"Chris is all dressed up and acting coy
Painted like a brand new Christmas toy
He's trying to figure out if he's a girl or he's a boy"
Painted like a brand new Christmas toy
He's trying to figure out if he's a girl or he's a boy"
β "Bleed Like Me", Garbage
Due to the blurred stereotypes and myths between transgender people and crossdressers, there are often mixed signals about characters. Transgender people don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. A crossdresser may be okay with β or even encourage β being referred to as the opposite sex, but they still see themselves as the gender corresponding to their biological sex.
This trope can apply for a variety of reasons: sometimes, being transgender is implied but never outright said, such as a character who's implied to have transitioned but it's never actually stated in-series or a character who displays signs of gender dysphoria without it being mentioned as such. Alternatively, a Sex Shifter, Hermaphrodite, Sentient Vehicle, Animate Inanimate Object or someone with No Biological Sex might be ambiguous if it's not clear what they identify as.
By far the most common variant is ambiguity as to whether a character is meant to be viewed as a (usually gay) man in drag or a trans woman, probably because the author doesn't realize that they aren't the same thing. This last problem is becoming a lot less common. Nowadays it's more likely because of cultural differences between the viewer and the author concerning where drag is appropriate. In Western contexts, drag is generally only worn on stage or sometimes as a disguise in comedy works. But in some cultures, it's considered perfectly acceptable for a server to wear clothing usually associated with another gender as part of a workplace uniform. While this would indeed be drag, it might confuse some viewers into thinking that the character is trans since it's not a context where they expect drag to appear. This happens for much the same reason that movies from the 1930s got away with homosexuality: people don't even consider the possibility that a person could actually prefer the clothes of another gender/identify as a gender other than the one that corresponds with their sex. The other reason that there can be confusion is that many characters (and some people in real life) use drag as a way to indulge when they feel it is too dangerous to come out of the closet.
If the character's gender is not ambiguous in the story itself, but a significant portion of the fandom prefers to headcanon them as transgender, you may be looking for Trans Audience Interpretation.
If the character's gender remains ambiguous in the story itself, but a creator directly confirms a particular gender identity, this trope overlaps with Word of Gay.
See also Ambiguously Gay and Ambiguously Bi for sexual orientation variants. Compare Ambiguous Gender and Viewer Gender Confusion, where a character's physical sex is something that the audience simply doesn't know.
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.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Attack on Titan, Hange Zoe's gender is never explicitly identified in the text, leading to many fans wondering if they are nonbinary. Word of God is that "either [pronoun] is fine", and the anime adaption decided to have Hange as physically female, complete with noticeable breasts.
- Matsuri of Ayakashi Triangle gets subjected to a Gender Bender curse which turns him female, and much of the manga's run is spent with him trying to find a way back to normal. While he still identifies as a boy and still very much acts like one to a degree, Matsuri does slowly warm up to living as a girl - most especially enjoying the Gender-Bender Friendship with his Childhood Friend Suzu, who reciprocates in kind. As such, when his curse is finally broken and is given the choice to return to living as a boy, Matsuri elects to remain a girl for the foreseeable future in order to maintain his bonds with Suzu and her friends.
- In Black Butler, Grell Sutcliff's character interviewπ Image
β in the Kuroshitsuji Character Guide says she wishes she was born female, wishes she could get a sex change and laments her inability to have a child. She is also bisexual. While she makes frequent advances on male characters, she also declared once that she was in love with Madam Redβin fact, one of the reasons why Grell was drawn to her was because Madam Red also couldn't give birth due to having gone through a hysterectomy after a horrible accident. While this mostly points towards her being transgender, author Yana Toboso may intend to have Grell viewed as an okama or Drag Queen since she consistently uses masculine pronouns when speaking of Grell in the third person, and she and Grell both directly use the word "okama" in her art and blog posts, suggesting that Grell's feminine speech and pronoun use may be an example of onee-kotoba, the effeminate dialect used by gay men and male crossdressers. It's a contentious issue in the fandom, to say the least, with the murky Word of God and language barrier issues muddling it further. - Giselle from Bleach was called a crossdresser once (though it may have been an insult). She uses "boku" as a pronoun, but her female friends treat her as one of them anyway. When asked about the matter in a 2022 online Q&A, Kubo revealed that Giselle is biologically male.
- Akane from Bokura no Hentai hated dresses as a toddler (though as a middle schooler shows no issue with them), had a negative reaction to starting her period, and mentioned she doesn't like being a girl once. Her disliking being female probably was her complaining about her period though, as when her trans girl friend becomes offended, she regrets what she said.
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, Ruby Moon is assumed to be female, but it's revealed that she is technically genderless. She only chooses to present herself as female because she prefers women's clothing. She gets mad when Spinel calls her a "cross-dresser."
- Digimon:
- Renamon from Digimon Tamers uses female pronouns, and her Mega/Ultimate form, Sakuyamon, is visibly a woman, but at one point states that Digimon don't have genders.
- Yggdrasil is referred to by male pronouns but is voiced by a woman and its Core form looks feminine in Digimon Data Squad; it also took the form of a human girl in Digimon Next.
- Shion from Family Compo is ambiguously genderqueer, possibly trans male. As a child, she was allowed to present as either a boy or girl whenever she pleased but seems to mainly live as a woman, though she wishes to go to college as a man. It's left ambiguous what her sex is but she's shown buying tampons at one point, which strongly suggests that she's biologically female.
- Fushigi Yuugi gives us Nuriko. Nuriko could be interpreted as a bisexual crossdressing man, or as a trans woman, or (as Miaka puts it) as simply Nuriko. It's...best not to bring this up with fans.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: While other characters refer to Envy with male pronouns in English translation and their preferred first pronoun in Japanese is gender-neutral, nobody knows their true gender, maybe not even Envy themselves. They have no problems with shapeshifting into people of any sex, they're voiced by voice actresses in most languages who sound boyish, and in their preferred form they combine long hair and feminine clothes with a masculine upper body and a more slender lower body for an androgynous look. For what it's worth, Envy's true form is possibly a case of No Biological Sex. Their 2003 anime counterpart is unambiguously male.
- Gatchaman Crowds:
- Rui Ninomiya was assigned male at birth and generally presents as a boy but is frequently seen in female clothing and a long blonde wig in his "LOAD" persona so he's not identified as the creator of the CROWDS system. He seems to use this outfit too often to simply be using it as a disguise, and Hajime and the G-Crew alternate between using neutral and masculine pronouns for him, so it's not clear what Rui considers himself.
- Most of the alien characters are gender-ambiguous: Paiman is a panda-like creature with no visible sexual characteristics who speaks in a masculine manner but is voiced by a woman, OD resembles an effeminate gay man but never explicitly states a gender identity either way, Berg-Katze is androgynous in appearance, manner, and style of dress.
- Hato from Genshiken is introduced as a Camp Straight Yaoi Fanboy who crossdresses. There is some ambiguity as to whether he's cisgender or not.
- Gunbured Γ Sisters: Shannon is female since birth (she has a few Shirtless Scenes in later chapters where she's depicted with a bra on), but is a "Brother" of the Knights of the Cross who dresses in a men's uniform and is alternately referred to by Maria as either "butch bitch" or "dude" (the two have a Love Triangle dynamic with Dorothy). Shannon is also referred to as both "she/her" and "they/them" in the English translation.
- Kaito from Himegoto - Juukyuusai no Seifuku is introduced as a Creepy Crossdresser; however, as the manga continues a number of implications crop up that he might actually be transgender, since he has liked wearing women's clothing from a young age and, despite presenting as a male at school, tries to distance himself from his masculinity. Most telling is how he shows disdain for his genitals and freaks out when someone notices him growing stubble. It's somewhat complicated for him because he's attracted to girls and very popular, but most girls are only attracted to him as a guy. By the end despite a few characters briefly asking him about it, Kaito never outwardly defines how he identifies, but he does fully embrace his desire to dress as a girl.
- Hunter Γ Hunter:
- Neferpitou, one of the Chimera Ants, has a gender identity that is never defined either way. They use "boku" and in the animated versions they have a distinctly curvy body with a hint of a bust-line, but given that they're an ant it's entirely possible they don't even have a gender or physical sex in the conventional sense, and most translations, including the unofficial wiki, settle on "they" as a pronoun.
- Alluka is referred to as male by most of her(?) family, but female by Killua, the only sibling who isn't freaking terrified of Alluka's Superpowered Evil Side. Alluka also generally dresses and acts feminine. This would theoretically point to a trans girl unaccepted by most of their family, but Killua never calls anyone out for referring to Alluka as male, despite calling them out for all of their other ill-treatment.
- Jun, the main character from I Am a High School Boy, but I Got Gender-Swapped Into a Gyaru is a high school boy who was turned into a gyaru by a goddess. The ambiguity comes from Jun briefly wishing he was a girl so he could have female friends prior to his change. Because of this, readers debate if Jun was a transwoman in denial or was truly just desperate to make friends.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stone Ocean: F.F. has No Biological Sex. While F.F.'s body is female, their behavior isn't especially masculine or feminine, and while they use the feminine pronoun, their speech patterns are rather masculine. Some translations use "she/her" pronouns for F.F., while the English dub uses "they/them" which can be seen as either a gender-neutral singular pronoun, or as referring to F.F.'s biology literally being composed of millions of individual planktons piloting a human body.
- The JoJoLands: Dragona was assigned male at birth and has a penis, but can easily be mistaken for a young pretty woman. Jodio says they have received cosmetic injections to resemble breasts, a procedure many trans women will undergo, but what they actually identify is not fully known. On one hand, Jodio calls Dragona "big bro", which Dragona doesn't seem to have any negative reaction to, and Word of God in the form of Dragona's character bio in the collected manga volumes describes Dragona as "Jodio's older brother". But on the other hand, Dragona uses the typically-feminine pronoun "Atashi" for themselves as well as feminine speech patterns in general, and their name is Spanish for 'Dragoness'. Jury's still out either way. Chapter 24 includes a scene where a character assumes that Dragona is a woman, to which one of Dragona's teammates responds by explicitly referring to them as "a man" out loud, to which Dragona gives no reaction one way or the other to indicate that they approve or disapprove of being labeled as such, but the context of the scene is that Dragona and their teammate are undercover, so even if Dragona didn't approve, they may have gone along with it in order to not cause a scene, so the statement can't neccessarily be used as conclusive evidence.
- Hazumu from Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl was assigned male at birth, but at the start of the series is resurrected as a girl after being hit by a UFO, and lives as a girl from that point on since there's no way to change her back. While the story largely glosses over the particulars, it's strongly implied that Hazumu was a transgender girl all along without realizing it; as a young child Hazumu said she wanted to be her best friend's bride, and after said sex-change, Hazumu readily identifies as female with zero signs of gender dysphoria.
- Kimo-Ota, Idol Yarutteyo:
- The title character was originally a boy named Yousuke, but only they remember this after reality changed so everyone remembers them as a girl named Yoko. Yousuke/Yoko pretty immediately accepts living as a girl, and decides to try becoming an Idol Singer, but it's not clear if they actually identify as one. Their personality remains generally masculine, they only adopt feminine behavior as a means to further their idol career, and occasionally treat (other) girls as if they were not one of them (for instance, thinking it would be inappropriate to join them in a sleepover). Internal monologues never have Yousuke/Yoko refer to themselves by either name, though they do use the pronoun ore, contrast with more feminine speech in dialogue.
- Liz Melodine, the idol group's vocal instructor, has a very burly, masculine body, but wears high heels, nail polish, and heavy facial makeup. Nothing specifies if Liz (whom Yoko guesses is using an assumed name) is a Macho Camp man or a mannish transgender woman.
- Kizuna no Allele: Quan is revealed to be male in the real world and female in The Metaverse. Miracle doesn't question it despite finding them attractive in their first meeting, and Noelle also doesn't comment on it after meeting them in person. The official episode summary uses "boy", while the subtitles use "they" in Miracle's dialogue in the real world before Episode 14 and "she" in one later appearance, but Quan rarely appears in real world. Quan is also Marumaru, a genderless Ridiculously Cute Critter. Why Quan has a two Digital Avatars that don't match their appearance, nor how they view themselves in the real world, has not been clarified.
- Komi Can't Communicate leaves it vague exactly how Najimi identifies. The only time they ever did early in their introduction it was used as an excuse to turn down an unwanted advancement from a former classmate. Their school uniform mixes and matches male and female elements. Later on while attending a water park, Najimi ends up getting changed in a unisex bathroom and in the manga wears a hoodie the whole time, but in the anime wears a bikininote They have a flat chest, but they could simply be small-chested. Najimi themselves flips between using male and female-oriented suffixes and honorifics while the official translation of the series has taken to referring to Najimi with They/Them pronouns.
- Love Gene XX: Aoi and Sakura both have XX chromosomes and agree with the idea that the Adam/Eve system should be abolished; Aoi thinks that men are strange from what she's seen of archived footage, and Sakura eventually allows herself to become an Eve. However, neither of them object to having to bind their breasts or be referred to with male pronouns β their only major complaint about their roles are that it makes their relationship an illicit, "homosexual" one in-context. The end result is that it's very difficult for many fans to decide if Aoi and Sakura are a lesbian couple in a world that forces them to act as men, or if they're a couple of gay men in a world which forces them to be straight.
- Shao Tzu from Mononoke Soushi started off in masculine clothing and using boku, but after traveling with Tenome they started acting and dressing more feminine, and thinking that Growing Up Sucks. Tenome didn't really treat Sho Tzu as either a boy or a girl, just treating them as a kid with potential in their Voluntary Shapeshifting. According to Word of God the character was supposed to be a boy but grew to be more and more feminine as the story went on. Thus Shao Tzu can be seen as a trans girl.
- Yuu Kashima in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a Bifauxnen who lots of characters forget is a girl, or don't realize at first (Hori didn't realize until months after they met when he saw her go into a women's restroom). She wears a skirt and has a feminine voice, but also loves playing a "Prince"-like role and flirting with all the girls. She's generally agreed to be the hottest guy in her year.
- Kei's gender identity is not actively discussed in Moyashimon. She is introduced as a male Childhood Friend of Sawaki's before disappearing from the story for several chapters/episodes. The next time she appears, she's working at a local liquor store dressed as an Elegant Gothic Lolita. Sawaki didn't even recognize Kei at first. When Sawaki questions Kei later, she just says that she wants to try various things before going back home and that it just feels right to dress up the way she does. Despite signs pointing towards Kei being a trans woman, she also gets angry when Sawaki confesses to her and combats it by stating that she isn't gay (despite kissing Sawaki and showing signs of liking him in the past).
- No Bra is about a teenage boy named Masato who falls for an effeminate, feminine dressing person named Yuki. The narrative mostly treats Yuki like a boy, but there are odd signs that imply she's actually transgender. The most notable is when she's forced to wear the boy's uniform to school and the others complain, saying she has the "heart of a girl".
- The protagonist of Nozomu Nozomi is an androgynous, feminine boy who gets transformed into a female, keeps this a secret, and spends some time under a female alter ego. Even prior to the transformation, there are some signs of him being uncomfortable with being a boy, and afterward he gradually comes to prefer living as a girl.
- Yamato in One Piece isn't the least bit androgynous physically, appearing to be a beautiful, well-endowed woman. However he refers to himself as male, calling himself the son of the villain Kaido. He views himself as Kozuki Oden, a man he admires, though it's unclear if he considers himself a man as "Yamato" or only in his role as Oden. Most characters, even antagonistic ones, refer to him as Kaido's son and use male pronouns, but some flashbacks and official narrations refer to him as Kaido's daughter, and Yamato was called a "princess" in his youth. Luffy uses male pronouns for Yamato in translation, though they are neutral in Japanese. When the characters bathe at the hot springs, Yamato bathes with the other men on his own request, and sees nothing strange about it. Adding to the confusion, there are mixed signals from external materials, such as being listed as "female" on his vivre card and featured in material focusing on female characters. (For the sake of simplicity, this wiki refers to Yamato with male pronouns, as Yamato's gender identity has been the subject of Edit Wars, and we're not looking for any more fights on the subject.)
- Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club is an androgynous girl who's living as a male student at her school due to specific circumstances. She says she doesn't think gender is important, which is just vague enough to have multiple interpretations including that Haruhi might be non-binary.
- Our Dreams at Dusk focuses on an LGBTQ-friendly drop-in center, and one of the patrons is Misora Shuuji, a sixth grader who dresses up as a girl at the center. Tasuku suggests Misora might be a transgender girl, while Misora himself currently identifies as male but is heavily hinted to have body dysphoria. Haruko points out to Tasuku that what's most important for Misora right now isn't a definite label but a space where he can feel free and safe to explore his identity.
- Kako from Past Future is a Wholesome Crossdresser but seems more comfortable living as a girl. Eventually, his sister actually asks him if he wants to be a girl, and he says no, he just likes being cute and girly.
- Real Account has Kirika Sakuragawa, a moe Sensei-chan who's actually a G.I.R.L.. When asked about their gender identity they weren't sure anymore themself as they had acted feminine online for so long.
- RWBY: Ice Queendom: Shion is officially labeled as nonbinary by Rooster Teeth, though the Japanese website uses male pronouns when referring to Shion.
- Ren from Sazanami Cherry dresses mainly as a girl, is compared to his transgender older sister, and shows discomfort over the idea of puberty but it's left vague whether he's a Wholesome Crossdresser or is transgender.
- Sailor Moon:
- Seiya in the 90s anime. While all the Starlights use male pronouns in the anime despite their "original" forms having been female, Seiya in particular does not seem to identify with femininity and even calls his rivalry with a male soccer player something "girls wouldn't understand". He is also shown to be uncomfortable when Kakyuu questions his male presentation near the end of the series and even less happy with his time as "Kou Seiya" coming to an end.
- In Sailor Moon Crystal it's left unclear where Haruka's stands on their gender identity. Unlike the 90s anime, where in Haruka was a pure bifauxnen, in Crystal Haruka tends to mix and match outfits, going from wearing slacks and suits, to mini-skirts to skirts. Usagi asks Haruka in one episode whether they are a man or a woman and Haruka simply replies "does it matter?" Making things even murkier later on in the season Michiru states that "Uranus in both a man and a woman who is a guardian with both sex and strength", suggesting she may be bigender.
- Kaoru, florist and owner of the flower shop Flower Princess, from Tamako Market is voiced by Daisuke Ono but is addressed to as female by others. Despite this, she's also been referred to as an androgynous male in official sources. Many Japanese viewers see her as an "okama" but many English speakers pin her as trans.
- Tokyo Ghoul:
- Tooru Mutsuki lives as a man, and only Haise and key personnel in the CCG are aware that he is actually female. The ambiguous part comes in because there is a strong suggestion that "he" is a woman who wants to live as a man due to a crippling fear of the male gaze she developed from a Dark and Troubled Past implicitly full of Parental Incest. Muddling it further is how Mutsuki switches between masculine and feminine personal pronouns midsentence during a Yandere meltdown over Kaneki choosing Touka over them, and when telling Urie about loving Kaneki "like a woman" they use gender-neutral personal pronouns to refer to themselves. A large part of the problem is that Mutsuki is deeply disturbed: he publicly identified as male at the beginning of re, while his Mask of Sanity was holding up, but it gradually fell as the series wore on, and with it, inconsistencies started popping up as her sense of self came apart.
- Wealthy human trafficker Big Madam was designated male at birth, but it isn't elaborated on whether she's merely a Creepy Crossdresser or a trans woman.
- UQ Holder!: poor Kuroumaru gets this bad. He's first introduced as a girly-looking boy who strenuously insists he's male despite Touta's disbelief, but his refusal to ever be seen naked makes it clear he's hiding something. However, the situation ends up being more complicated than it seemed - Kuroumaru belongs to a species that grows up sexless and only chooses their gender (and sex) at sixteen. Kuroumaru has always wanted to be a cool, strong man, and so that's how he presents, but as his feelings for Touta grow and his power level fails to keep up with his partner, he becomes increasingly uncertain. Is he even able to be the man he wants to be? Is it worth pushing down all of these 'feminine' feelings? After the timeskip, it seems Kuroumaru has taken a female body they're comfortable with, while still managing to be as strong and capable at protecting the people they care about as they always hoped. However, they also make a reference to their body changing when they feel 'fully female', implying they aren't always a woman and may have come to see themselves as nonbinary.
- Wandering Son:
- Takatsuki. Most of the manga presents her as a counterpart to trans girl Nitori and depicts them as a transgender boy. In high school the line starts to blur and ultimately she comes to the conclusion she would rather live as a girl, though she's still depicted as confused over her gender. Considering the situations surrounding the revelation and the bittersweet way it's presented, fans are stumped. Word of God is that it's up to the reader on whether they see them as trans or not.
- Makoto was this for the longest time. Introduced as a foil to Nitori but never got the same amount of transgender-related focus as Nitori, most fans thought Mako was a Camp Gay Wholesome Crossdresser. In high school, it's shown otherwise and she even comes out to her mom. The anime didn't seem to think she was female either as she's dressed as a boy in an Imagine Spot, while the manga parallel has her in a girl's uniform.
- Welcome Back, Alice: Kei and Ren both find themselves preferring an androgynous appearance and desiring to reject the male/female binary. Yo starts to reflect this trope too as he becomes increasingly frustrated with his inability to conform to masculine gender norms.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Yubel is an intersex draconic monster, and it's not very clear what they even identify as. Their obsessive love for Judai made the 4Kids English dub edit them into a binary woman, but in the original show, they use the pronoun "boku" and call Judai "kimi", a combination commonly used by men.
- Marube from Yuureitou wants to become a woman however it's vague if it's due to being trans or if it is an ill-placed obsession with his lost love mixed with his need to be young and beautiful. The fact Marube is a villainous foil to his actually trans man son, Tetsuo, blurs lines more. The manga leans heavily towards the latter interpretation, especially when comparing Marube to Tetsuo.
Comic Books
- 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank: Walter has a boy's name and presents as a boy in public, but always plays female characters in games with the other kids, and wears a feminine fairy costume during the robbery.
- Demon Knights: Sir Ystin initially insists, despite having feminine features, that they are a man, but later confides that they're actually both male and female after Exoristos professes an attraction to them. During a visit to Hell, their own personal hell was being forced to declare their own gender and sexuality in public, suggesting that they are either genderfluid or nonbinary. This is an apparent change post-Flashpoint, as when they were first introduced in Seven Soldiers of Victory (2005) Ystin was unambiguously depicted as a Sweet Polly Oliver.
- DIE (2018): On Earth, Ash (also known as Dominic) is a man and in an apparently happy marriage to a woman. In the Magical Land, Ash is a female Emotion Controller who has been in relationships with men. In neither reality do they seem conflicted about their gender identity or indicate they are non-binary, though they later admits that they were in love with their (male) best friend Sol in the real world, so they're at the very least bi. Issue #19 finally has the group confront this matter when they're attacked by a manifestation of Ash's self-loathing dark side, and come to the conclusion that Ash is gender-fluid but repressing it in the real world due to the cultural pressures present from having grown up in the 90s, when such a concept wasn't really acknowledged.
- Doctor Who Magazine: Fey Truscott-Sade from the Eighth Doctor comics is a physically female character who dresses in a very masculine (but not actually male-appearing) way, gives off a general aura of edgy sexuality, and has been seen flirting and making out with both men and women. They have described themselves as an "androgyne", but since they come from the 1930s, it's unclear how serious that was. When they return in a Fifteenth Doctor comic, the Doctor refers to them with they/them pronouns.
- Glory Wanda Beerboy of the Danger Damsels is an exaggeration of the more tomboyish Holiday Girls, whose name seems to be a pun on "want to be a boy". Since the Danger Damsels appeared in exactly one Temptation Comics story before the book was cancelled, we learn nothing more.
- Loki: Loki is an interesting case... the original identified as a man without ambiguity, to the point of getting insulted when people assumed otherwise when he inhabited a woman's body. This changed around their third incarnation (the second was a pre-teen with bigger problems) who, while still defaulting to male, would change gender for no other reason than they could and began identifying as a woman when doing so (Queen, Mistress, Goddess, using "she" etc.) coupled with not minding other characters' judgement of their gender. This made some fans retroactively question the gender identity of the first (how much of it might be a case of an armored closet basically) in spite of his mannerisms.
- Plush: Keebs seems to be a transgender woman, but when out of costume, Edie briefly refers to her with male pronouns before quickly switching. Whether or not this was a mistake on Edie's part, or Keebs considers her fursuit identity a separate one from her identity out of costume, is unknown.
- Runaways: Xavin is another interesting case. Marvel was wary about having a lesbian relationship portrayed in a series that they were trying to market towards younger teens, so instead of just giving Karolina a girlfriend, they gave her a fiancee who was capable of changing gender at will and thus sometimes became male and sometimes became female, leaving open the possibility that Xavin might eventually become fully female (in-universe, Karolina usually refers to Xavin with feminine pronouns). But when that actually happened during Joss Whedon's run, a certain segment of the fandom revolted, because they considered Xavin to be genderfluid, and accused Whedon of erasing Xavin's non-binary gender, so Xavin reverted to being sometimes male and sometimes female, before finally just being put on a spaceship. Xavin also revealed that their race, the shapeshifting Skrulls, in general consider changing gender to be no bigger a deal than changing any other aspect of their bodies. It just so happened that every previous Skrull to have a significant recurring role in a Marvel comic (admittedly, there hadn't been all that many; most Skrulls were Mooks) currently identified as one gender.
- Smut Peddler Presents: My Monster Girlfriend:
- Enora in "Bisclavret" has a feminine name and female sexual characteristics, but being a wolf, they have a lot of excess body-hair, making them look like they have a goatee.
- The slime creature in "monstHER under the bed" takes on a feminine form, but is also sporting an erection. Considering she's a polymorphic creature, it's likely she only takes on a feminine body for her girlfriends and uses a cock during sex, but otherwise has no gender to speak of.
- Smut Peddler Presents: Sex Machine: Trip's new body in "[5yrs/1sec]" is flat-chested, but with female genitalia. Being a droid, gender is likely to be more of an aesthetic preference than a matter of identity.
- Smut Peddler Presents: Silver:
- Juda in "Behold Her" is dressed in a silver, three-piece suit and a short-haircut, later revealed to have been wearing a strap-on for sex when they get home. It's left vague whether they're a trans man or a Butch Lesbian.
- While both wizards in "Rivals" have facial hair and use he/him pronouns, their sex scene reveals that they both have vaginas, with Korbla having top-scars and Sishmu still having breasts.
- Smut Peddler Presents: Sordid Past: While the Smith in "Forged Steel" is introduced in traditionally feminine clothing, she's later seen wearing more masculine clothes and has a short haircut, referring to her more traditional wear as her "other presentation", implying that she might actually be gender-fluid. It also helps that, despite being dressed in scullery maid wear, she's instead blacksmithing with a male partner.
- The Unsinkable Ship of Fools:
- Wretched is assigned male at birth and has a prominent mustache, but they also prefer to dress feminine, always seen wearing a tank-top and long skirt when they're not having sex.
- Pan is presented primarily as an old man, with the fur around their face resembling that of a beard. But when they start having sex with Abasshe (in their form, no less), Pan is revealed to have breasts and feminine genitalia.
- Wonder Woman: In Wonder Woman (1942), Hypnota is AFAB but he and his sister usually use male pronouns to refer to Hypnota, he spends most of his time as a male, and wears a fake mustache and goatee even when he's not actually disguised. He was like this long before surviving a gunshot to the head which changed his personality and turned him villainous. Post-Crisis Wonder Woman (1987) creates the ambiguity as that version is Hypnotic Woman and is unquestionably female.
Fan Works
- The Butcher Bird: GEMINI identifies as 'they', and is a Hive Mind of two individuals - one biologically male, one biologically female.
- In By Any Other Name, Wei Wuxian is surprisingly alright with the prospect of living as a woman, musing he identifies as Wei Wuxian rather than male or female β strongly hinting he's some flavor of non-binary.
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Voldemort reveals during the climax that Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel are, in fact, the same person, with 'Nicolas' being an identity Perenelle created only after stealing the Philosopher's Stone from Baba Yaga. Tellingly, while he ascribes selfish materialistic reasons to almost everything else Flamel has done, all Voldemort says about Flamel having created a different-gendered second self is the fact that it happened, leaving the readers nothing but speculation as to their motives for this one.
- Insomnia (Undertale): It's completely unclear what gender Frisk is and what pronouns they use. As in, there are not specific pronouns used for them in the comic itself. Whenever someone talks about them, they say "Frisk" or "the kid", and never use "he", "she", or "they". And of course, whenever someone talks to Frisk directly there's no reason to use 3rd person pronouns. All of the above also applies to Chara.
- In No Matter What You Are, when Lan Wangji asks if Wei Wuxian feels uncomfortable as a female, the demonic cultivator admits his new gender comes with good and bad sides, suggesting some level of this is at play.
- The Serpentβs Vow: As a Goa'uld queen, Seto technically is genderless yet is sexually female and able to produce youngs. However, he lived his whole life in a male host and is utterly horrified at the prospect of losing said body, leading a few readers to consider the possibility of him being a transgender man.
- Villain: Redux has Buttercup as non-binary. When she's with Princess under her secret identity, the heiress asks if she's a boy or girl, since "Joey" is a masculine name, but she's aware from overhearing a conversation that one of Buttercup's nicknames is the feminine "Fea". After some thought, Buttercup decides that she doesn't identify as either, but also doesn't care how others refer to her.
- A Wolf in the Garden: Inasmuch as gender has any meaning to a god, Pure!Slaanesh is implied to be genderfluid, appearing sometimes as female and sometimes as male, as opposed to Chaos!Slaanesh who's gender can best be described as "yes." Having said that, she has thus far always appeared as female within the story, and even told Admu (Pure!Nurgle's daughter) to refer to her as "Auntie" for simplicity's sake.
Films β Animation
- Finding Nemo: For years, there has been a whole slew of debates over what the gender identities are for the main family of clownfish. In real life, every clownfish is born male, and the dominant clownfish in the school will turn female for mating. By this logic, this means that Coral is a trans woman. However, the movie has become notorious for how inaccurate it is to actual clownfish biology. Does this mean that, in this universe, clownfish can be born female? Who knows? Also, when a female clownfish dies, the dominant male will turn female and take her place. This means that Marlin should become female, but he never doesβ¦
- NIMONA (2023): Nimona herself has this, since along with her ambiguous humanity, it's not entirely clear what she identifies as regarding gender. While she's consistently referred to with she/her pronouns both in-universe and out, and she doesn't contest that, whenever Ballister refers to her as a "girl" she either ignores it or gets mildly annoyed, either because she doesn't fully identify as female, or possibly just because "girl" implies "human" and/or "child", of which she is neither. She also has no issues with using her shapeshifting to become male (like turning into a young boy or Ballister himself), though she doesn't do this as often as her comic version does.
Ballister: [seeing that Nimona has just turned into a little boy] Aaaand now you're a boy.Nimona: I am today!
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has many subtle hints associating Gwen with transgender pride, such as a "Protect Trans Kids" poster in her room. The way in which she struggles with talking to her father about her identity as a superhero is also highly reminiscent of a transgender teenager struggling to talk to a parent about their gender identity. It's not clear if this is meant to indicate that Gwen herself is transgender, or if she's just an ally with the association being an allegory.
- In Inside Out and Inside Out 2, Riley identifies as female. However her emotions are a mix of male and female, while any time someone else's emotions are shown they all appear to be the same gender and match the sex assigned at birth of the person they inhabit. Along with Riley's fairly tomboyish presentation, this may be intended to imply that she is genderfluid or non-binary but has not realised it yet.
Films β Live-Action
- The director of 3 Generations ended up creating confusion during an interview. The film is about a transgender boy named Ray who has been living as male full-time for a while and wants to begin testosterone. After backlash for using a cisgender actress instead of a trans man actor, the director backpedaled and said the film was about a tomboy going beyond the norm. There's no indication within the film itself of Ray being anything other than transgender, as the idea of him being a lesbian girl is specifically rejected, he identifies as a boy repeatedly, Ray's desire is also to medically transition etc.
- Albert Nobbs: Albert and Hubert may be trans men, or simply women living as men. This is never made clear (both do call themselves women at points, but might lack the vocabulary for anything else). The scene where they try women's clothes for the first time in a long while (where they both at first are highly uncomfortable, before appearing to have fun, only to change back into their men's clothing after Albert stumbles and falls) does not help clear things up.
- β¦and Justice for All: It's not entirely clear if Ralph is transgender or a crossdresser.
- At the end of Beauty and the Beast, three men get a makeover by animated beauty accessories while fighting the Wardrobe. Two of them run away, while the other actually quite enjoys it. It's never clarified if they're gay, In Touch with His Feminine Side, or transgender.
- But I'm a Cheerleader: Jan, one of the girls at the ex-gay camp, is extremely butch, and has a mohawk and a mustache. In the end, she decides that she was never gay in the first place, and leaves. Many viewers interpret her as perhaps a trans man or genderqueer.
- The "queer buddy movie" By Hook or By Crook is written and directed by two transmasculine people, who play both of the protagonists, but the film deliberately leaves their exact identity ambiguous. They usually refer to each other as "he/him", "guy", and "man", but when a child asks Shy "are you a boy or a girl?", Shy answers "both". In a later scene, Val explains to Shy, "I'm a two-for-one, a special." These scenes can be interpreted as evidence that these characters have a bigender or genderfluid identity.
- Tom from The Cement Garden is a boy who would rather be a girl, although it's unclear if he's actually trans or just thinks he wouldn't get bullied if he were a girl. In any case, his sisters eventually give him a makeover, and his best friend William takes a new interest in him.
- Colette: Missy's gender isn't clear. In fact it's discussed by Colette and Willy, where he calls them a "lady man". She protests this, insisting he use he/him pronouns for Missy, so it seems Colette at least sees Missy as a man. Missy however does not say anything definite. It's debated in regards to the real person as well. All that can be said for certain is Missy was assigned female at birth, but always dressed as a man in adulthood, having a preference for being called Max (or Missy by close friends), with some viewing Missy as both a man and a woman (non-binary perhaps, in today's terms).
- Con Air: It isn't clear if Sally Can't Dance is a camp gay man who wears a dress or a trans woman (which at the time might well be due to the filmmakers' ignorance).
- In Dasepo Sonyo, the first time we see Big Razor Sister, they are dressed as a schoolgirl, but Poor Girl initially calls them "Mister". Later, Poor Girl refers to them with feminine pronouns. However, much later in the movie, we see Big Razor Sister dressed as a man. Big Razor Sister's exact gender is never truly specified (contrast this to Double Eyes, who is explicitly a trans girl).
- Giant Little Ones: The character of Mouse is interpreted by some as simply a butch lesbian but with others as a trans man, although it is never clarified in the movie or supplementary material. Mouse's use of a fake penis and strong interest in what it's like to really have one, along with often apparently having sex using strap-ons, indicates the latter may well be the case. In the film Mouse never says however, and could still be unsure, just like the boys with their orientation.
- Girls Like Magic: Nick, the owner of an LGBT+ bar which Maggie and Brit go to, wearing a nice suit with a mohawk. It's not explicit whether Nick is a Butch Lesbian, trans man or what (Nick's name might indicate the latter, though not necessarily). Though not called by any pronouns, Nick's appearance and voice tone also indicates that they were probably assigned female at birth.
- The Adjudicator in John Wick: Chapter 3 β Parabellum is played by a non-binary actor and isn't referred to using pronouns by the other characters, but their gender or lack thereof is never brought up in-universe.
- La China (Spanish for the feminine form of "the Chinese one") from Cuban film Juan of the Dead wears female attire, and makes it obvious that she finds men attractive. Juan and others refer to La China in masculine terms ("That dude was getting on my nerves!"). Given the setting, La China could be a femme-presenting gay man or a heterosexual trans woman who is misgendered by the others.
- The Killing Box: Straynβs nephew and military subordinate Thomas is played by a female actress but it is unclear if Thomas is meant to be transgender, a cisgender girl in a Sweet Polly Oliver disguise, or a cisgender boy with feminine features.
- Madea Goes to Jail: Big Sal, the resident bully at the prison that Madea and Candace are sent to. It is unclear if she's supposed to be a butch woman or if she's transgender. Madea addresses Sal as "young man", and Sal never bothers to correct Madea. For the record, Sal is portrayed by Robin Coleman, aka. Hellga from American Gladiators.
- Near the end of Ma Vie En Rose Ludovic meets a kid who goes by Chris but who is later revealed to be a girl named Christine. When her mom makes her wear a princess dress she is unhappy and switches outfits with Ludovic, who is a trans girl. The movie makes it unclear if Chris is a tomboy or also transgender.
- Monos:
- Rambo is played by a female actress (who sometimes goes by "Matt"), but her name is a reference to a male character, she wears her hair cropped short and she never engages in any feminine activities like the other female Monos. Wolf says that she's "like a brother" to him, and she seems at ease kissing both him and Lady. The character was originally written as male, and the director has referred to the character as "post-gender."
- Dog wears his hair long and is the only Mono with jewelry: a nose ring and a pierced eyebrow. After Wolf and Lady's wedding, he drunkenly dons fishnet stalkings, shakes his butt suggestively, and gripes that his mother called him a "slut." It's not clear whether he identifies as female or was just messing around.
- My Animal: Heather is told off for hanging out in the boys' locker room (to see her brothers after they win a game, while hoping to also join the men's hockey team) by the coach, saying no girls are allowed there. This just makes Heather jokingly ask "What girl?" Heather's played by Bobbi SalvΓΆr Menuez, and this could indicate Heather is nonbinary like them. It's not explicitly said though, nor comes up again (Heather doesn't appear to object when being called a girl, she etc though it could be fear of a reaction or simply not knowing any options exist besides this as it's set in the 1980s).
- Portal2020: Ash (played by Kathy Khanh) is an androgynous teenager who objects to being called a girl, and has (or had) a romantic relationship with Liz, but the film isn't about Ash's gender identity: it's about the mysterious portals that have appeared around the world.
- Princess Cyd: Cyd mentions Katie was mistaken for male, and Miranda suggests maybe she is. Katie doesn't say this, but is fine being mistaken for male, and they're completely comfortable with the idea she's trans. It's possible that, like the actor, she's meant to be nonbinary.
- A Reflection of Fear: In the end, Marguerite is revealed to have been born a boy and has been living her life as a girl. Given she apparently has split personalities, it's hard to say how Marguerite really sees herself.
- Sorceress: Mara and Mira were raised as boys for protection against their own birth father, who wanted to sacrifice his firstborn. Due to this, both of them wholly identify as being male initially, completely oblivious that it might be otherwise (somehow, they don't even know their anatomy is female). Even by the end of the film it's still not clear if they see themselves as men, women or something else.
- Stonehearst Asylum features a background character whom the credits identify as 'Elegant Lady' but is played by a male actor and is called William by one of the nurses. It's never actually addressed whether they are a crossdresser or trans woman, but either way, given both the film's setting (Victorian England) and its themes, wearing dresses and make-up as a person assigned male at birth can be assumed to be the reason they are in the asylum (at the time, either of these would be deemed a mental illness).
- In Thor: Love and Thunder, Miek is referred to with feminine pronouns despite earlier films using masculine pronouns to describe her. It's unclear whether Miek had transitioned in-between films, if she's gender-fluid, if her race are biological hermaphrodites, or if she had just been misgendered previously because she didn't speak English.
- In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, it's heavily implied that Drag Queen Vida doesn't just perform as a woman but wishes to live her life as one, as her character arc revolves around seeking acceptance as her drag persona. The movie is ultimately vague on this point, but it's not unheard of for a transgender person to use drag performance as a stepping stone towards coming out.
- This is a source of debate with Tomboy. It's about a girl who moves to a new town and presents herself as a boy to the other kids. The name of the movie and the ending make it vague whether she's a, well, tomboy or actually has gender dysphoria. Its director and writer CΓ©line Sciamma said this was entirely deliberate, so that butch lesbians, trans men or tomboy straight women could all see themselves in Laure as a child.
- We're All Going to the World's Fair: Casey is only ever seen in baggy, unisex clothing and is using a unisex alias, so she could be nonbinary or trans, but it's never made clear. Her alienation and talk about "turning into someone else" also have some serious trans undertones.
Literature
- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: Dunya herself isn't certain of her gender identity β living as a woman in her strict, wealthy family meant a Gilded Cage and the threat of an Arranged Marriage that would cut her off from her scholarly vocation, so womanhood has a lot of baggage for her. However, Dunya readily dresses as a man for safety reasons and, at the end of the book, starts living openly as a man to see how it fits.
- In Bangkok 8, Fatima underwent a full (and extremely thorough) gender reassignment surgery and adopted a female name, but says that she only underwent surgery because she thought it would help her hold on to her closeted lover and is not much interested in gender theory.
- Bavadin from The Cosmere apparently has some of this going on, when she was first mentioned her gender was not mentioned and fans assumed she was male until Arcanum Unbounded used female pronouns, but Word of God has said her gender is more complicated than that. Also there are entire pantheons in which every god is actually her.
- Enid Blyton:
- George from The Famous Five has traits that go above and beyond what you would normally expect from a tomboy, such as disliking being treated as a girl or often being mistaken for a boy and taking great pleasure in it. She rarely cries, going by the mantra "boys don't cry". She even outright declares that she wishes she wasn't born a girl at one point, although all of this is mostly a reaction to the way her parents are treating her.
- Bill (real name Wilhelmina) from the Malory Towers books. Bill is a tomboy to the core and prefers to be addressed by the masculine form of her name. Her schoolfriends realize what they've got on their hands and are happy to comply, with no fuss being made. Bill's attitude is directly related to her being the only girl among seven brothers and it seems that in direct contrast to only child George, Bill's parents are quite happy for her to be "one of the boys". As a result, she lacks George's bitterness and hostility. The two characters are roughly contemporaneous.
- Jo from Little Women is a tomboy who has more than a few lines suggesting gender dysphoriaπ Image
β such as lines like "I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy!" and how she dislikes her more feminine full name β though readers generally think she's being confined by the strict gender roles of the day. - Discworld:
- While Monstrous Regiment is full of Sweet Polly Olivers, certain characters' true identities are more ambiguous than others':
- Polly's male disguise is so effective that some aspects of her learnt behaviour and mindset become natural to her, to the point where she feels embarrassed to be caught in a dress or reacting like a woman before remembering that she is a woman. She is unsettled by how easy it becomes for her to go 'from boy to girl just by thinking it' and resolves to find time to consider this properly, leading many readers to see her as some form of non-binary (e.g. genderfluid).
- Sergeant Jackrum has been in the military as a Sweet Polly Oliver for most of his life, and his Happy Ending has him retiring from service and living with his estranged son as the family patriarch. The story continues to refer to him as "he" even after The Reveal, thus this trope.
- Madame Sharn in Unseen Academicals is one of the modern generation of openly female (but still bearded) dwarfs. The gender confusion this generally causes amongst humans is played up more than usual, and she appears to be in a relationship with Pepe, who is coded as a gay man. The overall impression is of someone who would have been assigned male at birth even if dwarfs didn't assign everyone as male at birth, and who may be more genderfluid than anything else, but nothing's ever confirmed.
- In Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent, Tiffany says that she once asked why Geoffrey Swivel (the male-presenting witch from The Shepherd's Crown) didn't want to be a wizard, the traditional vocation of magically-inclined men, and was told that Geoffrey wasn't a man, just Geoffrey. Tiffany uses a couple of singular theys, but mostly avoids using pronouns for Geoffrey altogether at that point, while Nanny Ogg's marginalia starts to call Geoffrey "the lad" before correcting herself. Since it's not clear if words like "non-binary" or "genderqueer" even exist on the Disc, and entirely possible that nobody on the Chalk would know them even if they did, it seems that everyone just accepts that Geoffrey's Geoffrey and that's how it is, without seeking further details.
- While Monstrous Regiment is full of Sweet Polly Olivers, certain characters' true identities are more ambiguous than others':
- Haganai: Yukimura is initially thought to be a very girly-looking boy until the protagonist sees Yukimura lacks an important male organ in the bathroom. Turns out Yukimura is a girl in body, but wasn't even aware of it because of an erroneous belief that men grow a penis when they become manly enough. Yukimura keeps on insisting to be a boy even after the reveal because "being a true man transcends the concept of biological sex". It's up to interpretation whether it's a case of a girl who has been conditioned to think of herself as a boy or a trans boy.
- In Heralds of Valdemar, the Tayledras are a Non-Heteronormative Society without distinct gender roles or manner of dress, in which men and women are both so androgynous that they joke about outsiders seeing them as a Single-Gender Race. When Kethry meets Stormwing her Gaydar tells her that not only does he like men but he's "balanced" between male and female to the point where she sees him as poised like a bird in flight, and Need protects him like she would a woman. Later, Firesong is described as similarly being balanced and this is why he can work so well with Need. This may stem in part from Trans Equals Gay as the author writes as if feminine qualities are inherent to being a gay man, but other gay Tayledras men don't have it emphasized like this. They may in fact be genderfluid or otherwise non-binary.
- Kino from Kino's Journey is assigned female at birth but accepts being referred to as both male and female, looks androgynous, and uses the boyish pronoun "boku" in Japanese. In the localization of the manga, Kino is referred to with "they/them" pronouns and is formally addressed as "Mx. Kino."
- Nanana's Buried Treasure has Wholesome Crossdresser Daruku Hoshino whose sexuality and gender identity aren't discussed but is always shown wearing the female uniform and female clothes and acts very feminine. He is hinted to like a female character, but since sexuality and gender identity don't always go together it doesn't mean much. It's basically the definition of ambiguous.
- Inukashi from No. 6. They use the masculine Japanese Pronouns "ore" to refer to themselves. Their gender is ambiguous, but there are implications that they are biologically female.
- The case for many residents in the trans ghetto of Remould in Redfern Jon Barrett's Proud Pink Sky.
- Provenance: The Hwaean people refer to youths with the singular "they" until a Rite of Passage where the child chooses an adult name and declares themself male, female, or nemale. Taucris delayed this until her career path required her to choose; it's implied that she would have preferred not to declare a gender.
- Ferris from Re:Zero has contradicting lines implying they're either a male Wholesome Crossdresser or a trans woman. The anime adaptation made them a cis boy.
- Spark/Ash is introduced in Realm of the Elderlings: The Fitz and the Fool trilogy as Chade's latest Apprentice Assassin. Biologically a girl, they grew up believing themselves to be a boy for their own protection. When informed otherwise, Chade helps them establish two personas which they switch between depending on the situation, called Spark when dressed as a girl and Ash when dressed as a boy, thus possibly genderfluid.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Pete Reston was assigned male at birth and favors male pronouns, but volume 2 reveals him to be a "reversi": a mage capable of switching between biological sexes, which he frequently does in his sleep or while otherwise unconscious. He also alludes in narration to having experienced probable dysphoric episodes, which in combination with his pronoun preference suggests his true gender identity to be something closer to demiboy or agender. The year 4 books also show him experimenting with dressing in a women's school uniform sometimes. (By way of precedent, the series has two explicitly non-binary named characters as of volume 6.)
- In River of Teeth, Archie is shown to have a fluid gender identity, fluctuating between mostly presenting as a woman and periods of wanting to be seen as a man. She points out how though it may seem weird to them, enough money can convince any tailor to make her a quality suit.
- Shades of Magic: The deuteragonist Delilah "Lila" Bard is a Tomboy who often dresses as a man (sometimes for safety, sometimes out of preference) and never corrects anyone who refers to her as male. Word of Gay is that Lila could be genderfluid or non-binaryπ Image
in the modern day but, as a native of 1819 London, she lacks the cultural context to identify as such in the books. - Sir Apropos of Nothing: It's unclear whether The Don Verah Wang Ho is a trans woman or a male crossdresser. They live publicly as a woman but are referred to as a man by their embarrassed relatives, and their affair with an unknowing Sir Apropos is portrayed as a deception with an Unsettling Gender-Reveal that incites a literal Angst Nuke.
- The titular character in Sirena Selena is a teenage sex worker who is discovered by Martha Divine, the owner of a gay bar and transformed into a glamorous chanteuse once in full drag. Sirena's and Martha Divine's POV chapters use both masculine and feminine pronouns when talking about Sirena, even in the same sentence. Solange, who sees Sirena as a romantic rival, refers to Sirena as "monster" and other dehumanizing terms.
- Stone Butch Blues is a semi-autobiographical book about a person named Jess and their complicated struggle with gender and masculinity. It's debatable whether Jess would be considered a butch lesbian, a trans man, or non-binary in modern terms. They try to transition into living as male, but give up partway and decide to live as "stone butch" (which is traditionally a cis woman identity but can also be applied to trans people).
- Time Scout: Armstrong. He could be a feminine man. She could be a masculine woman. She never identifies as either and he can pass for either. His hair is cut short, she wears wigs, and long-necked clothing eliminates the possibility of seeing an adam's apple.
- The Vampire Chronicles: Gabrielle de Lioncourt is Lestat's mother and fledgling who often pushes Lestat to lead the (masculine, liberated) life she couldn't. One of the first things she does upon being turned into a vampire is steal her male victim's clothes, after which she never wears feminine clothing again. She also begins binding her chest and cuts her hair shorter than most men in eighteenth-century France wear theirs, and is horrified to the point of defeated sobbing when she learns vampire hair grows back while they sleep during the day. The books consistently use feminine pronouns for her, but various critics have interpreted her as a trans man who lacks the understanding that it's possible to identify as one, some form of nonbinary, a butch lesbian, or simply a woman of any orientation who felt confined by gender roles.
- What Happened to Lani Garver: Lani is an effeminate teenager who was originally named Lonny but changed the spelling to look more androgynous. Early in the book, Macy asks him if he's a girl. He answers, "Oh! No. Not a girl. Sorry." After that Claire thinks of him as a boy, but she notes that he never actually said he was a boy.
- What Moves the Dead: Soldiers in the fictional country of Gallacia have their own set of pronouns (ka/kan), so it's well-known that some soldiers are people who enlisted because they didn't want to be spoken of as women anymore. The protagonist Alex does not discuss whether ka joined the army for professional or personal reasons and considers it rude to ask β ka's a soldier and that's what matters.
Live-Action TV
- Another Life (2019): Zayn has an androgynous gender expression, and in season 1 is never called by any pronouns. While they're likely meant to be nonbinary, this hasn't been said onscreen yet. Zayn is portrayed by Australian nonbinary actor JayR Tinaco. Zayn is referred to by ze/zer pronouns in season 2, implying this as they're sometimes used by nonbinary people.
- Better Things: Frankie's gender identity and mentions of it vary throughout the season. Justified as the show spans multiple years and follows her personal growth on that journey.
- Frankie is gender nonconforming, showing no interest in typical girly things, always wearing masculine clothing and having short hair (until growing it out by Season 4).
- She gets punished for using the boys' bathroom at school, but claims it's just because girls do things which disgust her while in theirs. Max expresses incredulity about this and tells their mom "Frankie is a boy" (she later denies having said that), to Sam's shock.
- The matter is dropped until Season 3, when it turns out Frankie's called Franklin by her friends and her text to Duke self-identifies herself as "your brother" in a Blink-and-You-Miss-It moment.
- Later she wants a quinceaΓ±era (Latina rite of passage at 15, though the family isn't Latino, but Jewish)
- In Season 5, Frankie discusses how a friend uses they/them pronouns, kind of indicating they're Frankie's too, to Sam's confusion. This is supported too by Max referring to Frankie as "they" later.
- Frankie objects to being called Sam's daughter at one point.
- Frankie is offended when Max says she's acting like a bitch, but acquiesces when Max says "bitch is non-binary".
- The Big Bang Theory: In "The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification", Sheldon makes a family tree and we see that his Meemaw had three children, his mother Mary and two sons named Carl (who was killed by a badger) and Edward. In the prequel Young Sheldon, Mary says that her siblings are named Charlene and Edward. This may be a Retcon or continuity error, but it's also possible that Charlene and Carl are the same person and is transgender, with "Charlene" being a deadname.
- Bones has an fourth season episode ("The Girl In The Mask") that hasn't aged well. The science team brings in a Japanese specialist Haru Tanaka who has expertise relevant to the case of the week. Tanaka participates in a subculture that is deliberately gender-ambiguous, which Sweets asks them to respect. But the comedic subplot of the episode has the squints spend a lot of their screentime debating Tanaka, ending with Angela giving Tanaka a long non-consenual hug and concluding Tanaka is male because "It moved, I felt it."
- Cold Case: The victim Sam in "Boy Crazy", set in 1963, is treated as a very tomboyish girl and doesn't resist female pronouns, but feels very strongly about wanting to wear boys' clothes, being allowed to follow her masculine interests, and not being called "Samantha". Her only friend Dom seems to think of Sam as a boy, as following a kiss, he angrily protests, "I'm not some queer!" It's never fully revealed how exactly Sam felt about herself, possibly because being trans wasn't a concept widely-known or talked-about at the time (let alone the idea that there could be more identities beyond "male" and "female", in the event that Sam might have been more aligned with one of those than with either side of the traditional binary).
- Doctor Who: The Revival established that Time Lords/Ladies can change biological sex when they regenerate. Some of them clearly don't enjoy that, a usually female Time Lady spends one incarnation as a man and when she subsequently regenerates into a female body is relieved to be "back to normal", but others seem perfectly fine with it. Both the Doctor themselves and The Master have had at least one female incarnation and adjusted to it immediately, despite otherwise identifying as male, with the Thirteenth Doctor being happy to discover that she's a woman. The Eleventh Doctor also mentions an old friend called the Corsair, who regularly switched between male and female without breaking stride, suggesting that at least some Time Lords may be genderfluid or non-binary.
- Ellis: In "Hanmore", the character of Rain Bradley is coded as a trans woman, but that's never directly stated within the episode. However, there are hints when DCI Belmont makes snarky "they/them" pronoun comments about her (Rain uses she/her), and seems to be a factor in why Aaron is so worried about his macho, belligerent father discovering his Secret Relationship with Rain.
- Fallout (2024): Dane was played by a trans man, and is androgynous overall and referred to as "them" at one point by Elder Cleric Quintus, but their gender is never directly addressed.
- Friends: Chandler's dad is always described as a gay man and a professional Drag Queen β though the mentions that he dresses in women's clothing everywhere he goes, not just in his show, surely rings alarm bells for modern viewers. When the character finally debuts on the show, they cast Kathleen Turner in the role β suggesting that all this time Chandler's second parent has been a trans woman, and that, even with her right there onscreen, the characters and writers were simply unable to properly understand and portray it. Years later, Word of God confirmed fan theories that Helena Handbasket is not merely a drag persona but the character's true identity, and that the show's consistent misgendering and deadnaming of her was a regrettable mistake. The show's credits at least were on the right wavelength, as they identify her as simply Helena.
- Brianne of Tarth in Game of Thrones. She's visibly uncomfortable every time she's required to conform to the gender roles expected of a Westerosi noblewoman and generally presents in a very masculine fashion. It's possible she's a trans male but lacks the vocabulary necessary to understand or express it, due to living in a medieval world.
- The Goodies has an accidental version. The series was made before anyone even knew what "transgender" meant, and what trans people did exist were assumed to be either Camp Gays or Butch Lesbians. The three protagonists would occasionally dress in drag (fairly common in British comedy in The '70s), but Tim would do it far more frequently than the others and seemed to enjoy it whenever he did, and would pretty easily slip into female personas. At the time this was just supposed to make him look a bit weird, but a modern viewer can't help but wonder if he's a closeted transwoman or non-binary.
- On The Good Place, Our Janet has the appearance of a human woman, cheerfully accepts "she" pronouns, and wears a skirt as part of her uniform. But if anyone calls her a woman or girl, she habitually replies, "not a girl." That response is so reliable that it's used to distinguish her from her Evil Twin.
- Kiss Me First: Is Jack a gay boy or a trans girl who likes men? It's not specified.
- In Lovecraft Country, Christina spends much of the time transformed into a male body (William) and seems to enjoy it more than being herself, even having an affair with Ruby in this form. However, it's unclear whether she is transgender or enjoys the power of being male in The '50s.
- The Mick: In Season 1 Ben's happy to present as a girl while getting into an all-girls school (Mickey says he's trans as a ploy for this) and likes wearing dresses. Sabrina and Mickey later both also describe him as being genderfluid. Ben's only seven, and doesn't comment on this.
- Modern Family: Cam is a gay man who dislikes any suggestion that his sexuality makes him less masculine than a heterosexual man, and resents being seen as the "wife" or "mother" in his marriage as he stays home and takes care of Lily while Mitchell goes out to work. At the same time he is fairly gender non-conforming; crossdressing at every opportunity and frequently comparing himself to female celebrities.
- Only Murders in the Building: At one point, Charlie's (unofficial) stepdaughter Lucy casually brings up a moment when she'll "inevitably change [her] pronouns" when talking to Mabel, implying that she may be questioning her gender identity or is at least open to the possibility that she might at some point. However, this has yet to actually happen in the show itself, and it may just be the writers poking fun at how much more open (the writers' perception of) her generation is about gender identity.
- Orange Is the New Black: Daddy is called both "she" and "he" by different inmates. We never learn if this reflects either a transgender or other identity since Daddy doesn't say anything about it either way.
- In Reign, Prince Henry, the future Henry III of France, privately enjoys wearing women's jewellery and underwear, but insists he doesn't want to be a woman and otherwise presents as very masculine, which doesn't appear to be an act.
- Tales from the Crypt: In "The Assassin," dizzy housewife Janet is revealed to be Ronald Wald, a coldblooded CIA hitman who escaped the company and underwent a sex change. It's never established if s/he is truly trans or simply uses his/her new body as the ultimate disguise (it certainly fools Ronald/Janet's would-be killers, including a former lover). While Janet presents fully feminine, she has no qualms about using a male voice and smirkingly calls herself a "woman with balls." Interestingly, Ronald had a female lover as a man, but Janet is Happily Married to a man as a woman, making him/her Ambiguously Bi, though both relationships are technically heterosexual.
- The Terror: James Fitzjames is seen digging in a costume trunk for the crews' upcoming carnival twice. The first time, he tries on a domino mask of a feminine face wearing a wreath of roses. The second time, he pulls out a Juliet costume dress and holds it up against himself in the mirror- at first casually, then with a pause of recognition, followed by a soft smile of enjoyment. He then ultimately attends the carnival dressed as Britannia, patron goddess of Britain and personification of The British Empire, wearing a long ruffled white dress more feminine than Britannia herself was usually depicted with. Word of God from showrunner Dave Kajganich is that these scenes represent Fitzjames, who is obsessed with social validation due to feeling like a fraud in general, letting his mask of being the perfect Navy man slip, and that if he lived in a time and place where the concept were available to him, he would be a trans woman. Kajganich later made a playlist for the show's fans titled "Mxtape fr Hospital Yr Friends Luv U Jamie It's Just 3 Days !!!"- the playlist a modern Alternate Universe version of Fitzjames's friends would make her while she rests in the hospital after getting gender confirmation surgery.
- In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis", it's not made clear if Miss Artiphys is a drag queen or a trans woman, although she is played by a trans actress. The ambiguity let them get away with Miss Artiphys kissing Xena in the ending scene.
- The Watch (2021): Lord Vetinari, a male character in the books, is played by Anne Chancellor here but still with the same title. Male pronouns are used for Vetinari usually, with "He is a man of her word" being used, making it very ambiguous if this version is transgender (possibly nonbinary).
- We Are Who We Are: Caitlin, by the end, is exploring her gender, and may be a trans boy but doesn't seem completely sure yet.
- Years and Years: Lincoln Lyons, who begins wearing ribbons in his hair and wearing long shirts that resemble dresses, but is consistently referred to as a boy during his youth. However, the script describes a teenage Lincoln in the final scene as a beautiful Chinese girl, implying Lincoln may have eventually come out as a transgender girl.
Music
- The most common interpretation of "For Today I Am a Boy" by ANOHNI and the Johnsons (whose frontwoman is trans herself) is that it's about a transgender child but it has a few others.
- One of the characters in "Bleed Like Me" by Garbage is confused about their gender.
- UTAU: Seems to be a running theme amongst VIPPERloids.
- Teto's gender is officially described as "Chimera"; Word of God states on the official Teto website that there's no particular meaning to this in regards to her genderπ Image
. She's generally seen as female due to her appearance, but her specific gender is up for interpretation. - We know for sure that Ruko is intersex, but what gender identity she aligns with is unclear. It's generally assumed that she identifies as female since she has a feminine appearance and is often referred to with feminine pronouns (though Word of God has confirmed that Ruko's pronouns are up for interpretationπ Image
β), but some go along with her being a male crossdresser among the lines of Ritsu, as her sex is mostly male. There's even some interpretations of her identifying as nonbinary. - Ritsu's gender is described as "okama" in his bio, which is a slang term for feminine gay men, drag queens, or transgender women, but it's unclear which applies to him. It's also unknown how much of it is even meant to be taken seriously. Given his in-universe portrayal as something of a Troll, however, it could go either way.
- Teto's gender is officially described as "Chimera"; Word of God states on the official Teto website that there's no particular meaning to this in regards to her genderπ Image
Podcasts
- Dar's entire species of Mission to Zyxx is genderfluid (with reconfigurable genitalia, depending on their partners).
Puppet Shows
- Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock: In season two, Wembley starts to explore his gender identity, occasionally wearing feminine clothing and having an entire musical number, "Who Is Me?"π Image
, that is strongly implied to be about his gender dysphoria. Whether this makes him non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer, a crossdresser, or simply unlabeled or questioning is not clarified. - The Muppet Show: Although Gonzo is usually referred to with "he/him" pronouns, it's been hinted a few times that "male" might not totally encapsulate his gender identity. The Muppet Babies (2018) episode "Gonzo-rella", Gonzo wants to wear a Pimped-Out Dress to the ball, and the Gonzo-rella alter ego is addressed with "they/them" pronouns. One comic stripπ Image
β from 1984 shows Gonzo walking past women's and men's bathrooms in favor of the "whatever" room with the joke being about his unclear species. His related identity struggle and him finding out his true nature in Muppets From Space also has some Have You Tried Not Being a Monster? undertones. - Sesame Street: Niamh's most notable appearances have been a Power of We Club animated segment in which she wants to get dressed up but not wear a dress, and designs an outfit that incorporates a bow-tie, a blazer and a necklace, and a street scene where she decides to get her hair cut short. It's not even clear whether the writers intended this to be about gender identity, rather than a general "people like different things and you should Be Yourself" message.
Theatre
- Angel from RENT is a source of debate amongst fans: Drag Queen or trans woman? The fact that he's dating a gay man strongly implies the former, especially since Collins uses "he" pronouns after Angel's funeral. A third option is that she's genderfluid, evidenced with lines like "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be and more of a woman than you'll ever get." This is all muddied by the fact that RENT takes place in the early 1990s when the lines between drag queen and trans woman were more blurred in the public eye. Some later adaptations write Angel as more explicitly trans and/or genderqueer, such as the 2019 FOX production, which consistently uses "she/her" pronouns and adds new lines where Angel suggests that dressing like a woman makes her feel like the "real" her.
- Hedwig from Hedwig and the Angry Inch is described by her creator thusly: "She's more than a woman or a man. She's a gender of one and that is accidentally so beautiful."
- & Juliet: May, Juliet's non-binary friend, who describes the struggles and persecution they face by singing Britney Spears' "Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman."
Video Games
- 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim has Tsukasa Okino, a mysterious young man whose appearance is androgynous: slight build, fair skin, soft facial features, and short silvery hair. He leverages his androgyny when disguising himself as a woman named Kiriko Douji, and when Takatoshi Hijiyama discovers his true identity, he continues to tease and flirt with him, leaving Takatoshi flustered.
"Let's say some binaries work for me, and others don't."
- Animal Crossing: Gracie is a rather well-known case of She's a Man in Japan, but her actual gender identity in the Japanese text was unclear even to the English localization team. The English localizers figured that they were likely transgenderπ Image
(accounting for conflation of the terms given the lack of widespread LGBT awareness in the early 2000s), but official Japanese descriptions always list their gender as male (which opens up the possibility that they're a Drag Queen), and state that they had changed their name from "Nabenosuke" to "Grace", which can be interpreted as either a drag queen's Stage Name or a genuine change of identity. The international versions instead have her as a cisgender woman whose Embarrassing First Name is Gretchen Grunch.Nate Bilhdorff: She was a transsexual, wasn't she?
Bill Trinen: Yeah, she was a transvestite.
Nate Bihldorff: A lot of times these Japanese speakers will be reading something and say "...There's something going on here, and we're not exactly sure what it is." - Banjo-Tooie: Merry Maggie is implied to be either a drag queen or a trans woman, but nothing is explicitly stated.
- In Bear & Breakfast, Twiggy is fully clothed like the other female animals and has feminine eyelashes like them, but they're referred to with they/them pronouns in the narration. It isn't explicitly confirmed if they're a femme-presenting nonbinary.
- Bloodborne: Iosefka from The Death of Sleep, one of the tie-in comics, lampshades the very ambiguous look for the PC Hunter in promotional art (plus the game's concealing clothing). The comic's Hunter doesn't seem to consider their gender anywhere near as important a part of their identity as the fact that they are a Hunter.
- Robin from Cute Knight Kingdom does not seem to like living as a girl and was kicked out by her parents for not wearing dresses.
- It's difficult to pin down the exact gender of Gwyndolin from Dark Souls, though easy to tell their physical sex. It's canon they possess a ring that gives one gender the movements and animations of the other and currently present as female. The lore says they were born male and Raised as the Opposite Gender, but Gwyndolin's dialogue never touches on the subject. The description of the ring describes Gwyndolin as a "sullen and brooding goddess," but it's not specified if this was because they disliked wearing the ring or if that was just Gwyndolin's regular personality. It's worth noting that by the time of the first game there's not really anyone left in Anor Londo who has authority over Gwyndolin, so continuing to present as female would need to be an willing choice on their part, even if the motive for doing so is ambiguous.
- Deltarune: In Chapter 1, the main character Kris Dreemurr is an androgynous human teenager with Ambiguous Gender akin to their predecessors Frisk and Chara. They are referred by "they/them" once or twice in a Dummied Out dialogue and other instance where it's unclear whether Susie is talking about Kris specifically or in plural. From Chapter 2 and onward, however, every single character, including Kris's own family and childhood friends, consistently uses only the singular "they" when talking about the character, and it's made absolutely clear by Chapter 4 that Kris has separate agency and individuality from their SOUL, the entity player is actually controlling, leaving significantly less room for the idea of them being a genderless Featureless Protagonist. That all leans towards them being likely non-binary, but there is no direct confirmation or indication of how they identify. The only time the game addresses it outside of pronouns usage, albeit in a very subtle and vague way, is the hidden Easter Egg room in Chapter 3, where the welcoming sign says that "It's a Man's world. Non-men are a-ok too." It's currently the biggest supporting argument about Kris being, at the very least, not male. Although Ambiguous Syntax is still in play here, given that this world's main inhabitant (and ruler?) is a mysterious character literally named "Man".
- Edge of Awakening:
- Otomaru KakyΕ identifies as both male and non-binary, but is treated by the game's system as male.
- HΕΕka is canonically multigender, currently presents as male, and recorded in the game's system as female.
- Arashi of Ensemble Stars! not only acts very feminine in general, being constantly drawn in feminine poses in card art and with a penchant for feminine hobbies, she also refers to herself as a girl regularly and push the other characters to do so as well, saying things like 'girls like me just can't get enough of cute things!' However, none of the other characters take this particularly seriously, and she's otherwise treated as male by the game (e.g., she has never worn a skirt in a card, even though a couple of other guys have cross-dressed), and since the game is light-hearted and doesn't really go into serious topics (and there's been no official word on the subject at all), the general fanbase tends to chalk it up to her being a very feminine guy. A lot of trans fans really love the idea of her being a trans girl, however. Complicated even further in the Beasts event storyπ Image
, which revolves around Arashi feeling uncomfortable because she was made to do a photoshoot revolving around manliness, only for Tetora to praise it and ask her to teach him how to be manly. In the end, Tetora apologises, acknowledging that she must have hated that, because 'I may not completely get it, but youβre a woman inside, rightβ¦?' After that, he consistently refers to her as a woman, telling Midori that he had an encounter with an 'awfully charming woman' the previous day; Mama also refers to Arashi as his 'daughter'. The catch? After Tetora's confession, Arashi says 'no matter how much I want it, and no matter how hard I tryβ¦ I could never become the beautiful woman I dream to be' and promises to love herself as she is from here on. Which sounds very much like a trans person who is struggling with dysphoria and worried they will never pass, but is just ambiguous enough it can be interpreted as Arashi deciding to give up on being seen as a woman, despite what the other characters say. - In Final Fantasy V, Faris's gender identity is never confirmed. What we do know is that she has passed as a male since childhood among her pirate band. She continues to do so upon leaving her pirate crew to join the party. She initially refers to herself as a "lad" or "prince" in some dialogues (before adding, "er, lass/princess"). Attire-wise, she wears masculine clothing in all but two jobs (Mystic Knight and Dancer) and seems distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of wearing a dress in the fake ending.
- In Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, Mizuki Akiyama has an apparently masculine body shape but for all intents and purposes acts feminine, and refers to themself with the personal pronoun "boku" (commonly a male pronoun but not uncommon among young women). Mizuki's profile lists their gender as "unknown"; in the official English translation, they are referred to as both "they/them" and "she/her" by different characters, though later updates lean toward using "they/them" exclusively. It's initially hintedβand later made increasingly explicitβthat they have faced significant discrimination from others due to their gender identity, which causes them much grief despite their apparent upbeat and level-headed attitude.
- Hugh Olineaux from Helix Waltz was assigned female at birth and lives as a man in all aspects of his life, with his sex being a widespread rumour never mentioned in front of his noble family. While a common interpretation is that he's a trans man, the game never confirms it and also suggests that he presents this way because he doesn't want to give up his knighthood upon marriage, which he would be expected to do if he were a woman (as was the case with his mother).
- Horizon:
- In Horizon Zero Dawn Warden Janerva has this trait. Janeva's voice actor is female and Aloy initially believes the Warden to be a woman, but Janeva cuts Aloy off when she asks about it, vehemently saying "No. I'm not one of your sisters. No woman can wear Carja armor". Janeva also mentions becoming a soldier and breaking the arms of soldiers who inquired too closely about their gender. The soldiers around the prison, Janeva included, wear much more concealing armor than most Carja. All of this implies that they're either a Sweet Polly Oliver or possibly a trans man or nonbinary, if those terms existed within that world.
- In Horizon Forbidden West, Tenakth squad leader Wekatta has a masculine build but wears feminine armor and hair, mentioning they were called "crazy" for doing so, and is voiced by a MtF transgender actress. They don't specify any pronouns, but Aloy used female pronouns. This is another case where a transgender character is the likely explanation, but the setting lacks social conventions for such a concept. Luckily for Wekatta, the Tenakth have no restrictions against female soldiers and seem to have gotten over any misgivings about their choice of appearance after they proved a capable soldier.
- Anonydeath from Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory is a BishΕnen wearing 24-Hour Armor (that he claims to be embarrassed to be seen out of) who acts like a Camp Gay man and has a Villainous Crush on the female Noire, but he also constistently makes claims to the effect of "I have the heart of a pure maiden" and he mentions that he would have preferred if Peashy had referred to him as "mommy" instead of "daddy". On the other hand, nobody in-universe ever even so much as acknowledges these claims, with the closest anyone ever gets being to call him "creepy", but they could just as easily be referring to his Stalker with a Crush personality. In the Japanese version, the aforementioned Noire calls him an "okama", a term that can refer to someone who is trans, but can also refer to an effeminate gay male, which would also fit considering Anonydeath's Sissy Villain nature. The official English translation changed "okama" to simply "creepy robot" and has everyone refer to Anonydeath with he/him pronouns, so it's... complicated.
- Garry from Ib uses Japanese language characteristic of women and gay men, including using the distinctly feminine first-person pronoun "atashi". Ib even comments on this if the player chooses to. Of course, it's less apparent in the English version, since there are no gender-specific first-person pronouns and no voice acting in the game. Instead, his feminine way of speaking is demonstrated with florid or old-fashioned turns of phrase β "thank heavens", "oh my", etc. He might be an effeminate gay man but it's also possible that he's genderqueer, given that the game creator describes himπ Image
as the one who "would like to cross the barriers of gender". - In the 3DS eShop game Kingdoms Item Shop, one questline has you helping a young man who uses the "noblewoman" sprite. When he first approaches you, he says that despite all appearances, he's a boy, and his only explanation is that his parents "really wanted a girl." It's ambiguous if this means that he was Raised as the Opposite Gender, or that he's transgender. He wants to train as a knight, which his parents find inappropriate for a young lady, and asks you to sell him gear in secret. Later in the questline, he asks you specifically for women's armor and it's implied that he still presents as female on occasion in his knightly dutiesβwhich brings up the possibility that he may be genderfluid as well.
- The Lion's Song: Emma Recniczek, a mathematician, disguises herself as a man, Emil Schell, to present a mathematical theory in 1900s-1910s Austria, where women in math were nearly unheard of. There are dialogue options that a player can choose to give some leanings if Emma is simply crossdressing to get around society's restrictions about gender roles or whether they are on the path to discovering that they are a transgender man or non-binary. However, these dialogue options are subtle, the ending doesn't say anything other than Emma teaching under their assigned gender at birth and so their gender is largely up to player interpretation.
- Lonely Wolf Treat: The lost cat child immediately corrects Trick for calling them a girl, but doesn't comment at all when their own mother calls them by she/her pronouns, leaving it ambiguous whether the child is okay with the pronouns but not the label, or the mother is ignorant if not outright unsupportive of her child's identity (which wouldn't be unusual for someone like her).
- Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue has the Optional Boss Serenade.EXE, who's depicted as Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous, but Capcom ended up confusing fans and itself on what pronouns to use for them. In Japan, Serenade is unambiguously mentioned as female, but in the English localization, they were referred to with male pronouns, as well as calling them "The UnderKing", while in the manga adaptation of MegaMan NT Warrior (2002), they use both. In the end, Capcom's official stance was that Serenade is "a perfect being without gender", though given that they're ultimately just an AI with no biology to speak of, that's both technically true and also rather unhelpful.
- Ashuku Nyorai from Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA- identifies as female, but it's never stated she's specifically a trans woman. Nevertheless, details point to her being one: she's voiced by a male actor, has no breasts (suggesting male anatomy), is often misgendered by other characters, and her counterpart in actual Buddhist mythology is male. The ambiguity becomes further with one instance of her saying she's not female in her second Mandala Board story.
- Word of God is that fans can see Mooselini from PaRappa the Rapper as trans if they want to. She has antlers.
- Persona:
- Naoto's gender is a huge, controversial topic in the Persona 4 fandom. She is living as a boy because she doesn't believe women can be accepted as good detectives. It's a fairly common plot in fiction except that her Shadow wants to do sexual reassignment surgery on her, with lethal implications, and it's suggested she has thought about it in the past. That's quite serious so fans often debate whether she's cis, genderqueer, or transgender. The most common consensus is that she considers herself female, and her storyline is about sexism rather than gender identity.
- Lala Escargot, the bartender from Persona 5, acts like a stereotypical old queen, but her voice is very deep and almost masculine. It's not clear if Lala is a transgender woman, a drag queen, or a Gonky Femme. Given that Shinjuku has a drag scene, it's reasonable to assume any one of the three, but the game never elaborates on it. The other characters always refer to her as female, though whether that's because Lala is biologically female, they're using her pronouns, or respecting her being in character as her drag queen persona also goes without elaboration.
- Depending on what language you're playing in, Blanche from PokΓ©mon GO may be referred to with they/their pronouns. Languages that don't have singular neuter pronouns use feminine ones.
- In Potion Permit, Hannah's album portrait shows her having a masculine body while wearing makeup and having long hair. She also works as a fashion designer, a traditionally feminine job, and her pre-release description states that she's not comfortable enough in her body type to wear ladylike dresses. However, her gender identity is never remarked on by the other residents or the game's Lore Codex.
- Rise of the Third Power: Aden states that he's a genderless lichspawn, but allows the party to refer to him with male pronouns.
- From Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, we have Subaru Kujo. In addition to having a Gender-Blender Name and a low-pitched voice, she has an androgynous appearance that makes protagonist Shinjiro ponder whether she is a man or a woman. Subaru is very evasive about what she identifies as, simply stating "Subaru is Subaru" when first asked and never giving a definitive answer at all during the game. This androgynous nature makes her very well suited to playing male roles at the Little Lip Theater and comes in handy when she and Shinjiro contend with an enemy targeting women and turning them into stone.
- Without finding an easily-missable scrap of fluff in South of Real, the player might never find out that Alex's real name is Alexandra. Whether or not Alex is trans, agender, or simply prefers to appear masculine is left vague.
- Splatoon 3: Although Acht looks like a female Octoling, and was referred to with she/her pronouns in promotional material from Splatoon 2, promotional material and dialogue for the Side Order DLC use gender neutral pronouns for them instead, suggesting they're non-binary. Their Japanese dialogue also has them use γΌγ (boku) as their personal pronoun; in fiction, this can indicate a tomboy or gender non-conforming person.
- Street Fighter has the villainous Artificial Human Seth, introduced as a firmly male character in Street Fighter IV, but things became weird when he was killed at the end, then returned in its direct sequel in a new, female body (which retains the same gruff, masculine voice as before). Strictly speaking, Seth is an AI with No Biological Sex to begin with, though other characters both identify the body as having a gender while quietly dodging around actually sticking to one. Referring to Seth with masculine pronouns is the generally accepted default, but some characters (mainly those who never met him before his resurrection) call Seth a neutral "they/them" (in localizations for languages that don't have gender-neutral pronouns like Spanish, Seth is called "that thing" instead). Capcom's official material referring to Seth notably avoids ever referring to Seth by gendered pronouns.
- Super Mario Bros.: Birdoβs gender identity has been the subject of many debates for years. It first started in Super Mario Bros. 2, which is the game she debuted in. The Manual says, βHe thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. Heβd rather be called βBirdetta.ββ In subsequent appearances, this trait of Birdoβs character seems to have mostly been dropped, and with the family-friendly nature of the games that she comes from, it is unclear if the manual description is still canon or not.
- Leo from Tekken mixes this with an Ambiguous Gender. She's confirmed to be a female named "Eleonore" but goes by a masculine nickname and is a Bifauxnen. Characters refer to her by name or in gender-neutral ways, though she's gotten called a boy at least once. She can use certain costumes for both male and female characters and isn't affected by a female-geared move but is affected by a male one. She is also voiced by a man and a woman.
- Undertale: The excessive use of gender-neutral they/them (and occasionally it/its) pronouns makes a huge amount of characters with debated gender identities. When directly asked about the matter in the interview (before he became a Reclusive Artist he is today), the game creator Toby Fox just told to skip the question entirely without confirming or denying anything.
- First of all, neutral terms are frequently used to refer to encountered monstersπ Image
and depending on the situation, that may be the case of them being too animalistic, enemies being multiple Mooks of the same species without their own individuality (Froggits), not having gender and/or sex in usual human sense at all (Tsunderplane is based on the stereotypically female trope and wears a bow but is a genderless animate airplane), or maybe the protagonist/narrator just not knowing it in the first place (Snowdrake is referred by gender-neutral pronouns during the battle, but later both the narration and his own father use he/him). Most monsters with humanoid features and present in the story are male or female, but there are some exceptions: Papyrus refers to both Gyftrot and his co-worker Lesser Dog with "they/them" pronouns; the narration uses "he/him", "it/its", and "they/them" when describing So Sorry, and Jimmy Hotpants/Ice Wolf described themselves in the third person using singular "they". - Napstablook is the most prominent character in the game to go by they/them without any ambiguity. On the other side, the gender identities of their cousins, fellow ghosts Mettaton and Mad Dummy/Mad Meow Meow are ambiguous in the different sense: Mettaton is referred to by him/his and is male-presenting, especially in his BishΕnen Line forms, but his former neighbour Undyne refers to him as a ghost by "they"; meanwhile, Mad Dummy is definitely gender-neutral in their Dummy form (it/its is also used, probably in the context of their inanimate dummy itself), but adopts female gender presentation after possessing a doll of an anime girl. This all suggests ghosts might have No Biological Sex and are genderless until they possess a body. Whether or not it makes them technically transgender is a different question.note Blook's cousin who became Mettaton is sometimes read as a trans man allegory due to his pre-"transitioning" form that he abandoned being coded as stereotypically female with the pink room full of diaries he kept, and his new male form being very flamboyant. Regardless, Napstablook appears to be Non-Human Non-Binary.
- Monster Kid is mostly a classic case of a child of Ambiguous Gender. Undyne does say that the protagonist "ended up saving them" once though, supporting the option of them being non-binaryβ¦
- River Person actually lampshades their Ambiguous Gender at their introduction by stating that it doesn't matter if they're a riverman or a riverwoman (although the sprite is called spr_riverman in the game files). Given what a mysterious faceless person with uncanny knowledge they are, that could mean many things.
- Annoying Dog is a gag character serving as the Author Avatar for Toby Fox (who is a man and goes by he/him pronouns), but they are referred to by they/them and it/its.
- Lastly, whether or not the two most prominent human characters in the game are male, female, non-binary, deliberately ambiguous etc. is one of the most heated debates in the fandom. The protagonist seems to be a classic Featureless Protagonist with almost no character traits of their own (or are they?), with their lack of set gender making it easier to a player to project into them and fit whatever name is chosen for the Fallen Human in the beginning to make a twist of the name not being given to them work. On the other hand, the Golden Ending reveals that they had their own name all along: Frisk. Them being a newcomer to the Underground makes it possible to brush instances of them being referred by they/them pronouns or gender-neutral terms (such as both Torielnote who probably knows about humans more than any other monster alive and Floweynote who actually believes them to be First Fallen Human/Chara in that moment. calling them "monarch" instead of "king" or "queen")β¦ and it is worth mentioning that the usage of third-person pronouns occurs after their name was revealed to all the monsters, so some may view it as the game subtly establishing Frisk's pronouns in addition to their name.
The first fallen human gets much more individuality and established backstory in the flashbacks and their appearance in the Bad Ending and implied presence in the other routes. Notably, their adoptive brother and best friend Asriel uses they/them several times when talking about them, and he is probably the closest person to them. However, Gender-Inclusive Writing isn't completely off the table, given that they are still designed as some sort of Audience Surrogate who the player gives a name to at the beginning of the game. How much of the character on their own they have is its own can of worms. The fact that debate is mostly rooted in the use of pronouns, with little evidence on the other aspects of the non-binary gender identity, doesn't help. - A lion NPC in Hotland looks male and has a mane, but if you talk to⦠them in the end of Golden Ending, it's revealed that after some self-reflection, the lion decided to switch to wearing female clothes. Their counterpart in Deltarune is wearing a waitress uniform and is identified as a woman, suggesting the Undertale lion had a Coming-Out Story. Her(?) being inspired by Mettaton in this implied transitioning might support the aforementioned transgender interpretation.
- First of all, neutral terms are frequently used to refer to encountered monstersπ Image
- In Valkyria Chronicles 4, Rosetta is a scout who seems to have been gendered as a man and now "presents as feminine". Notably for a Japanese game, this is not played for laughs or even played for drama - nobody seems to care about this at all. In gameplay, the only notable thing about her is that she is one of the toughest scouts in Squad E.
- Arachnia (called "Jorogumo" in Japan) from Yo-kai Watch 2 is a Gender Flip of the real-world female YΕkai jorogumo. They are described as "a guy who likes very girly plans, like putting poison in cakes and kissing people while having poison lipstick on." In Yo-kai Watch Blasters they are part of an all-female Yo-kai association, with extra emphasis on how male Yo-kai aren't allowed in, and are shown taking center stage among all the other female Yo-kai. However, in Yo-kai Watch: Wibble Wobble, Arachnia doesn't get a bonus from the Yo-kai Watch Model U2, which boosts the effectiveness of all female Yo-kai.
Visual Novels
- Jun Watarase from Happiness! (2005) is commonly seen as a Wholesome Crossdresser but is most likely transgender. Jun goes to school in the girl's uniform, seemed happy in the anime OVA where she turned female, and otherwise jokingly refers to herself as a boy.
- The whole story is complicated, but in the end, it boils down that Princess Cassidy in The Confines of the Crown is probably this rather than intersex. She was raised as a girl since she was a toddler and never knowingly wanted to be anything else.
- The Fate Series has many such characters, largely due to its obsession with gender-flipping heroes:
- Saber from Fate/stay night (aka Artoria Pendragon) is always referred to as "King", never "Queen", is known to have lived as a man for most of her life, and doesn't react to Mordred referring to her as "Father" (after all, she biologically is Mordred's father; she was under a Gender Bender spell from Merlin for a time which allowed Morgan le Fay to steal some of her sperm to create Mordred). However, now that she's not in a situation where she needs to hide her gender, she seems comfortable being addressed as a woman and never makes a deal about it either way.
- Mordred, introduced in Fate/Apocrypha and given more focus in Fate/Grand Order, might be trans. Mordred dresses as a woman (albeit a tomboy)note Although his/her formal outfit is a rather snazzy tuxedo, whereas the other female servants tend to where some variation of a Pimped-Out Dress but is very insistent on never being referred to as a woman and nearly kills someone the first time they do so. Grand Order in particular notes that either male or female pronouns are appropriate, and will sometimes switch mid-sentence. The part that causes the most fan arguments, however, is the fact that Mordred's "father", King Arthur, also is very insistent on never being referred to as a woman, but in her case, she is explicitly a woman pretending to be a man rather than trans. Since much of what Mordred does is "what King Arthur did, but more immature," some people argue that she is just taking She Is the King to a crazy extreme, while others argue that he is genuinely trans. It probably didn't help that Grand Order added some swimsuit fanservice.
- Le Chevalier d'Eon as portrayed in Fate/Grand Order is a thoroughly ambiguous mixture of gender markers. The historical d'Eon was a trans woman, but Grand Order's can change gender as they please. In-game this means that certain mechanics and quests that vary depending on the gender of the Servant in question both can be accessed by d'Eon. They also ask you at one point during an interlude whether you consider them male or female. Either response gets a mild "Ah, so that's how you see me" with no correction.
- Fate/Grand Order also has a version of Leonardo da Vinci, who was a man in life but when summoned as a Servant appears as a woman in the image of the Mona Lisa, apparently by choice. She likes being addressed as Da Vinci-chan, but participates in the Valentine's Day Event as both male and female, which involves her mentioning that she's "discarded the concept of gender". During her interlude, she does briefly wonder about what gender to make her Body Backup Drive before deciding on another female body.
- Nezha from Fate/Grand Order was a Prince in life and is known in Taoism as "the God of Young Boys", but was apparently given a woman's body when they were resurrected from the lotus flower by Taiyi Zhenren. Nezha is very proud of their "perfect body granted by the Buddha", but whenever the question of their gender identity comes up they get evasive and embarrassed (though the game's mechanics still treat Nezha as female in this case). In their Interlude, the protagonist can up-front ask what, if anything, they identify as (be it male, female, none, both, non-binary, or even "Beep Boop" to reference their Robo-Speak), and the most Nezha gives is an embarrassed assertion that some things don't need to be answered.
- Caenis from Fate/Grand Order was formerly a woman in life before being raped by Poseidon, which traumatized her so much that when he offered her a wish as recompense she used it to become the male Caeneus in the hope she would never again be taken advantage of like that. Judging from certain lines, it's actually possible to summon her as either the female Caenis or the male Caeneus, either of which identify as the gender they're summoned as but don't really care if people refer to them with masculine or feminine pronouns regardless. Due to the still-unresolved trauma involving the rape, however, Caenis admits in private she has more personal hang-ups whenever she's summoned as Caenis rather than Caeneus.
- Slow Damage
- Rei Izumi actually has this as a part of his route, where getting to his Good Ending has him open up about how his father's refusal to accept, or even tolerate, having a gay son made him begin to question if he was not really a man, but merely a woman born in the wrong gendered body. As well as his androgynous looks, which got him praised by his mother, but were among the reasons he was bullied in highschool. This led to Rei beginning to act more effeminate and using Atashi, instead of the more commonly male pronouns of Boku or Ore. His Good Ending has him accept himself as being a man through and through, and he works on not moving or acting the way he has before, even switching to the Ore pronoun. The epilogue CG even shows he got an Important Haircut.
- Rei's friends β Junko, Honami, and Arata β have male body builds, tend to wear feminine clothes, and use a more female form of speech. But nothing in-game ever reveals whether they are transgender, crossdressing or something else. The English translation uses 'they' pronouns for them and one dialogue got translated as them being 'femme-presenting'.
- Luka Urushibara from Steins;Gate is so incredibly pretty and feminine that he's frequently mistaken for a girl, and wishes he had been born female, though it's not clear if it's because he's genuinely transgender or because he knows Okabe will never fall in love with another man. Eventually, a D-mail gets sent to his mother in the past that makes it so he was born female (somehow) and Okabe at first doesn't realize since Luka looks exactly the same as a girl, and to save Mayuri, Okabe eventually has to crush Luka's happiness and return her to normal.
- When They Cry
- Sayo Yasuda from Umineko: When They Cry. It's implied they are designated male at birth but were Raised as the Opposite Gender. They grew up thinking they were female and they seemed comfortable with it until they entered their teenage years. Given the lack of signs of development and puberty of their body, Sayo created a male persona to see how it felt to live as a boy and continued to frequently switch between the "Shannon" and "Kanon" personas. After finding out the truth of their body, Sayo began to consider themself "furniture", meaning their mutilated sexual organs keep them from being a proper man or woman and they can't be considered either.
- Ciconia: When They Cry has Miyao, who is male, and Meow, who is female. Due to them being different personalities occupying the same body, one of them logically has to be cis while the other is trans, but by the end of Phase 1, circumstances prevent Meow from fulfilling her promise to Jayden to reveal whether she is cis or trans.
- Your Turn to Die has Alice, who has a Gender-Blender Name, slips in and out of more feminine speech patterns (with a tendency to fall harder into them while stressing out), and gets extremely upset when one of the Floor Masters questions which of the groups he should bathe with. In the Spin-Off game Your Turn to Shine, he can confide in Mishima that he was raised as a girl until he confronted his mother about it, with it being left unclear whether he is officially transgender or was designated male at birth
Web Animation
- The 5 Gods (2021): The first episode seems to be implying that Hades is a trans woman, consistently presenting in their female mortal form while their companions switch between mortal and divine forms freely. When their friends refer to them, it is only as a woman, and as "Scarlett". Their relationship to Yin and Yang could even be read as transphobic parents trying to force their child back into the closet. However, this is complicated by the fact that the characters in the Framing Device change what terms they use depending on whichever form Hades is in at the time. Word of God is little help either, as Gallicat has made contradictory statements on the topic at different times. She once said that Hades is both male and female, but seems to have changed her mind, later outright calling Scarlett a trans woman. This all makes it rather confusing to know whether theyβre meant to be a trans woman, or even potentially nonbinary.
- GEB Operating System: It is inferred from context that City Folks, the in-universe game that Nora plays throughout the series, is a symbolic reconstruction of events in her past. When Nora first plays the game in the second video entry, she speaks to a person in what appears to be her house - the NPC says that "in a few months [theyβre] all gonna get used to somebody new". In the third video, she once again plays the game, and this time enters a different room and is greeted by several people - representations of her family. All but one of them insist on referring to her as their son and a boy, for unclear reasons. Finally, in the fifth video, Noraβs avatar stands in front of a mirror and remarks that she canβt stand looking at her reflection. With the Nothing Is Scarier nature of the series meaning that the entire story is ambiguous, this likely symbolises that Nora is a trans girl.
- Kizuna AI, the first Virtual YouTuber, has a feminine avatar and voice. In interviews and official profiles, however, she has been very evasive on her gender identity. On one occasion, she has stated that she has the appearance of a girl with the mind of a man. She has also pointed out that, since she's a computer program, she technically doesn't even have a gender.
Web Comics
- Cucumber Quest: After Bacon's considerable acting talent is revealed, they later appear playing a female character (Pancetta) in the Punisher Pumice TV show, with the Nightmare Knight and Peridot identifying them as an actress. Though Bacon hasn't actually confirmed their gender, they do make mention of wanting to be an Idol Singer and still wears women's clothes in that particular Imagine Spot, making it likely that they're a trans woman.
- Dark Carnival: There's some impliactions Acro might be gender neutral or something similar. Unlike the other demons, they don't seem to have any preferance in what type of host they possess, and some content on the author's Toyhou.se page seems to indicate the other characters suspect they're not cis but they haven't figured it out themselves.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Ellen definitely identifies as a woman, but it is unclear whether she identifies as a cisgender woman or a transgender one. Technically, she was created entirely anatomically female and at no point in her life did she have male genitalia. She also has a set of memories starting from the time of birth of another female version of herself up to the age of 18π Image
. On the other hand, she also has memories of growing up male as Elliot and very briefly identified as Elliotπ Image
. There's also a stripπ Image
in which Ellen and Grace are playing a video game as characters similar to themselves: Grace is a squirrel (due to being part squirrel herself) and Ellen is "Transgender Princess". The only thing that is known for sure is that she does not identify as a maleπ Image
. - Elliot's gender identity is unknown to himselfπ Image
but seems to be genderfluid. He describes himself as "gender casual". - Grace's gender identity is also unclear but if theseπ Image
threeπ Image
stripsπ Image
are any indication, Grace may be polygender (experiencing multiple gender identities) since she's comfortable transforming into forms that have any biological sex (including intersex) and exhibit any gender expression.
- Ellen definitely identifies as a woman, but it is unclear whether she identifies as a cisgender woman or a transgender one. Technically, she was created entirely anatomically female and at no point in her life did she have male genitalia. She also has a set of memories starting from the time of birth of another female version of herself up to the age of 18π Image
- Exiern: An unintentional example due to Depending on the Writer. Main character Typhan-Knee/Tiffany was assigned male at birth, but gets cursed into female form in the first chapter. Original creator Drowemos wrote her as quite literally a straight woman who merely remembers being a straight man. Dan Standing changed this to Typhan-Knee having been either a gay man or a trans woman, who was then transformed into a cis woman and identified themselves to their grandparents as "your granddaughter". Scott Hicken seems to have gone the other direction, treating him/her as a de facto trans man: still attracted to men, but with a male gender identity in a female body.
- Go Get a Roomie!: Ramona starts to question her gender identity, feeling like a boy in drag when she puts on a dress. Time will tell if she comes to identify as trans or as non-binary.
- Housepets!: Marion Ward, a male human turned into a female squirrel, initially reacts with panic to their newfound Gender Bender. Over time, as he becomes more comfortable with the transformation, he stops correcting people on pronoun usage, and is even shown wearing feminine clothing like bikinis in later comics and supplemental art. That he blushes and gets evasive when asked about the issue complicates it further. His girlfriend-turned-male, Lois, is a lot less ambiguous, as everyone continues to refer to her as a woman despite her muscular physique and male anatomy.
- Knights Errant. Wilifred and Oswald are both revealed to be biological females presenting as male soldiers. Wilifred refers to herself as a woman, and shows interest in both men and women, but Oswald hates being called female and is only interested in women.
- Hakase from NEXT!!! Sound of the Future has their gender listed as "?" on their character profile. They were likely assigned female due to being a Megpoid (a type of android that is usually created as a girl), and they most commonly get referred to as she/her as a result, but as of chapter 7.1 their actual identity is not clarified. Given that they are a robotic Mad Scientist obsessed with body modification who rejects human societal norms, it's very possible they don't identify as any gender at all.
- The Order of the Stick: Vaarsuvius the elf's Ambiguous Gender is a Running Gag, but they are also hazy on the ideaπ Image
of gender traits, "do not normally pay attentionπ Image
to pronouns", and deliberately stymieπ Image
Belkar's attempts to pry. Word of God is that Vaarsuvius would read as genderqueer in real life but doesn't think about it at allπ Image
in-universe because "not talking about gender is just culturally part of being an elf". - Paranatural: RJ, one of Johnny's bully friends, was ambiguous for a long time until Ed used male pronouns and Johnny politely corrected him.
Johnny: And it's "their," not "his." RJ's nonbinary, yeah?
Ed: Oh, sorry. Um, what's that mean?
Johnny: For them? It means they decided they're not a boy or a girl.
Ed: What! You can do that? No one told me.
Johnny: Yeah man they don't tend to. - Mentioned by the creator of Rejected Princesses in regards to Catalina de Erausoπ Image
, since she spent most of her life presenting as a man and her own biography regularly switched from male to female indicators in Spanish. The consensus seems to be that she identified as a woman since she never denied her identity, just hid it, but this is just conjecture. - In Sol Invictus Anamelekh is revealed to be a Mind Hive made up of the souls of four children, two girls and two boys, who were sacrificed to the Moon God Anu and later given a second chance at life as his servant. Ana is alternately referred to as "she" "he" and "they" and it's not clear what they identify as gender-wise.
- Angel of Sticky Dilly Buns identifies as "gender fluid" (but has not, so far as is known, had any surgery or hormone treatment), leading to a certain amount of in-setting confusion and keeping things ambiguous for the readership until the big gender reveal.
- In Total Trauma, Harold is nonbinary in some way (wearing a shirt with a female symbol despite being portrayed as male in canon), but avoids specifying exactly what their gender identity is.π Image
Blainely: Do you still identify as a boy? Or are you now a girl, or nonbinary or something? - Unsounded: When Duane reveals he knows Jeremy Sarthos is a Third Option Sarthos doesn't correct him using female pronouns for them and gives him their former feminine name when they get intamate, correcting him from using their legal name of Jeremy. They say they chose to become a Third Option out of their love of pymary, as only men are allowed to study it to become certified wrights in Alderode. Still they changed their legal gender and name in a ceremony they aren't allowed to reveal to anyone.
Web Original
- Alex of the Deviantart Extended Universe carries traits of both masculine and feminine, but shirks traditional gender labels as they want to be the sneakiest, least identifiable rogue imaginable. The story uses neutral pronouns.
- Loves Lost And Found has Lady Maria Lucita de Moncada, who uses the title but doesn't identify themself as female and uses the pronouns "they/them."
- Player Two Start has its alternate timeline equivalent of Chris Chandler. Unlike the Chris of our world, who eventually came out as a trans woman, Player Two's Chris still presented as a man until the day he died, causing most in-universe commentators and a Wikipedia article to use masculine pronouns. However, Chris also kept a diary that detailed gender dysphoria and Word of God used feminine pronouns for him when first bringing up the diary. Of course, we'll never find out what Chris truly identified as, as he took it to the grave alongside the motive for committing the Valentine's Day Massacre.
- Agent Diogenes of the SCP Foundation's gender is unknown, even to the Foundation. Diogenes uses they/them pronouns, have looks ambiguous enough that they can pass either as a Bifauxnen or a Dude Looks Like a Lady, and when asked directly what their gender is, their only response is to raise an eyebrow. It's implied that coming into contact with SCP-113 multiple times (which changes the biological sex of whoever touches it but has unpredictable effects on organisms with atypical sex chromosomes such as intersex people) is what led to Diogenes's ambiguous gender.
Web Videos
- Afterlife SMP: It's not quite clear exactly what the Ender Dragon's gender identity is, and though Oli refers to them as his mother, other characters struggle with addressing them with a universal, consistent set of pronouns.
Joel: What a stupid idiot this guyβ girl is, or woman, orβ (stammering)
Shelby: Um... they?
Joel: Yeah, all of them... I'm not gonna gender you, Dragon! - ContraPoints features many characters with both masculine and feminine identities. "Trumpy the Transvestite" and "Fritz the Fascist" are two examples.
- Danganronpa Abridged Thing: Chihiro Fujisaki was explicitly male in canon, but the abridged series makes this more ambiguous by placing more emphasis on his gender identity. By the time they are killed, Kirigiri quickly explains that they were designated male at birth, and their ID recognizes them as male, but she cannot definitively prove or debunk anything about Chihiroβs gender. Shortly after, Monokuma declares that they "never talk about this again."note As he says that, he holds up a sign with a disclaimer specifically stating that a person's genitalia does not indicate gender identity... which does absolutely nothing to help clear things up about Chihiro's identity in this abridged series. From then on, Fujisaki is only referred to as "they/them."
- Discussed in The Kill Count's episode on Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. The infamous Case 2 reveal about Chihiro's gender identity can't be avoided since it's vital evidence to the case, but Chelsea feels unequipped to discuss it given how it's handled ingame and how susceptible Chihiro is to fans interpreting him as both transmasculine and transfeminine. Rather than opening that can of worms, Chelsea refers to Chihiro with they/them pronouns for the rest of the video, deciding that the only detail that's important for the Kill Count is that "Chihiro is baby".
Western Animation
- Adventure Time:
- Baby Snap (Princess Cookie) is a male cookie who wanted to be a princess. Fans are torn whether it was gender-related or whether he just wanted the authority and didn't know any other type of ruler existed.
- Taken even further with Crunchy, another cookie who expresses a desire to be princess. Unlike Baby Snap, Crunchy actively refers to herself using she/her pronouns. Crunchy was also canonically assigned male at birth, and she goes by a different name than the one she was given at birth, but that's because Crunchy used to be Chicle, a member of the Bubblegum royal family. Chicle and his conspirators tried to overthrow Princess Bubblegum, but their plan backfired, and they were turned into dull-witted candy people. It's unclear if Chicle and Crunchy share the same gender identity considering how different their brain chemistry is.
- American Dad!:
- In one episode Steve and his friends join a massive Boy Band called B12, consisting of twelve members. One of them looks female yet refers to himself by male pronouns and in a song where each member gives one line to describe themselves, he announces "I have the penis of a man" as the word "GIRL" flashes across the screen.
- In another episode, Hayley and Steve both join a women's Roller Derby team, with Steve passing himself off as Hayley's sister. He falls in love with a lesbian teammate and she is also interested in him, and they even start dating. Steve eventually reveals to her that he's a guy, but she's unsurprised and reveals the whole team knew he was AMAB but just assumed he was a trans girl. Steve even considers for a while that he might be transgender, and is interested in some aspects of living life as a female, but ultimately decides that while he may be a very effeminate boy, he is nevertheless a boy.
- In the Angry Little Asian Girl short "Pat", the titular happy little boy expresses a desire to be a girl and claims that it sounds so much easier due to not having to work and being able to wear pretty clothes. This sets off Kim. It's unclear if Pat is a trans girl, or if Pat is a boy who doesn't want to work and likes pretty clothes.
- Blue Eye Samurai: Mizu is a woman who has spent nearly her entire life presenting as a man, but what makes it ambiguous is that this was never really a choice: she was forced to dress as a boy by her abusive mother to hide from the bounty on their heads (the bounty hunters would be looking for a blue-eyed girl) and kept up the charade as an adult because men have vastly more freedom to move and act in feudal Japan then women. As a result, it's not clear what gender Mizu would view herself as, or if she even knows.
- Bugs Bunny generally presents as male, uses he/him pronouns and accepts being treated as male most of the time. However, he will also easily switch to a female presentation without any discomfort; much like the Trickster Archetype characters he was based on who would use any male or female persona necessary in their schemes. In early cartoons this was mostly for deception, but more modern versions of the character will sometimes wear feminine clothing just because. It is widely held Fanon that Bugs is non-binary or genderfluid, which is actually supported by statements from Chuck Jones, who said that Bugs sometimes feels more male and sometimes more female and referred to him by the now-outdated term "transsexual". The Looney Tunes Show 2011's incarnation of Daffy has some tendencies this way too, to the point that when told to fill out a DMV form he genuinely doesn't know what to put for "gender".
- Cybersix: Cybersix has a male civilian identity but a female vigilante identity for unclear reasons.
- Meg from Family Guy is depicted in the future living as a man named Ron in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. While this could explain some things, considering the gag nature of the series and its Negative Continuity this is largely up in the air. Making things more confusing is the episode "This Little Piggy", where a Cutaway Gag suggests that Meg was born male, with Peter having cut off her penis instead of the umbilical cord. There have also been instances where she's been shown doing things a man would do such as shaving her face or peeing while standing up.
- An episode of Hailey's On It! features a German Techno duo of two siblings called "DAS B3AT". They both have gendered names that align with their sex assigned at birth but present in a very androgynous manner and notably refer to each other as "sibling" rather than brother or sister. However, it's unclear if their androgyny represents their gender or is just a stage persona, and only calling each other sibling could just be poor English. Interestingly they are never spoken of or addressed as individuals, only as a pair; and so the words "he", "she" or the singular form of "they" are never used in reference to either of them.
- A throwaway line in "The Princess and the Pea" adaptation of Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child has the Queen mention that one of the princesses is "a man".
- In one episode of King of the Hill, Peggy makes friends with a male transvestite named Caroline. Caroline calls himself a drag queen, works as a drag queen, and wears male clothes while he's off the clock. He goes by Caroline at all times.
- Pleakley in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, far more than in the original movie. He is consistently referred to and identifies as male, but he also constantly dresses as a woman, ostensibly as a disguise but even when he's alone at home.
- Pickles of Metalocalypse was shown with an interesting representation of his genitals in the uncensored version of season 3.
- Played with in the Grand Finale of The Owl House. King and his father both have established genders (male and bigender respectively), but the fact that they're the only two members we see of what may or may not be a One-Gender Race makes it impossible to tell if either one of them would qualify as transgender.
- Phineas and Ferb: Perry the Platypus is clearly referred to as being male, yet no one in the family seems surprised that he would lay an egg. In another episode, Candace sweats milk while in his body, which only female platypi do. In another, a professional platypus hunter hired by Doofenshmirtz references male platypi having poisonous stingers, which confuses Doofenshmirtz since Perry has never used anything like that. Finally, the creators of the show simply said "Yes" when asked about Perry's gender.
- One scene in Recess has Mikey mentioning his "Great-Uncle Mary". When Vince asks why Mikey's uncle is named "Mary", Gretchen says not to ask, suggesting a controversial reason.
- Rick and Morty: 1-Million Ants is unsure whether to identify with the female queen, the male drones that comprise the body or if even "they" is an appropriate pronoun to refer to all of them. After trying to decide on a pronoun for an online dating profile, 1-Million Ants gets overwhelmed and gives up.
- A fewπ Image
of The Simpsons characters have featured one-off jokes here and there about transgender people, such as a character referencing a time when Helen Lovejoy was "Harold Schwartzbaum." There was also once a joke that implied that Abraham is a trans man, since he somehow turned into a woman due to not taking his βpills.β Weirdly, both of these characters have biological children with someone of the (apparent) opposite sex. - South Park:
- Parodied in "The Cissy", where Cartman starts posing as a "transginger" named Erica to avoid having to use the boy's restrooms. It gets to the point where the school, fearing a media outcry, has to install a restroom specifically for trans students (read: Cartman), which ends up far more luxurious than the normal restrooms and pissing everybody else off. Wendy responds by showing up at school dressed as a guy and calling herself "Wendyl," stealing Cartman's restroom and causing him to come down on Stan for not "controlling [his] dog". The whole ordeal confuses Stan into questioning his own gender, whereupon he attempts to use the trans toilet and Cartman accuses him of being a "cissy," rallying the entire school into bullying him for it. The episode ends in the regular restrooms becoming gender-neutral and the original transgender restroom becoming a cissy restroom whose only user is Stan.
- This episode also features a confirmation that Randy didn't just dress up as Lorde the previous episode for Kyle's birthday, but in fact is Lorde, which is kept uniquely consistent over the rest of the season. His justification for it is even the exact same as Cartman's, though far less out of malice. Unlike the kids, Randy clearly sees Lorde as more an image than an actual alternate identity, but whether he enjoys the crossdressing part or is forced to by his record label to keep his pop starlet job is where the ambiguity comes in.
- Marco Diaz of Star vs. the Forces of Evil identifies as male, but doesn't mind being addressed with "she" pronouns, states that he'd "love to be Queen", considers being buried in a suit to be nightmarish, and has even referred to himself as "ya girl Marco". Complicating things further is that he seems very comfortable with being a princess in a large pink dress, to the point of using the 'Princess Marco' persona in multiple episodes. Word of God would later state that the creative team deliberately decided to never do anything that would explicitly go against a trans interpretation of the character after becoming aware of how popular it was.
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Omega is ostensibly an Opposite-Sex Clone of the male Jango Fett, as she presents and identifies as female and is initially identified on sight as an enhanced clone, same as the Bad Batch. However, Prime Minister Lama Su later refers to her as an "unaltered clone", bringing up the very real possibility that she was genetically male at her creation like the only other known "unaltered clone", Boba Fett, but is transgender or intersex. The ambiguity comes from the context of the conversation, as the alterations under discussion were specifically those related to the viability of Omega as a template for future clones (lacking Rapid Aging as well as the biological and mental conditioning to make the Clone Troopers obedient and docile). However, the lack of clarity of the Prime Minister's meaning behind "unaltered" leaves the door open for either interpretation.
- Steven Universe: Smoky Quartz, Rainbow Quartz 2.0, and Sunstone are fusions of a male character and a Gem (a species that are technically sexless but all appear female). Fans generally consider them non-binary. In Rainbow's case, having an explicitly male voice actor and one of the staff explicitly using "him" to refer to Rainbow just adds to this. While Smoky only ever gets called "they," Rainbow 2.0 gets called "he" and "they" in canon while Sunstone gets called both "she" and "they."
- Thomas & Friends: During production of season 4, Britt Alcroft noticed that there never were any women among the narrow gauge engines. As such, Rusty was reworked into being gender-neutral, only being referred to by name or as "the little diesel." While this continued throughout the rest of the classic series, the change was undone in the Hit era; while initial airings of season 9 referred to Rusty as a girl, re-runs and DVDs featuring the episodes would make the character male, which has stuck ever since.
- Young Justice: In-Universe example. Halo/Violet Harper is fine with female pronouns, but eventually realize that they don't feel comfortable being called a boy or a girl and decide they feel better as just "me" until they figure it out. They eventually settle on "They" and "Them".