europe but usually feminine in the United States.) Some who wanted more Slytherin girls used "her" extensively as an OC Stand In in Fan Fic. It's now known that "she's" a he.
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 Honor Harrington. 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", while some men are given female nicknames, such as a Gervais becoming "Gwen". 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.
Discworld dwarfs. Most of them look male, but that doesn't mean they are.
This is expanded upon with Cherri Littlebottom, a feminist in a race where discovering the other's gender is part of the mating ritual. She would wear makeup, but refused to shave her beard because to do so would deny being a dwarf.
Many characters in Monstrous Regiment are very convincing crossdressers.
In the kid's magazine Muse, four New Muses are guys, four New Muses are girls...and nobody can agree what gender Egyptian-born Pwt (pronounced "pwit" is. Word Of God confirmed that Pwt is a male, but some readers still think he's a girl.
In Goblin Moon, the anthropomorphized Nine Seasons are the setting's equivalent of gods. Four are male, four are female, and one (corresponding to mid-spring, a changeable season) is depicted as androgynous in religious art.
The first two chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird leave Scout's gender very much in question. (She's a girl.)
The Timothy Zahn novella Cascade Point is told in the first person, and the narrator's name is not gendered. Only the cover art assigns a gender.
Of course, Spot also changes breeds a few times, so changing gender was probably all in a day's work.
One fan theory is that Data had multiple cats over the years and Data being Data, named them all Spot.
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, as does the Nancy Drew series...
iCarly: In-show example in iWin A Date. While Spencer was looking at the emails sent to him by ladies from whynotdateme.com, he remarks that the most recent email sender is 'kinda pretty'. Carly then points out to him that she's really a dude.
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. Marlo's first words to her are, "Your turn, girl", however, so the series is never trying to deliberately confuse the audience.
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.
Random, utterly pointless, note. Did anyone else read "That's a woman!" in Simmons' voice?
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.) Lampshaded by Cordelia in Season 2 when She says "She could have been Angel because its kind of a Girly name"
He's also a vampire, just to make the name more confusing.
Though this is on purpose he is quite deliberately the demon with the face of an angel.
The funny thing about "Angel" being a Gender Blender name for a man is that all the angels mentioned as having any sort of gender in The Bible are male.
Also Angel (pronounced "ON-hel") is a fairly common men's name in Spanish-speaking cultures.
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 Artistic License - Biology on the viewers' part.)
Uni Sax from 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.
For the record, he's voiced by a man...who has the first name of "Caroll".
This is the whole entire point of the "Man or Woman?" episodes in Maury.
Coach Bieste from Glee. Many viewers believed, or still believe, she is played by a male actor. (She is, in fact, played by Dot Jones.)
And then there's Kurt. The combination of his very high-pitched voice, Camp Gay mannerisms, elaborate outfits, and Bishōnen, sometimes outright feminine appearance make it easy to mistake him for a girl at first, or at least a Bifauxnen. The actor's going through puberty helped to alleviate this... somewhat.
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 Jimusho. 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.
Similarly, during one of the episodes of I Love the 80's, when discussing the Dead or Alive video "You Spin Me Round", one of the commentators said that growing up he thought Pete Burns was either the prettiest man or the ugliest woman he'd ever seen. Either way, It Got Worse.
Bill Kaulitz◊ of Tokio Hotel is this trope personified.
It's just incredible the amount of people who are introduced for the first time to Tokio Hotel and can be sure that the 'front vocals' are sung by a woman. This (straight) troper fell in the shame of telling some of his college friends: 'I kind of like that girl from Tokio Hotel'.
Many were surprised to find out that Noodle of Gorillaz was a girl. Less so once she started 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. Pictures like this◊ and this◊ definitely do not help.
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...
Marilyn Manson: 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.
Michael Jagmin◊ of A Skylit Drive tends to have this effect on people: long hair, girly voice, short stature.
Japanese goth/electronic/visual kei/oh who knows vocalist Selia (one half of Seileen, along with DJ Sisen) falls into this all too easily. He looks like a woman, but in Japanese music this isn't anything new. No, the real confusion comes when he starts singing.
The same goes for Arch Enemy vocalist Angela Gossow, who's death vocals cause many to mistake her for a man at first listen.
The Silversun Pickups's lead vocalist Brian Aubert has a somewhat effeminate voice when singing, leading to some confusion—especially since even when you know he is a guy he looks nothing like you'd expect for a guy with that singing voice. His speaking voice is unquestionably male, though.
Justin Bieber. He's made his career over the fact that he's a teenage boy whose voice hasn't cracked, so this is a given. If you just listen to his music and don't know his name, you might think he's a lesbian. The amount of Viewer Gender Confusion has become memetic due to his Hatedom.
There are a lot of K-Pop idols that fall under this. Super Junior's Heechul◊ and Shinee's Taemin◊ are two of the worst offenders. Even the more masculine ones are prone to this... Shinee's Minho◊ was once mistaken for a labelmate's girlfriend.
JD Samson of Le Tigre. An out lesbian who identifies as female, she nonetheless uses a very macho variation of her given name (Jocelyn Samson), dresses in traditional male clothes, maintains an extremely masculine appearance, and proudly sports close-cropped hair and a robust natural mustache. Even when you know she's a gal, seeing◊ pictures◊ like◊ these◊ makes it pretty tough to grasp.
Shelly West (daughter of Dottie West) has a rather low, rough voice for a female, particularly on her Signature Song "José Cuervo". If you didn't know the artist's name, you'd certainly be forgiven for thinking a man sang that song.
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 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.
Actually, we have seen males — they looked exactly like her! The comic colorist tried to color-code the male by painting him green, but Word Of God says that picture is non-canon, and all of the members of Roodaka's species (the Vortixx) have the exact same colors. Yes, even the males have huge breast-plates, wide hips, a ponytail, walk around in high-heeled boots, and not one of them has any variation in their coloring. The only way you can identify the genders is that if you see a Vortixx suffering or doing some incredibly tedious and tiring work, it's a male.
Things wouldn't be so difficult if the female sets had been designed to look the part. Jaller Inika, for instance, was the manly leader of his group, yet he was the only one who looked at least a bit feminine — the real girl, Hahli, received a huge chin, a bald head, and a mustache and goatee in the form of breathing tubes! The Inika were of course a Deconstruction of certain Toa-related tropes, but only in the story. Sets could have followed a more conventional approach. Although there is nothing to suggest this wasn't the result of test groups' dissatisfaction with female-looking toys.
Hahli's infamous tube-stache wasn't the first instance of a female character receiving a misleading mask. There was Macku, who had this long, pharaoh-beard like structure on the underside of her mask. The first movie redesigned that mask-type so that it would have a mechanical "beard". Macku's movie-mask got a shortened version, but it still looked off.
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.)
But at least that one single female character was designed to actually have some feminine physical characteristics, like a slender body, and... wait, that was it.
There are some subtle hints sometimes though, such as Nokama Metru's smoother mask design, Hahli Mahri's sleeker mask and her angel wings, and Gali Mata's inverted legs and extra chest-piece. But that's as helpful as it can go.
Bionicle's successor Hero Factory has Breez, who is female despite looking just as manly as the others.
It helps that her full name is Natalie Breez, though others mostly just call her Breez anyway. As for her looks, her helmet's eye-holes at least looked feminine at first. Then, she switched them to a generic design, along with adapting this huge, manly chin underneath.
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.
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.
If you research his design process, you find that the two-tailed fox design was always male, and that Sonic was always intended to have a sidekick the same gender as him.
It REALLY doesn't help that Tails' looks on the title card of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 looks really, really feminine.
Nor does it help that Tails is currently voiced by a girl.
Due to his dreadlocks, Knuckles is often mistaken for a girl.
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. In addition, while "Tsukasa" is usually written in kanji for boys and hiragana for girls, Tsukasa Futaba Took a Third Option and writes his name in katakana. 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 always intended to be male. That bit of female!Zero art drawn as a joke just as R20 was about to be released in Japan didn't help matters.
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.
But the worst is probably Lumine from Mega Man X8. Very female voice, long light-purple hair, thin feminine body, yet other characters always refer to him as a "he".
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.
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.
The guards found in the N64 Zelda games are a strange case: the official art◊ makes it easy to tell, but the actual in game model, due to graphical limitations, has a slender build with what appears to be a pronounced bustline, lipstick, and tight short pants.
There's a double example in Twilight Princess with the shamen Renado◊ and his daughter Luda◊. Because of his robe and her cowboy-like outfit, they could be easily seen as mother and son.
One Game Informer preview of Skyward Sword described Demon Lord Ghirahim as "a skinny, ghostly female".
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.
It's actually Lampshaded in Troia, when a drunken pub-goer mistakes him for a prostitute.
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.
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 Penelo gives her descriptions of all the characters and claims that she dislikes Kuja since no boy should look prettier than she does.
The fact that his art by Yoshitaka Amano makes him look like he's wearing black lipstick and Mascara (But then again though, that's one of his art trends) doesn't help either. Surprisingly enough; Nomura actually made him look MORE masculine for Dissidia.
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.
NO mention of Quina? Quina actually is always referred to as "S/he".
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.
Noah "Spoony One" Antwiler played a Boy or Girl game to find out if Kiros is a boy or a girl.
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 his near-feminine hair and shy personality. Luckily, when the bullies teased Marche for being "quiet like a little girl", Ritz's response made the fact that Marche is indeed a boy.
It doesn't help that Marche's hair actually looks just like Ramza's.
And after so many Bishōnen protagonits through the series, while they weren't many, there were some that originally thought Lightning was yet another girly male protagonist!
Has there ever been confirmation that White Mage from the first Final Fantasy is a female like most people assume? While his/her Mage sprite makes it believable, the White Wizard sprite makes me wonder.
Actually, his gender was confirmed. (Note that 8-Bit Theater went against canon here.)
And then unconfirmed again in Mario Hoops 3 on 3, where a very female White Mage has a cameo appearance along several other classic FF figures.
And did you forget Faris? Most people thought the pirate captain was a guy. Wait 'til you get to the Ship Graveyard, my friend...
At least in-game. Her art looks a bit more feminine; but then again though, quite a bit of characters by Yoshitaka Amano look rather gender-neutral.
Crisis Core: Genesis◊ is a man, however much the picture might fool you.
In the SaGa game Final Fantasy Legend III, a boss named Mayteria is referred to as "he" but take one look at the sprite and you'd bet that "he" looks like a "She"! S/he could easily' pass for Cleopatra.
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. It probably also doesn't help that Zelos wears pink, and in the west, that's considered a feminine colour. (The Rapunzel Hair, too.)
Don't forget Corrine. Girly voice and name, cute and cuddly ball of fluff, multi-colored, Corrine's gotta be a girl, right? Nope. The little fox is a male. However, Corrine can also go into an even bigger gender debate when you take in two factors, the manga and the fact he becomes Verius. Verius is obviously male and outright proven so, especially when playing the sequel, and this is yet another factor that can confirm Corrine is male because he is Verius. However, the manga depicts Corrine differently where Verius is an entirely new entity sharing Corrine's likeness only in their life force and appearance. They also confirm Corrine is female and Verius is male. Oi.
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.
Jade gets a bit of this now and then, either from the especially feminine concept art or from the viewer only seeing a skit face, which shows the character from the shoulders up (he's quite pretty). The Gender Blender Name doesn't help matters.
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.
This is lampshaded near the begining of the game. If you go into the bar and speak to a certain NPC, he mistakes Yuri for a girl and asks him to join him for some drinks.
Fire Emblem has had a couple of examples 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.
In the case of Lucius, it's even parodied in-game in one of Lucius's support conversations, where Serra mistakes him for a girl before he meekly corrects her.
Serra: B-But... to be a monk, don't you have to... be a... well... a guy? Lucius: Yes. Yes, you do.
Marth got this by Super Smash Bros. fans, partially due to the unusual first name, which is the male variant of Martha.
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.
Actually, in the quiz answers bowser gives Nutsoglobin, he uses she when talking about Starlow.
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 whether Riku was a boy or girl.
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 & 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 due 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.
This wiki even mentions that "Her name is Lotte." However; chances are most people didn't actually spot that name since the other characters have rather English sounding names (Jennifer, Laura, Bobby, Mary...)
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!"
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.
His character model is far more masculine than his art. Not that that's sying much.
When Subala's character art was revealed, most of the fandom assumed that she was a boy due to her completely flat chest. Much to their surprise, she turned out to be a 16-year-old girl.
The Night Dancer in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 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 Word Of God.
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.
NiGHTS' voice can be interpreted either as a woman or a young boy; it sounds equally like both.
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.
And then there's Captain Rainbow, where at one point the title character is asked to prove once and for all that Birdo is female. He brings back a vibrator.
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.
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 they're 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.)
Halley can look androgynous in the art; but then again though, that's mostly if you look at the face.
Meet Bob. Bob is a kitty in Animal Crossing. Bob is purple. Bob loves to wear pretty dresses. Bob is a dude.
Animal Crossing has way too many other examples of this, too.
Likewise with Blanca, Gracie and Saharah are male... in Japan. A few villagers also get this trope.
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.
This is not in effect for Mokou from the same game, despite also wearing something other than a dress— her name (lit. Scarlet Little Sister) gives it away.
The confusion strikes again, this time with Toramaru Shou from Undefined Fantastic Object, who does look overly masculine— tiger stripes and all.
And for a trip back in time to PC-98 days, we have the samurai Meira, whose battle challenge was mistaken by Reimu for a marriage proposition.
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 Ōkami as a male. Issun constantly referring to her as a god rather than a goddess doesn't help.
The American localization was actually trying to keep Ammy as androgynous as possible, mostly since the United State's primary religion has God to be definitively male.
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.
Vivian, from Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. In the Japanese release, she's transgender 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...
The gender balance would be equal either way: a trans woman (Mt F) is still a woman.
Bugsy from Pokémon Gold and Silver . Somewhat long hair, too young to make out sexual characteristics, unusual name that isn't easily gender identifiable, rather ambiguous clothes. Hey, your guess is as good as mine.
Supposedly male...but yeah, the fact that his Pokémon are all female doesn't help (enemy trainers usually have Pokémon that are their own gender.)
Will of the Elite Four has the same issue as Bugsy—despite being male his entire team is female. Both his in-game sprite and the Sugimori art also give him Hartman Hips.
Also, Lopunny. There is a 50/50 chance that the Pokémon is a male/female, and it doesn't help that (s)he has a feminine appearance. It helps even less that most people say the name is a caricature of Playboy Bunnies.
A better example would be the Ralts line. They are supposed to be ballerina based however their "clothing" is feminine. As in "female tutu" and "dress" feminine. They gained a male counterpart the next gen, however you still have to go through the Kirlia stage and the males evolve by a (somewhat rare) evolutionary stone.
Even odder, Gardevoir has a very masculine name in Japan. Sirknight, which has both "Sir" and "knight" in it (while knights can be female, we typically think of male ones); though it may also refer to "come, Knight"
Silver, your Johto rival, invokes this. In the remakes they gave him a more masculine appearance however he still invokes this due to his young age, Bishōnen good looks, and long hair.
Tate and Liza.
Mostly for Tate; because Tate can actually be a feminine name, too, outside of Fire Emblem 6.
To clarify, Tate is the boy, and Liza the girl.
Wallace. With that pose, cyan styled hair, and fabulous clothes, anyone could mistake him for a girl and never know the truth.
This also could have occurred to the translation team for Ruby and Sapphire, who named a Team Magma admin with a slightly ambiguous-looking sprite the very feminine "Tabitha." Unfortunately, Tabitha is a man.
US players of the original Phantasy Star had a couple of examples. First there's the Bishounen Noah who is referred to by both gender pronouns thanks to the Blind Idiot Translation. Thankfully the re-release on the Gameboy Advance fixed it so he's always referred to as a male. Then there's the cat-like Myau, whose gender is never revealed in the Japanese version nor have I ever heard an Word Of God on the topic.
Flea from Chrono Trigger. He's so girly that the entire party (in particular Marle) is shocked to learn he's a guy.
Invoked in Baldur's Gate. An early sidequest has you hunting down a deranged necromancer serial killer, and when you track him down, he confuses you for his dead parent...of the opposite gender then you.
BioWare tends to avert this by giving the female characters either scanty clothing or Boobs of Steel. The only exceptions are Jack, who they make a point of not using gender-specific pronouns for her until you see her rising out of cryo, and Shale, who is a golem and doesn't give you any physiological clues as to her gender.
Brenda from Muscle March is officially female, but given that she's as ridiculously muscular as the other characters (with the exception of the polar bear), and the Hard Gay overtones of the rest of the game, it's easy to be confused.
Ranmaru from Sakura Taisen V. Always referred to with male pronouns... but only referred to with any pronouns starting in Chapter 6, when he's been appearing all game. With a high-pitched voice and very effeminate mannerisms.
Given that he's most likely the same Ranmaru mentioned under the Art section, it's not too surprising.
Samurai Warriors has Ranmaru Mori (who's even voiced by a woman) and is actually mistaken for a girl by Magoichi. The newest game brings forth Hanbei Takenaka, who is older than Ranmaru but still looks very feminine. The fact that he's seen disguised as a woman in his opening doesn't hepl either...
Uesugi Kenshin from Sengoku Basara who is extremely pretty with delicate features and is voiced by Romi Paku. Takenaka Hanbei and Mouri Motonari have similar problems, as not only are they pretty they also have rather curvaceous hips.
Prince Pixel of Graffiti Kingdom. Granted, it's because he's a little boy and he's almost immediately called "Prince", but the fact that he has those huge eyelashes coupled with his female sidekick having a deeper voice than him makes it hard to believe that you're playing as a prince.
Some fans claim Kirby is genderless despite the many canonical references to his gender.
Ehl◊ from Solatorobo is a boy, to the surprise of many a gamer. The pink-ish fur and stockings don't exactly help with the issue.
Subverted, Elh is actually a girl who acts like a boy, they find out her true gender thanks to a shower scene in Chapter 4.
In the first Tekken, Kunimitsu was an ambiguous genderpalette swap of Yoshimitsu with the same voice, but was made distinctly female in the second game.
Then the second playable Water Adept was revealed. A slender, MoeInegenue whose name in Japanese is phonetically identical to "Harmony". And an introductory storyline including an extnded Shirtless Scene. The European official site cited the redubbed Amiti as a girl for a while, and we can't really blame them for being confused.
Them being second cousins could indicate that this is a family trait.
Dark Souls: It's easy to mistake the androgynous Gwyndolin for a woman. It's how he was raised.
Webcomics
Kano from Kagerou was confusing readers in the beginning. We could tell his gender based on his colorful clothes, but as the comic went on, we were all sure he was a guy.
Most of the animals in Ursula Vernon's Digger, including the main character, have no Tertiary Sexual Characteristics the way most furry characters would. This, combined with absolutely no one bar the hyenas having gender issues, leads a lot of first-time readers to assume Digger is male until someone lets slip a third person pronoun.
During the infamous Schedule Slip of Avalon, a debate built up on the forums as to whom Ceilidh would end up with. The most popular answers were "no one" and "Phoebe", with Joe (whom she had already dated) a close third. One forumite, however, found the latter two unlikely and the foremost cruel, so he put his chips down for the yearbook committee chair, Pasquale...not realizing "he" was every bit as female as Phoebe, with less sexual ambiguity. (By the way, answer: Phoebe.)
During her first appearance in Girl Genius, the female jäger Jenka's gender was more ambiguous — most notably her Breast Plate was much less pronounced and she was less attractive than the recently-introduced Bishōnen jäger Maxim. Later it became more obvious.
There's also BifauxnenGrantz, Baron Wulfenbach's monster hunter. Honestly, if you don't pay attention to the pronouns used, it's quite easy to mistake her for a hulking guy.
When Aylee first appeared in Sluggy Freelance, she had no visible gender and was even referred to as "it" by other characters. Since her species reproduces face-hugger style, it seemed reasonable to assume they didn't have males and females. However, once she started working as Torg's secretary, everyone started referring to her as a "she" (though whether she was actually biologically female or just self-identified as such is unclear). Most of the forms she's taken have also had no discernible sex characteristics, creating the potential for this trope at many different points in the series. Her current form, however, closely resembles a human female, even down to the "naughty parts".
Similar to Digger — Sweetheart from Skin Horse, being a female, (mostly) non-anthropomorphized dog (one who's a genetically-altered, talking killing machine)
In the first few strips, Tip himself qualifies, until it's made pretty clear that he's male.
HERO. Yes, that's a dude. And Ganymar. And pretty much anyone not wearing a dress or with visible breasts.
Ghastly's Ghastly Comics has this one-offShota vs Loli comic, but since the people in the forums were debating who was Shota and who was Loli, Ghastly addressed their concerns in the way he likes best.
Manish woman: Uh, I know men like to look at breasts and all, but could you stop staring? Mine aren't even that big. Jhim: They're larger than what I'm used to.
Based on the glimpses into Milholland's e-mail, it seems some readers have assumed that because Choo-Choo Bear is a pinkcat, he's a female. This may happen less now that he's fathered a litter of kittens.
Abel and Mink from DMFA. Both male, for the record... at least we think Mink is male, since he doesn't wear a shirt and is flat-chested. Amber's drawing style tends to make male characters look a bit feminine, and it doesn't help that both Abel and Mink habitually wear skirts. Mink's effeminacy may be deliberate, however, since he is laden with feminine Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (long hair, pink and purple colour scheme, long eyelashes, jewelry, skirt).
Mink's Color Scheme is stated to be a clan Qurik. All members of his clan are pastel colored in their natural forms regardless of gender. Cubi are also shapeshifters which complicates guessing.
Mink also has rather girly mannerisms. Look at him playing with his head tentacles in this comic, for instance. Also, nobody in the comic has used a third-person pronoun to refer to Mink.
Mink doesn't even know what gender they are - Link
The Author Avatar from Awkward Zombie can be rather... confusing at first. Skinny and flat, wears a baseball cap, and, when representing characters with Purely Aesthetic Gender, is usually drawn in the male character's outfit. Long-haired, yes, but that's about it as far as visual femininity. Looking closely at the copyright signature on the sidebar, however, should clear things up—given that not many men are named "Katie." The author is just a Gamer Chick.
And Driver. Even Wiglaf couldn't tell she was, in fact, a girl when they first met. Mordred cleared that up. In fact, the page even shares it's name with this trope. [1] Driver however could easily tell that Wiglaf was male. Also, word-of-god has stated that she does have a very masculine voice, adding to people's confusion.
Last Res0rt gets this more than it should ( you really think all the boobs would help) — folks repeatedly think Jigsaw and Veled are male, at least until they get a load of Jigsaw in that dress.
Word Of God blames it on a "feminist" art style that doesn't go straight for the high heels, Stripperific outfits and Gag Boobs like most comic books do. (She is, however, starting to give the girls some serious eyelashes to help make up for it.)
The cat from Living with Insanity is female, but it's hard to tell since Salvi draws it in a mangy style, to the point where when it was revealed she loved a tom before the strip began, a few fans thought she was gay until Word Of God cleared it up.
In the introductory comic of El Goonish Shive, Elliot states that yes, Tedd is a guy. People were left guessing at Noah for a while.
Happens in-universe in Prophecy Of The Circle when Shan'rekk is referred to with male pronouns by members of a different species, but is later revealed to be female in a Perspective Flipped chapter.
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.
In The Nostalgia Critic review of "Nickcoms", he plays a game called "Boy or Girl" with the kids from You Can't Do That On Television.
Minky Steve from Parsley Boobs. He/she is either a slightly masculine-looking woman or a very Camp Gay man.
In The Guild, Bladezz's adolescent sister has long hair, but it just makes her look even more like her brother. She has a husky voice for a girl and is first seen wearing a baseball cap and rather gender-neutral clothing.
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. Applejack 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, ;_;)
This extends to that in some foreign dubs, that the more tomboyish ponies got rewritten as males.
Whoever wrote the episode preview descriptions for the program confused Rarity (of all ponies!) and Rainbow Dash for males in two seperate instances.
Background pony Caramel's gender is a mystery even to the animators apparently, since his/her design has been seen on a male and a female pony.
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.
Some of the "Grumpy Bear is a female" jokes may actually be for something completely different. (hint: PMS)
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 actually caused surprisingly little of this... Because her Beast Machines counterpart looked pretty much the same, and was also female, which meant that the gender confusion had already been gotten out of the way.
Transformers Prime. Soundwave has a few moments of this in his original appearance. He doesn't speak, simply repeats messages he's picked up—and the first he repeated was Arcee's, using Arcee's voice overlaid with his own computerized tones. This led some people to think he was female until he repeated another person's message.
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 grabs the sails").
Also, on the translation to Dutch, the character was called Vickie, a typical female name in Dutch.
Actually the Dutch version of the character was "Wickie de Viking", not Vickie and thus not a girl's name, even though the song of the tune made clear that the hero was male, and mishearing the (in German) confusing line would only reinforce his masculinity, however up against the clearly female voice, the long hair, round face and skirtlike covering of nether parts, this evidence of masculinity could not prevent widespread gender confusion.
Moose (Margaret Rose) 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. Also, Moose seems rather gender-neutral when it comes to names; anyways.
It helped when a flashback revealed this to be a case of Generation Xerox.
Personally I was always confused about the gender of Pepper Ann. Then again, I was young and stupid.
You're not alone. Tom Warbuton has a pretty gender-neutral way of designing characters sometimes.
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 any gender but the voice actor suggests female, even the creators are undecided.
It's even lampshaded a few times.
The early 90s animated Babar TV series featured a character called Pompadour, dressed in light orange, very effete and fussy, with a high-pitched voice and a tiny little bit of Ho Yay with Cornelius.
Mindy from Animaniacs was, despite her name, often confused for a little boy when the series was still new. It's possible that the creators eventually caught on to this, as one episode broke the trend of Limited Wardrobe to feature Mindy in a dress.
Later still, during a short which featured Elmyra Duff, Mindy was constantly, specifically referred to as a "cute little girl" by Elmyra. Almost as if to hammer it into the heads of the viewers.
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 head feathers.
Those might have featured his Tiny Toons counterpart, who really is female.
No, it's Tweety. A few even show him with Sylvester.
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.
Alluded to in The Looney Tunes Show where Sylvester is unsure if Tweety is a boy or girl, until he whispers it to him —- We don't see it though...
Speaking of Tiny Toons, god knows how many people have thought that Little Sneezer's a female. Given the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (long eyelashes and high-pitched voice, same characteristics as Tweety mentioned above) deployed onto him, it's understandable.
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 and Ben 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.
Linny 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 Blue's 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.
Magenta is also a good version. Due to the fact Blue is female a lot of people thought, and still, think they were inverting the Pink Girl, Blue Boy, and gender roles, way of thinking. Thus Magenta is commonly thought to be male.
It could be that they were using "gender roles" of a different sort, as all of the dogs on the show have ended up being girls, and Periwinkle, a cat, was a boy.
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...
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.
To muddy the waters even further, in the Made-for-TV MovieBoris and Natasha, Rocky was made human... and became a woman.
Snooky Wookums the kitten from Krypto The Superdog 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.)
On the viewers' side of things, Odd's gender-neutral hair, taste for the color purple, and exitable, flamboyant nature have lead many to mistake him for a flat-chested girl. His masculine voice helps a bit (though probably not in the French version, where his voice is higher than most people over the age of eight), as does the fact that he's dated every girl in the school.
Poof from The Fairly Odd Parents, to the point where even his parents weren't sure if it was a boy or a girl when he was first born.
Turned out Poof was a boy.
A large number of KaBlam!! fans were shocked when they realized that June was female (she's got tomboy written all over her). Um, HELLO! Her name is JUNE!
A friend of mine thought her name was Jean (which is a gender-neutral name).
Some people confuse Chowder for a girl since he wears purple and pink shirt and is touchy-feely at times. The fact that his voice actor was pre-pubescent at the beginning of the series definitely doesn't help (his voice has dropped in later episodes, though).
Thanks to Grey DeLisle voicing Wubbzy in her brightest, most feminine voice, it's easy to forget that Wubbzy's a boy.
Zero from INK: Invisible Network of Kids. She's a tomboy, she has a boyish voice and her eyelashes look more like face paint a'la A Clockwork Orange.
Mitzi, the monkey, from Little Bear was female. This series is set pre-feminist revolution so it's justified; you wouldn't expect a girl to be so tomboyish in this setting, especially since the other girls are so feminine. Plus her name is rather gender vague and she does act like the boys.
Peppermint Patty, for those unfamiliar with the strip, due to her tomboyish appearance and being voiced by a boy in some Peanuts specials.
This mostly happened in recent years, though. Anyone who was a child or teenager in The Sixties can tell you that Patty's hairstyle was actually a fad for girls at the time. If a male had hair like that, whey were probably a hippie, a hobo, or a college student. Not to mention, Marcie always calls her "Sir". Of course this had lead to some other implications that the two are actually gay, though.
Her haircut looks like a Bob Haircut, which is typically only connected with girls. But that doesn't lessen the confusion for some people.
Kaeloo gets this so often that her gender's become something of a Base Breaker. The fact that she is voiced by a man in every languagereally doesn't help with this. There's in-show evidence going both ways, but Word Of Godconfirms her to be female, and have even made it the center of focus of a few episodes. This doesn't stop them from trolling the fanbase anyway with their in-character Facebook page consistently claiming her to neither be a boy or girl, but a frog. The confusion even spreads to television networks, with the Australian, American and Hindi promo trailers referring to her with male pronouns.
Translator Gender Confusion has also happened. In the English dub, she was male for around 10 episodes before the translators noticed something was a''miss''. Since then, she's been consistently referred to with the correct pronouns.
Some viewers have initially mistaken Stumpy for a girl due to his petite frame, high-pitched falsetto of a voice, jumpy nature and tendency to dress in drag. This also happens with Quack-Quack of all characters at times, likely because of his sheer non-information and the fact that he might look to some people as if he's wearing purple eyeshadow.
¡Mucha Lucha! has a few of these, though Snow Pea stands out. Snow Pea's young, cute, feminine, and wears a costume that covers their entire body. So it's hard to tell whether they're a Cute Shotaro Boy or just a little girl. It doesn't help that all Snow Pea ever says is "Snow Pea". It has been hinted that Snow Pea is male, as he danced with a Distaff Counterpart once.
Remember the baby from PB&J Otter? Butter was a girl, though she's a baby and looks more like her brother than her sister so it's very easy to mistake her for a boy.
Seiyuu Hiro Yuki 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, Kouki Miyata, says he's been frequently mistaken for a woman because of his high, effeminate voice.
Two female seiyuu examples: Romi Paku is often mistaken for a "New-Half" because of her "husky voice". Also, Wakako "Kujira" Matsumoto 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 — thinking of raptors here — it's usually the female that's bigger.
Then there are Chickens. Hens and Roosters are easy to tell apart ^^when full grown but as chicks are indistinguishable. There's an actual job with training involved to be able to distinguish them as chicks.
Depends on the breed, though. Some hybrids, such as the Warrens used for egg production, were developed specifically so the male and female chicks could be told apart easily.
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.
Parrots, on the other hand, look pretty much the same, and have to be DNA-tested to find out their sex. If your breeding pair aren't, it's often because they're both the same sex.
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.
Quite a few people thought Chris Crocker (of "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!" fame) was a girl. A few still do.
He has since started dressing in a more masculine way, and cut his hair short.
ZJemptv a.k.a. Zinnia Jones, a video maker on Youtube, has this happen constantly. A brief look in the comments section (of any video on the channel) will prove this true. For the record, Zinnia's actually a (gay) cisgendered man who likes to dress in feminine style.
Because his Author Avatar is genderless and one of the female 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...
Likewise, author Tracy Hickman has gotten so used to Viewer Gender Confusion that he sometimes introduces himself at fantasy conventions by saying "Tracy couldn't come, so she sent me".
Christina Aguilera was accused of stealing her style, and she even admits she didn't immediately know if Lady Gaga was 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.
As one story goes, the California police were looking for a man who had stolen a motorcycle. They found a man and bike matching the description and pulled him over...only for it to turn out to be 3rd Rock from the Sun actress Kristen Johnston, who is quite tall and broad-shouldered for a woman.
The new adverts for confused.com feature the logo as a woman while it was often assumed she was male. Apparently the logo was modelled after the founder of the website, Kate Armstrong, and was always meant to be a woman.
Youtube guitarist makmakmakochan has pages and pages of comments debating their gender.
Australian singer/performer Courtney Act. Singer of the Top 30 (Australia) hit "Rub Me Wrong". Once made FHM's Top 100 Sexiest Women. Made the finals of the first season of Australian Idol, and even got a record deal out of it. That's a guy. Not a transsexual, a guy.
