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Ambiguously Gay
(aka: Gaydar Tripper)

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"They're extremely close in an ambiguous way! They're ambiguously gay!"
"The Ambiguously Gay Duo" Theme Song from Saturday Night Live

Perhaps you have a male character who is visibly touch-feely towards another male character, while being similarly open in rejecting the advances of any female characters who come his way. Or when the other male characters ogle the resident Ms. Fanservice, this character hardly bats an eye, but he seems quite interested in what the Walking Shirtless Scene is doing. Other characters in the work may even question exactly which way this character swings, but never get an answer. The character's sexuality is simply never made clear within the work.

Yes, this character is Ambiguously Gay—they display much onscreen evidence of exclusive same-gender attraction, but nothing is ever explicitly confirmed one way or another. The ambiguity can range all the way from from blink-and-you'll-miss-it implications to all-but-confirmed.

This trope has taken slightly different forms throughout the past due to differences in censorship and what was permissible in the media. In many old films, characters were often given descriptions that may be perceived as code words for "gay". Such words may include "eccentric", "queer", "confirmed/lifelong bachelor" or other words that can just as easily mean their conventional definitions without subtext, hence why it's ambiguous.

In other cases where the censors may not have permitted any overt implications of homosexual attraction, creators would sometimes deliberately utilize stereotypical traits as a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar and implying a character's homosexuality. For example a male character might lisp, show and have an interest in fashion and musicals, have no apparent interest in the opposite sex, and live in a single-bedroom apartment with one of their "roommates". In modern sociological theory, these characters are described as being "queer-coded".

This particular permutation of Ambiguously Gay has largely become a Broken Trope in domestic media due to contemporary media being more open to depiction of explicitly gay characters, many of whom don't necessarily conform to stereotypes. However, it still lives on in some kinds of media aimed at international audiences, due to certain countries having more stringent anti-LGBT censorship than others.

As a result, modern instances of the trope are less likely to rely on stereotypes or code; common reasons for characters in newer works being considered Ambiguously Gay include a lack of interest in heterosexual relationships, overtly implied romantic or sexual interest in a character of the same gender, and In-Universe rumors about the character's sexuality.

Compare Hide Your Lesbians, wherein the relationship between two characters is ambiguously gay. It's frequently combined with Word of Gay, for cases when the character's homosexuality remains deliberately ambiguous within the work itself but is declared elsewhere by a creator. If the hints are overt enough, it can overlap with Transparent Closet, and some types of Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?, in which the character's dubious sexuality is much more openly questioned. A similar trope is Have You Tried Not Being a Monster? for when the gay innuendo is used to define something supernatural, such as vampires or mutants.

A closely related trope is Ambiguously Bi, which is similar to this trope but with bisexuality as opposed to homosexuality, and often involves a character who often shows explicit attraction towards at least one gender in canon. Compare and contrast with Homoerotic Subtext, which is about same-gender characters who may or may not be attracted to each other, but nevertheless have gay moments which are often lampshaded by the work itself. See also Pseudo-Romantic Friendship. Also compare and contrast Queer Establishing Moment, for when an Ambiguously Gay character graduates out of the "Ambiguously" part.

Not to be confused with Ho Yay, which is an Audience Reaction for fans interpreting any interactions between two characters of the same gender as homoerotic, whether or not it's deliberately implied within the text and regardless of what sexual orientation the characters may have in canon.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples for episodic works shouldn't be added until end of season for the season introducing the ambiguity (or after 3 months, for episodic works without seasons). This is to allow time for the story to develop the character and resolve ambiguity. There is no waiting time for non-episodic works.

No Real Life Examples, Please! It is none of our business to speculate on the sexuality of real-life people, which is often far more complicated than in fiction.

noreallife


Examples:

Other Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Budweiser ran one of their happy, feel-good ads where the first person that a male soldier calls to tell he's coming home is another guy who he also embraces first at his coming home party, even before his own parents.
  • On a similar note, a 1989 commercial for Hamm's beer features their iconic bear mascot acting pretty flirty with two men who enter a bar together, even gazingly longingly at them as the scene wraps. The ad was briefly rediscovered and became Popular with Furries in the 2010s.
  • The Happy Chop could count, if it qualifies as ambiguous: "if you like small fruit... or even a big one!" and "can I say hard cheese on television?"

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Friends: Teacher Know-It-All blushes at the sight of Professor Limen's muscular body in Season 5 episode 45, but is not confirmed to have a crush on him.
  • Infinity Nado: Pandora despite his appearance and name is actually a boy who never really shows any interest in female characters in the series and is super close with the main character Jin.

    Comic Strips 
  • Gil Thorp: Lini Verde, a flashy-dressing Glee fan who's also a clinch player for the basketball team. His sexual orientation hasn't been stated. The storyline involves a website that calls him unpleasant names, but the exact nature of those names is unrevealed (probably a good idea for all sorts of reasons). When one character suggests wearing pink to support him, she gets the response "This is about bullying, not ... pinkness!"
  • It's Grim Up North London: Jez and Quin in the Private Eye comic strip. Maybe they're a stereotyped gay couple; maybe they're an equally stereotyped pair of upper-middle-class artistic types, who happen to share a flat.
  • Lucy and Sophie Say Goodbye is a 1900s comic about two women who take a long time to part ways. Almost every strip has them kissing goodbye. Due to Values Dissonance it's unclear if this was intended to be Platonic Kissing or Queer People Are Funny.
  • Terry and the Pirates: Creepy Crossdresser Sanjak dresses like a man and wears a monocle that she uses to hypnotise people; most notably Terry's girlfriend April. Her use of a monocle carries some interesting connotations, as in the early 20th century, a woman wearing a monocle would most likely be assumed to be a lesbian.

    Fairy Tales and Folklore 
  • "The Grave Mound" is a lesser-known story from The Brothers Grimm in which two men outsmart the Devil and move in together to live happily ever after "as long as God is pleased to permit". One of the story's few adaptations (the final chapter of Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms) makes them explicitly a co-habitating queer couple.
  • "The Wood Maiden" reads like a tragic lesbian love story to modern readers. Betushka goes into the forest where she meets a mysterious and beautiful wood maiden, and together, the two women dance the days away, until Betushka makes an Orpheus-style mistake that separates them forever. It's also worth mentioning that it's described very much like a Dance of Romance, with them holding each other's waists and dancing close together.

    Music 
  • The protagonist of Ken Laszlo's Italo Disco song "Hey Hey Guy". All we know is the guy on the other end of the phone is a man... and so might be the narrator of this male-sung song.
  • Vinny Marchi has a song called "Captain Platonic" about a sailor with a wife at home, and he fiercely denies the rumors that he kisses his shipmates. He makes another appearance in the song "Beware of the Siren", wherein he's the only one immune to the siren's song. There are two popular fan interpretations of the character.
    • Captain Platonic is gay, he does secretly kiss his shipmates.
    "He stayed on his vessel, his mates reminisce, he started to tremble, and gave them a ki...hm mm...beer"
    • Captain Platonic is an asexual man with a loving, non-sexual relationship with his wife.
    "Here comes Captain Platonic (Tonic!) And if he could get some, he still wouldn't want it."

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The WWE tag team Billy & Chuck were ambiguously Manly Gay, from being spotted backstage oiling each other up and doing bizarre stretches, to their shiny red trunks and matching personalized headbands, to their boy-band entrance theme. This became less ambiguous when they planned a gay wedding, on television — and then became outright subverted when they stopped said gay wedding to declare that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and they weren't really gay, just Heterosexual Life-Partners.
    • Their manager Rico, who took their gimmick AND their theme song to whole new levels. The You Look So Good To Me theme has been used time and again in the WWE to mark a character as non-heteronormative. See Marella, Santino.
  • While The Brooklyn Brawler's onscreen persona has always been a tough guy, an Urban Legend amongst longtime wrestling fans is that Steve Lombardi is gay, rumored to be in a relationship with Pat Patterson.
  • Long before Billy & Chuck, WCW had Lenny and Lodi, who were very ambiguous about their "very close relationship" - until Executive Meddling from AOL Time Warner killed the angle, ending it with the revelation that they were brothers.
  • During a D-Generation X run, Triple H and Shawn Michaels seemed to pass off as convincing Heterosexual Life-Partners at the very least. They only even somewhat pass because most viewers don't remember the original DX, where there was very little heterosexuality to be had, between Shawn kissing Hunter on national television numerous times and Hunter's infamous "bi" quote:
    Triple H: I'm "bi" a lot of things. Lingual ain't one of them.
  • The Fabulous Ones. They were a Mr. Fanservice team marketed to adult women as Playgirl-style sex symbols (as opposed to The Rock 'n' Roll Express, who were a Tiger Beat team aimed toward teen girls), but some of their posed photos do seem to have a bit of Ho Yay in them.
  • Goldust from the WWE, even though his gay overtones are primarily mind games he plays with his opponents. One notable example is his feud with Razor Ramon, where in one match he rubbed Ramon's chest and freaked him out.
  • The New Generation.
  • Layla El and Michelle are very close, and it was Layla who suggested they go to couple's therapy. And then there's Layla's blatant dry humping Kelly Kelly and Natalya on TV.
  • Too Much had "Too Sexy" Brian Christopher and Scott "Too Hot" Taylor as tag team partners who were very concerned about each other's safety. Billy & Chuck's "wedding" angle was originally planned for Too Much, but was vetoed by Jerry Lawler (Brian Christopher's father) who was afraid his son's career would never recover. However, they found more success when the then-WWF repackaged them as the Pretty Fly for a White Guy team Too Cool, Grandmaster Sexay and Scotty 2 Hotty and put them with Rikishi, and it got over much more than Too Much had.
  • Sasha Banks and Bayley sure are close, with Banks even telling Bayley "I love you, I always have, and I always will." They hug a lot.

    Radio 
  • Round the Horne has the very fey Julian and Sandy: a couple of out-of-work actors, though they could turn their hand to anything. In one episode they were lawyers, leading to the glorious line "We've got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time." (At the time, homosexuality was still technically illegal in the UK.)

    Theatre 
  • The stage version of An American in Paris has stylish song-and-dance man Henri Baurel, whose sexuality is questioned but never resolved in the text.
  • Poddi in Ávaxtakarfan. He and his sister Palla are best friends and do everything together, and they both stare at Immi with admiration during the "Immi Best" musical number. He is also the only character whose gender is the opposite of the grammatical gender of the word for his species.note 
    • Guffi Banana loves talking about Immi Pineapple, looking at Immi, and seems incredibly enthusiastic about Immi’s coronation, leading some fans to theorise that he may have a crush on Immi. It’s worth noting that Guffi is the last character to turn against Immi, remaining loyal longer than Immi’s implied love interest Eva Orange
  • In Bandstand, Jimmy ignores the female ensemble while his band mates ogle the women in New York, has a considerable wardrobe of plaid pants, and has some delicate flair in his mannerisms. The casting call and a cut scene reveal he is unambiguously gay, starts out with a slight crush on Donny, and his boyfriend was a fellow Navy man who died when their ship blew up.
  • Be More Chill: Michael's relationship with Jeremy can be seen as this. They obviously care a lot for each other, are each other's only friends before the events of the musical, and Michael's song after Jeremy abandons him shows how dependent he is on him. And let's not forget how Jeremy called Michael his favorite person.
  • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Brick is either this or perhaps Ambiguously Bi. While the play makes it quite clear that Brick's best friend Skipper was homosexual and desired Brick, it's not clear to what extent, if at all, Brick reciprocated the same feelings.
  • Legally Blonde: The stage version has a scene where the cast tries to figure out whether such a character is actually gay... or just European. Turns out he's gay AND European!
  • The Mousetrap has two cases (from a cast of eight). Miss Casewell is abrasive, masculine and at one point is caught writing a letter to "dearest Jessie", which she's somewhat cagey about. Mr. Wren is very camp and loves to cook, and repeatedly brings up how attractive he finds the investigating Sergeant Trotter.
  • The Nerd: The script indicates that Axel is to be played very effete, and the ending suggests that he's trying to get everyone else out of the house so that he can share it with fellow theater devotee Kemp.
  • The Play That Goes Wrong: Max really, really doesn't want to kiss Sandra. When Trevor ends up having to read Florence's lines, though, he's much more enthusiastic.
  • Pokémon Live! turns the normally Camp Straight James more clearly into this. He's still as flamboyant as ever and jokes about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (an old military regulation that banned openly LGBT people from service for years).
  • Shrek: The Musical is full of this trope, from the sassy Donkey, to the prissy Farquaad, to the entire pride-anthem vibe of "Freak Flag".
    Pinocchio: I'm wood. I'm good. Get used to it!
  • In The Wizard of Oz (2011), The Cowardly Lion tells The Wizard that he's a "friend of Dorothy" while smirking at the audience.

    Toys 

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Miles Edgeworth, who reacts with nothing short of genuine repulsion when his coworker observes how popular he is with women; every time a woman makes romantic advances towards him, he reacts with either surprise, disgust, fear, or some combination of the three; his closest relationship with a woman is with his adoptive sister. Hell, he's completely immune to the beautiful Dahlia, who almost every other male in the game instantly goes crazy for. On the other hand, he seems to have a relatively easy time opening up emotionally to Phoenix, and barely reacts at all when Lang calls him "pretty boy." The original character designer is even on record saying that he "doesn't have a type of girl". This being the same character designer that was a yaoi mangaka and whose work in the BL genre inspired Edgeworth's design. There's also his effeminate attire: A magenta suit and a Classy Cravat. Despite this, he's never shown to be interested in men, and nothing about his sexuality is mentioned at all. The developers confirmed while he isn't interested in women, he thinks that Phoenix looks rather nice.
    • Franziska von Karma comes around the other way as Ambigiously Lesbian. She has short hair, a shorter temper, and enjoys using her whip to deal pain to men who get in her way — but around women she can actually be very tender and caring (barring certain exceptions like Lotta Hart).
    • Lana Skye is said to have had an "intellectual attraction" to Mia Fey in college, and told her sister Ema to go to Mia if she ever needed a lawyer. Nothing ever comes of it, since Mia was dead by the time Lana was introduced, and Lana hasn't appeared since her debut case.
    • Adrian Andrews had a very close attachment to her mentor, Celeste Inpax, such that when she had committed suicide Adrian also attempted suicide. In general, she has a tendency to be dependent on other women. When she shows up again in 3-2, much more mentally stable, she then begins to show a dependency on Franziska. Made more obvious by a moment at the end of the third game, when Franziska takes Adrian away on holiday... supposedly "teaching her how to use a whip" in the process.
    • Maya Fey never had shown any romantic interest in any guy (her relationship with Phoenix is clearly stated to be Like Brother and Sister and while she swoons over Max Galactica in Justice for All, it's more of a Celeb Crush than a romantic crush and even so, it gets shattered due to his haughty attitude and after learning that he's actually a country bumpkin) but she does have a moment when in Justice For All she claims that "even she wants confess her love" for Regina. She's also one of two people to call Iris beautiful, with the other having a pretty clear crush on her. That said, nothing about her sexuality is readily touched upon.
    • Kristoph Gavin from the fourth game seems to tick all of the boxes. He's prim and proper; well groomed, keeping his nails painted and his hair long. Add in his sheer obsession with Phoenix which has them reading like bitter divorcees, and it speaks for itself.
    • Florent L'Belle, the villain from the second case in Dual Destinies. He doesn't flirt with anyone and seems too narcissistic to find anyone else worth his time, but he dresses and acts in a flamboyantly camp manner, wearing a pink/purple quilted suit and using cosmetics of his own invention (enough to damage the stratosphere, if one believes his Villainous Breakdown) to keep himself looking immaculate at all times.
    • Aura Blackquill, the sister of Simon Blackquill, also joins the huge list of ambiguously gay characters in the series but she is the one who almost crossed the "ambiguous" line with a statement from her about her friendship with Metis Cykes with the statement being "Her respect as a co-worker wasn't all that I wanted!" When the Judge asks her what she did want, Phoenix is stunned that he could be so dense as to not realize what she obviously meant by that.
    • Herlock Sholmes of The Great Ace Attorney leans strongly into the common Alternate Character Interpretation of Sherlock Holmes as gay more than most incarnations, presenting him as one of Iris's two daddies prone to camp mannerisms and getting touchy with other men. Even the famous photo of "that woman" on his mantlepiece plays into it when Iris reveals that it isn't of Irene Adler at all—it's Sholmes in drag.
    • In The Great Ace Attorney: Resolve, Rei Membami is strongly hinted to be nursing a crush on her childhood friend Susato, and is shown unambiguously flirting with her both before and after she uncovers Susato's Sweet Polly Oliver disguise as "Ryutaro". The artbook inches it closer to canon by describing Rei's feelings for Susato as those of "yearning".
  • Class of '09: Though which gender Nicole flirts with is mostly down to personal convenience, there are hints that she legitimately swings towards girls:
    • Unlike Jecka, she pretty much Does Not Like Men and isn't willing to even compliment their looks unless it's to specifically manipulate them. On the other hand, she's a lot more willing to compliment the looks of other girls (including Principle Lynn's when not at odds with her over how useless Lynn is as an authority figure) and doesn't sound averse to the idea of trying out being "sexed up abusive lesbians" with Jecka.
    • Near the end of Emily's route, Nicole is openly flustered by the compliments Emily gives her during a sleepover, the two share Nicole's bed and Nicole even gives Emily a kiss goodnight upon her request (although draws the line at saying "I love you" back at Emily).
    • At the end of Ari's route where they date, through Nicole's final monologue and Ari's text, it is confirmed that Nicole did have sex with Ari, whereas in most other routes Nicole does not intend to go all the way with the guys she could date and has to be constantly drugged up to do "upper" favors for men just to survive during the expulsion ending because she doesn't want to be sober enough to realize how much she's debasing herself.
    • In a Twitter Q&A, she specifies that her ideal crush would be a girl she could abuse out of boredom. Unlike Ari, however, she doesn't seem to explicitly like girls so much as she hates men far more.
    • Rather humorously, Nicole herself isn't entirely sure where she stands. In the animated short, she has to ask Jecka for help figuring out if it's gayer for wanting to date Emily or wanting her to have sex with Nicole's dead body. When Jecka says that dating a girl is gayer, Nicole bemoans that she's "still straight".
      Nicole: What is gayer, dating a girl or wanting a girl to have sex with your dead body?
      Jecka: (A little disturbed and takes a second to think) Dating a girl?
      Nicole: Still straight. (sighs)
    • While Nicole has stated that she hates the idea of marriage in general throughout the series, she is flabbergasted at the mere suggestion that she could have a future "husband" in Flip Side. When Jecka brought up the possibility of each of them getting a husband, Nicole initially thought Jecka wanted two husbands for herself. After Jecka clarified her statement, Nicole make it clear that marrying a guy is the last thing she wants.
    • In Flip Side, Nicole would claim that she believes that every white girl is either "really gay or really racist, there's no inbetween." When Jecka asks what category they fall under, Nicole would respond with "to be determined." Considering that Nicole tends to Hates Everyone Equally, Nicole's own logic has her leaning to the former.
    • Her Celeb Crush on Marilyn Manson is currently the only time Nicole explicitly states that she is attracted to a man. Although, Nicole's claims that Manson is "one man on Earth" that she wants be sexually abused by can be interpreted as either If It's You, It's Okay, that she is only interested in his fame and money, or just her usual sarcasm.
  • Kiyotaka Ishimaru from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc displays a complete lack of interest in girls, coupled with a barely subtextual attraction to his best friend/sworn brother Mondo Owada. As the "Ultimate Moral Compass" he tries to enforce a rule that boys and girls basically interact as little as possible and certainly never get the opportunity to pair off alone, but he's notably keen to get himself into any situation where he gets to strip off with another boy. Whether he's a covert Hypocrite or just oblivious to the implications of his own behaviour is not quite clear; but his absolute devotion to Mondo once they become friends is extremely hard not to read as indicative of some very sexual/romantic feelings, at least on Taka's part. His reaction to Mondo's guilt and execution in Case 2 is extremely suggestive: he's clearly more than willing to literally die on the hill of Mondo's innocence even as it becomes more and more improbable (and indeed he does in the stage play version), and several other characters remark that his complete breakdown after Mondo's death certainly reads like he lost someone he was in love with. His later spiritual merging with Mondo even includes a pretty overtly romantic line where Taka-as-Ishida refers to Mondo as his/their "soul".
  • Kenji Setoh from Katawa Shoujo. A He-Man Woman Hater with a penchant for pink bowling shirts, he started to fear and despise women (or, as he says, feminists) after having sex with his then-girlfriend and believing that she sapped his life force. The writers put here and there some little innuendo in his conversations with male protagonist Hisao, and the background music from the bad ending with him and Hisao is the same one that appears during the sex scenes with the girls. Originally the writers intended Kenji to be Hisao's Gay Option, but this idea was scrapped because of time and other constraints.
  • Lux-Pain: Akira and Hibiki. The former is prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time while the latter is questionable.
    • Akira. Best friends with three girls and shows no interest in them, forcing yourself into the life of the main character that you just met, says double innuendo whenever near said main character, the best cook of the group, the only character in the game that didn't need Rui to tap his shoulder in order to remember Atsuki.
    • Hibiki. Shows no interest in women, hits on his best friend Ryo (who is oblivious to said flirting), gets jealous when Ryo hires a young co-worker at his bookstore, stalks Atsuki just to creep him out, rather feminine looking body, supporting Suzu's yaoi fantasy about him and Ryo being together.
  • MadWorld: Jude The Dude, who is the second boss Jack has to fight in the game. Jude behaves much like a stereotypical cowboy but the announcers call him "The Brokest Back In The West" and " The Ambiguously Gay Cowboy". There were even posters that had the former slogan all over Jude's arena before and after he is fought. One of the finishers that was cut from the official game performed on Jude is very suggestive and explicit and had to be changed for the final cut.
  • Marco & the Galaxy Dragon: At one point, an unconscious Marco is told that she needs to resist the temptations of her subconscious mind in order to survive a difficult surgery. These temptations take the form of her female friends flirting with her and asking her out on dates, much to her annoyance.
  • Snake from Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a princely Long-Haired Pretty Boy Bishōnen who once offers Junpei to "spend some time on [the bed] together" for whatever reason (granted, he might be just a Cloudcoockosnarker). English translation adds a Lampshaded Double Entendre where it sounds like he is talking suddenly starts talking about penises. For what it's worth, he was confirmed to be gay by Kotaro Uchikoshi… via a twitter poll where fans voted for it.
    Snake: Junpei, I cannot help but notice your interest in the bed. Perhaps you are hoping we will spend time on it, together...
  • Rose Guns Days has Miguel Kurashiki, a character who dresses and acts in a very feminine fashion, has a deep aversion for women and is very close to his boss Caleb, yet is never explicitly stated to "swing that way". Characters who face him usually are too busy fighting him or not making him angry to worry about such considerations anyway.
  • Sunrider has Kryska Stares. She mentions that she previously served in an all-female crew, as the Solar Alliance believes that segregating its soldiers into same-sex contingents will prevent fraternization; when asked if these measures actually worked, her response is a smirk and a brief chuckle. Tellingly, she’s the only member of the Sunrider’s female crew to show no romantic interest in Kayto Shields and is the only one who cannot be romancednote  in Liberation Day’s [RE]turn scenario. She also forms a close—if vitriolic—friendship with Icari Isidolde, so much so that other members of the crew speculate that the two of them might be more than just friends.
  • Your Turn to Die: Reko Yabusame's Does Not Like Men attitude and her rather strong attachment to Ambiguously Bi Nao Egokoro that's formed shortly after meeting her, significantly indicates she may be into girls. There is also her whole punk aesthetics supporting the lesbian stereotype. A way Keiji annoys her is by claiming they were on a date when Sara asks about the two being together. Not to mention she can end up Together in Death with Nao.
  • Zero Time Dilemma: Carlos states he'd like to know more about Junpei, to which Junpei asks if Carlos is interested in him. Instead of shooting the idea down because he's not interested in men, Carlos declines because he has "no time for a love life." Furthermore, Carlos doesn't show any romantic or physical attraction to women.

    Web Animation 
  • Coach Z of Homestar Runner was shown married to Bubs and has worn a skirt and hair curlers in two different toons. The only reason why he is ambiguous is that his sexuality is never mentioned. He's likely Ambiguously Bi due to his obsessive attraction to Marzipan.
  • I Am Octavia is about how Octavia is on the brink of breaking her friendship with Vinyl Scratch because Vinyl is always too busy for her. Their relationship is only referred to as a friendship, but there's a lot of deliberate subtexts. It doesn't help that the song it's parodying is often interpreted as a romantic song.
  • Meta Runner: Belle racked up a fair number of this just ten episodes in. A number of her interactions with Tari include leaning in nice and close while calling her names like "honey" and "babe". Her reaction to what happened to her former gaming partner Lucinia and how they interacted beforehand also heavily implies they may have been more than friends. The "ambiguous" part was dropped in the series finale when it was confirmed that she and Lucinia were in a romantic relationship that they gleefully resume when the latter is brought back.
  • Minecraft: The N00b Adventures has Gaylord_Steambath, who, on an interesting off note, is also The Sociopathic and, uh, well, kind of eccentric antagonist of the series.
  • The Most Popular Girls in School: There's been a ton of examples among the unconfirmed characters, but one that comes to mind is the fact that Rachel brought Judith to prom. And Judith was wearing a tuxedo. Woof.
  • Nomad of Nowhere features Skout and Toth. Skout is very eager to please Toth while Toth, a generally hard-headed bounty hunter type, is uncharacteristically kind to (and protective of) Skout.
  • Red vs. Blue:
    • Donut. In Season 1, he had been given pink armor ("It's not pink, it's lightish red!") and was your typical new recruit. In Season 2 (where this trope comes into play) he started using lotions, talking about his feelings, screaming like a woman, analysing dreams, and generally being as effeminate as possible while retaining some air of heterosexuality. The song "Donut: The Musical" from the Season 9 soundtrack is full of double-entendres and similar sounding words (that the other Red members keep asking to repeat).
      Tucker: I don't think Santa's outfit is a biker's costume and a codpiece, Donut.
      Donut: It was the best Christmas ever!
    • He remained high camp but still just ambiguous enough as time went on, though jokes about his sexuality decreased as LGBTQ acceptance became more and more of a hotbed issue, emphasizing his ditziness instead. Even the double-entendres were ultimately revealed to be just him trying to be funny, but it just led everyone to dismiss him and generally not take him seriously. Eventually Season 17 saw him undergo major character development, forming deep friendships with already-deep characters like Wash or Carolina, when before, they all had just seen him as a nuisance.
  • The hosts of Spill, in their review of Beautiful Creatures, claim that upper-class, "posh" Southern accents come off as sounding like this.

    Web Videos 
  • Critical Role has Caduceus Clay. He's made several comments on the attractiveness of male NPC's and seems rather uncomfortable when Nott tries to get him to compliment the bright queen. Word of God says he's an aromantic asexual.
  • The titular character of Daisy Brown. In "Another cooking video!", the hidden messages in the closed captioning appear to be of a conversation Daisy is having with her father, in which she asks if she's able to marry another girl. In "Artistic video", she tells Alan a bedtime story she made up, wherein the queen of the moon falls in love with the queen of the stars.
  • The Fantastic Favio Bros: Tony often acts as the foil to Favio. As such, while Favio is a Chivalrous Pervert, Tony is ambiguously gay. His Evil Twin, LeTony, also has traces of ambiguous sexuality.
  • Jreg: In Centricide, Anarcho-Primitivist's interaction with Homonationalist shows him being offended that the latter does not find him attractive. Whether this indicates an attraction to other men or is just a matter of pride is a matter of debate.
  • The Nostalgia Critic's review of Batman & Robin uses the jingle from The Ambiguously Gay Duo to lampshade this trope.
  • Nick and Beck of Theatre of Life fame. They do it on purpose.


 
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Video Example(s):

Alternative Title(s): Flying Into The Gaydar, Gaydar Tripper, G Rated Gay, Ambiguously Lesbian

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The first bit of intrigue in humanity outside of sadism is when he takes notice of a "hunky boy" in a magazine Mimi gives him.

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