Basic Trope: A same-gender relationship between a masculine individual and a feminine individual.
- Straight:
- Alice is a Lipstick Lesbian, while her girlfriend Betty, is a Butch Lesbian.
- Andy is Manly Gay and his boyfriend Bob is Camp Gay.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is so feminine she'd put any Princess Classic to shame, while Betty rivals most male wrestlers in terms of masculinity.
- Andy is a walking tank of testosterone that feeds on other men's masculinity, while Bob is so girly he's constantly mistaken for a woman, no matter how hard he tries to prove otherwise.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak, while her girlfriend is a Tomboy with a Girly Streak.
- Both Andy and Bob are Straight Gay, but Bob has typically girly interests like gardening and ballet whereas Andy has typically manly interests like car maintenance and boxing.
- Justified:
- Alice and Betty simply prefer to act and dress the way they do, and happen to find each other's form of presentation most attractive.
- Andy has a thing or two for feminine men like Bob and\or vice versa.
- Alice and Betty live in a homophobic area, so Betty has to disguise herself as a man when they're out and about.
- Inverted:
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy
- A Masculine/Masculine or Feminine/Feminine M/F relationship.
- Subverted:
- After dating for a while, Alice decides to try out bodybuilding and masculine clothing with her girlfriend.
- Bob isn't girly, he lost a bet to Andy in which the loser must pretend to be a woman for a day.
- Alice and Betty are only respectively femme and butch in terms of appearance. Alice listens to death metal and works as a tattoo artist, while Betty is a housewife who loves cute animals.
- Double Subverted:
- After a while, Alice decides that those aren't really her thing, and goes back to her original feminine ways.
- Bob howerver, ends up liking the new style and decides to keep it.
- Alice and Betty start swapping wardrobes and decide they prefer each other's aesthetics over their own; Alice becomes the butch one, while Betty goes full femme.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob, a Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy couple, are either both bisexual or each other's beards, making them this trope through technicality.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice tries out more masculine things with Betty, only to realize that she's not into them. Later on they do the reverse, with Betty exploring femininity. Betty finds that while she isn't into feminine fashion, she does take a liking to the traditionally feminine hobby of knitting.
- Andy and Bob like to switch roles every now and then to keep their relationship interesting.
- Averted:
- Girlfriends Alice and Betty are both equally masculine or feminine.
- Neither Andy nor Bob are gay, they're just friends.
- Enforced:
- The couple is designed that way to give them contrast.
- The creator(s) feel all romantic relationships should fit as close to a traditional male/female relationship as possible.
- The work is a documentary on the history of the gay community, so while not universal, there is some Truth in Television here.
- The couple was originally conceptualized as a straight one, but the creators eventually decided to make a last-minute change and turn them into a gay couple in order to make the cast more inclusive.
- The couple was a straight one in the original work, but the Executive Meddling makes the creators Gender Flip one of them to invoke an Adaptational Diversity.
- The couple was made explicitly feminine and masculine as a means to get the relationship past the radar in case the work gets imported into a more homophobic country. When that happens, the couple could easily be changed into a male-female couple without a discrepancy.
- Lampshaded: "I guess it's obvious which one of you is the girl and which one of you is the boy in this relationship."
- Invoked: In an attempt to hook feminine Alice up, her friends only consider butch women for the Blind Date.
- Exploited: Alice and Betty use their appearance to pass as a female/male couple in more homophobic areas.
- Defied:
- Betty only dates women who are as highly masculine as she is.
- Andy and Bob hate labeling each other and are comfortable with both having an androgynous appearance.
- Discussed: Betty realizes that Alice has unintentionally imported some traditional gender roles into their relationship. In particular, Betty is sick of always having to pay on dates. They talk it out, and get rid of the gender roles that they don't like, while still keeping their respective presentations overall.
- Conversed: "I'm so sick of movies pretending the only kind of gay couples that exist are the ones where they have to resemble a straight couple!" "Not even straight couples act like that all the time. They're following the template for a straight couple."
- Played for Laughs: Alice makes a huge deal out of the idea of Betty sitting down to pee.
- Played for Drama:
- Andy is very insecure about his sexuality and tries to date the feminine Bob in and attempt to feel more "normal".
- The only reason why Alice/Betty or Andy/Bob's relationships are accepted by their communities is because they play into traditional gender roles, so while both pairs are seen as unusual for being same-sex, they both still abide by broad societal guidelines. They are labelled as "discount heterosexual" as a result; if Betty developed more feminine habits or Bob decided to be more masculine, then their peers would crack down on it harder.
- Betty goes through a bout of Tomboy Angst because people treat her like she's not a woman solely because of her hobbies and dress—and therefore, her relationship with Alice isn't "truly" lesbian. She decides to act more feminine to prove her credibility as a woman and as a lesbian, or to prove that Alice isn't in love with her just because she's the "closest" thing to a man she can get. Meanwhile, Alice is upset that Betty has to struggle with her interests because Alice likes to be girly.
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