Gender-Concealing Writing

Gender Concealing Writing happens when an unseen character is referred to by gender-neutral nouns and honorifics (Doctor, President, Judge), or also nouns generally associated with one specific gender, causing the viewers to assume the character is male when they are actually female or vice versa. The Reveal that they are the opposite gender is generally treated as a surprise by the other characters, and if the twist is done correctly by the writer the reader/viewer should have the same reaction.

This trope loses its subtlety in languages that have gendered definite and indefinite articles or gendered verb forms and adjectives. The use of the character's name instead of pronouns is a major giveaway that this is the case. This is, however, possible to subvert by using diminutives usually associated with one particular gender (e.g. "Alex" for Alexandra or "Sam" for Samantha).

See also Samus Is a Girl, which is the same but with a character who has appeared on screen prior to the reveal, and She Is the King, where the character has a title associated with a specific gender, but is the opposite gender the title implies. Contrast with Gender-Inclusive Writing. Cast as a Mask may also be used to further obscure a character's real gender, especially if the character is not directly seen on screen such as through a voiceover or Imagine Spot.

Examples May Contain Spoilers.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom:
  • An important example that caught many translators off guard: When it is mentioned that there is someone in Class-E that has greater bloodlust than Itona, the lack of gendered language is used to mask that that person isn't Nagisa, but Kayano/Akari.
  • The brief discussion over Class E's previous teacher, Yukimura-sensei, was translated using male pronouns although the original uses gender neutral pronouns. Yukimura-sensei is eventually revealed to be a woman.
• In Bleach, the heroes talk about the rumored Kuukaku Shiba as a guy (not helped by the fact that the name sounds very masculine in Japanese) until they discover proof of the contrary and see that she is in fact a very busty woman.
• A Certain Magical Index the leader of GREMLIN is only ever referred to as either One Eyed Odin or One Eyed Othinus, named after a male god from Norse Mythology, which makes it quite surprising when she's revealed to actually be female.
• In Happy Yarou Wedding, Todou refers to Chiharu, Kazuki's tutor, as being a "substitute mother" to Kazuki. Yuuhi assumes he's a woman because of this ambiguity, but he ends up being a man.
• I Think Our Son Is Gay: When questioned by his friends about the person he likes, Hiroki gives various characteristics of Daigo that can be applied to both genders, but he never specifies the gender of the person he likes by dropping the subject from his answer. His friends assume he's talking about a girl, and Tomoko realizes he might be getting better at lying.
  Hiroki: Uhhh, umm... Smart. Calm. Dependable. The kind of person other people rely on. Looks great in glasses too!
• In Maoyu, Hero comes to the Demon world to search for the Maou (translated as "demonic ruler") and is extremely surprised to discover that she is in fact a very polite, buxom redheaded woman. Though her title in Japanese is technically gender neutral she's assumed in story to be male until the reveal, and some translations refer to her as the Demon King to keep the ambiguity.
• In the One Piece fandom, Dadan was speculated to be a man, but eventually proved to be a woman. An ugly woman but still a woman.
• In Scrapped Princess, Mauser is referenced throughout the series either by name only or as "Lord God Mauser". Mauser's name even sounds like it would belong to a male. In the end, however, not only is Mauser revealed to be a woman, she looks like a twenty-something version of Pacifica!
• Steins;Gate,
  • Alleged time traveler John Titor is given a male voice when his online chats are read aloud in the narration, which along with the name disguises that he's actually a female character, Amane Suzuha.
  • Also used in regards to the true identity of FB, Moeka's contact and Living Emotional Crutch, since the distinctly feminine tone of FB's texts to her disguises that they're actually being sent by Tennouji Yuugo/Mr. Braun.
• In World Conquest Zvezda Plot, the unseen commander of White Light speaks to the agents as a male voice coming from a blank screen. When the commander finally shows up in person, White Robin and White Egret are both surprised to learn that she's actually a woman who used a vocal filter to mask her voice.

Comics

• In 1988, British girls' comic Bunty ran a story called "The Seven Sisters", in which a young girl named Emily travels around Victorian England searching for her six siblings, the oldest of whom is named Pat. For most of the story, Emily believes Pat is short for Patricia - and the title leads the reader to make the same assumption. However, in the final installment, Emily and her sister, Mary, meet a young man named Patrick who turns out to be the missing sibling.

Film

• In The Avengers (1998), the head of the Ministry is a man codenamed "Mother", as in the series. To continue the joke, his deputy is a woman called "Father".
• Cube 2: Hypercube has many people looking for "Alex Trusk," who is only known by name, as a hacker. It turns out that "Alex" is Sasha, who has been in the hypercube with them the whole time. Also doubles as a Bilingual Bonus since "Sasha" is a common diminutive for people named Alexander/Alexandra in Slavic countries
• In Ghostbusters (1984), Gozer is assumed to be a man, but appears in the form of a woman.
  Winston: I thought Gozer was a man.
  Egon: It's whatever it wants to be.
• Hitch has characters repeatedly referring to Allegra Cole's "best friend," Maggie, who is a designer. Everyone assumes Maggie to be a female, but when Albert finally meets "her," Maggie's a man.
• Neville's dog in I Am Legend is referred to as "Sam" throughout until Neville yells out "Samantha" when she is injured and infected trying to protect him. The reveal makes the scene extra sad.
• In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and Marcus know that "Dr. Schneider" will meet them in Venice, and expect a man, not the beautiful Dr. Elsa Schneider.
• In Madeline, when trying to convince the Uzbekistan ambassador couple to let them keep the school, Ms. Clavel appeals to "Mr. Ambassador" only for the man to reveal his wife is the Ambassador. Lord Covington apparently never knew either, despite being the one who initially sold the school to them.
• Mission: Impossible (1996): The weapon's dealer Max is thought to be a man before she meets Ethan, who has a moment of surprise realizing she's a woman. Later Kittridge walks right by her while looking for Max because he's looking for a suspicious man and doesn't look twice at her.
• In the opening scene of Spider Man Home Coming, Adrian Toomes refers to his daughter as his "kid" and shows his co-workers a drawing she did of the Avengers, nudging the audience towards the assumption that he has a son prior to the reveal that Liz is his daughter. The cinematic arm of the MCU hadn't depicted an interracial couple before, so viewers might also assume Toomes's child is white.
• S.W.A.T. (2003) features Chris Sanchez, who was one of the members of the SWAT Team, who was thought to be named Christopher, turns out to be a woman named Christina. Most women named either Christina or Christine (especially younger women) tend to go by either Chrissy, Christy or Christie these days.
• Them! features Dr. Pat Medford, who the characters expect to be a male entomologist, presumably named Patrick, instead of the female entomologist named Patricia. Them! was such an influential film that a great many science fiction films of the era also had female scientist characters with male or androgynous names... sometimes even when there wasn't any actual misdirection!
• Happens twice in The View Askewniverse:
  • In Chasing Amy: When closet bisexual Alyssa starts dating Holden, she tells her lesbian friends that she's seeing someone new, but they notice she's very cagey when it comes to her partner's pronouns, forcing her to admit she was always a bisexual who just happened to skew towards women.
  • Clerks II has "Kinky Kelly", one half of a depraved donkey show. Randall points out that Kinky Kelly's website doesn't have any photographs and Kelly's handler only ever refers to Kelly by name, never by pronouns. Then Randall and company find out that Kelly is the donkey — who is male because "Kelly can be a guy's name, too" — and Kelly's partner is a fat guy.

Literature

• Double Standard, a 1952 sci-fi tale by Alfred Coppel, has a disguised man sneaking on board a Retro Rocket because only a certain type is allowed into Outer Space. The Reveal is that he's disguised as a woman because the crew is entirely female. The story has the usual female nurse or "girl assistant" you'd expect from a 50's scifi tale, but takes care to avoid mentioning the gender of the ship's officers. Likewise the man's fake identity document just gives an initial for his first name.

• In The Lost Symbol, Langstron assumes that the head of the CIA's Office of Security, Inoue Sato, is a man before meeting her.
• In The Malloreon, everyone just assumes Zandramas is male until Salmissra spills the beans.
• In Nice Work: Factory managing director Vic Wilcox is told he will have an academic shadowing him, called Robin Penrose. The name is spelled incorrectly, is actually "Robyn Penrose", and the academic is actually a woman.
• In Otherland by Tad Williams, Orlando Gardiner and Sam Fredericks only know each other through their online role-playing personas, which are both male. Later it is revealed that "Sam" is in fact a girl.
• The Quarters series by Tanya Huff often refers to minor or background characters by their occupation — "two guards", "a secretary" — a few lines before the gendered pronoun is used. The reader then realizes that the guard or secretary to which s/he had unthinkingly assigned the "conventional" gender is, in fact, just the opposite.
• In The Subtle Knife, the second book in His Dark Materials, Lyra goes searching for a Dr. Malone in our world's version of Oxford and is surprised when she meets Dr. Mary Malone, since "scholars" in her world are exclusively male.

Live-Action TV

• In an early episode of 30 Rock Jack sets up Liz with a friend of his named Thomas, who turns out to be a female named Gretchen Thomas. Jack thought Liz was a lesbian.
• During most of the first season of Alias, Sydney and SD-6 run up against an organization led by a mysterious character referred to as simply "The Man." In the season finale it is revealed that The Man was a woman, namely Irina.
• In the TV series The Avengers (1960s), Steed's boss, codenamed "Mother" (or some variations on "grandma" in translations), is a man in a wheelchair.
• Done In-Universe on The Commish, where Tony's new Number Two is a female but his wife doesn't realize that until she meets her, because Tony always refers to her as "Syd."
• Averted: On the episode "All Mixed Up" of Cougar Town they do a similar thing with Jennifer Aniston's character who repeatedly brings up "Gabriel" while discussing Jules' son. Then it turns out Gabriel was her dog.
• In a deleted scene from Doctor Who story The Claws of Axos, American government official Bill Filer arrives at UNIT HQ looking for Jo Grant. It's clear when they meet that he was expecting a Joseph rather than a Josephine.
• Farscape
  • When John Crichton tries to assure the aliens who've thrown him in a cell that he means them no harm, Rygel points to another occupant of the cell—a menacing figure in a black spacesuit with smoked-glass helmet—and says, "We can no more trust you than we can trust that!" Of course calling their captive "her" would have given the Samus Is a Girl trope away before Aeryn Sun removes her space helmet.
  • In "Family Ties", Aeryn relates an incident from her childhood.
    Aeryn: When I was very young, one night a soldier appeared over my bunk. Battle-hardened. Scarred...
    John: Your father.
    Aeryn: My mother.
• In one episode of How I Met Your Mother Marshall and Barney keep on telling Ted stories about a wild coworker named Jenkins. Jenkins is purported to have done many things, like telling bawdy stories, drinking heavily, and participating in eating contests. Since the show is narrated from Ted's point of view, the scenes involving Jenkins show an enthusiastic, overweight, and middle-aged man (presumably what Ted imagines Jenkins to look like). Of course, later on, Jenkins is revealed to be a young woman, and when Ted replays the scenes in his head with the real Jenkins, they take on an entirely different tone.
• Similarly on Las Vegas, famed Casino Host Samantha Marquez is referred to as "Sam," and thus assumed to be a man by Danny.
• In Lost, Danielle Rousseau abducts Sayid thinking he was one of those who had kidnapped her daughter. She questions him about her whereabout, but only refers to her as "Alex" and "child." In season two, we meet a girl who only later is revealed to be Alexandra, her long lost child. (This created issues in foreign languages, as some DVD subtitles had referred to Alex as male.)
• Married... with Children: Al works at Gary's Shoes & Accessories For Today's Women. Al worked there for 20 years before finally meeting Gary and learning Gary's actually a woman.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: When Juna hears that Bambang's cousin Dian is coming to the dorm, he assumes that Dian is a beautiful girl and makes plans to attract Dian. It's only when Dian arrives that Juna (and the audience) finds out that Dian is a muscular guy.
• During the first episodes of Prison Break, we learn that Lincoln was framed for killing the Vice-President's brother. Behind this conspiracy, there's a mysterious unseen and unidentified woman, only heard and usually seen doing seemingly household chores, who seems resolute to expedite Lincoln's execution. Later it runs out that she is the Vice-President.
• In-universe one in The Puzzle Place. The viewers, as well as Julie and Kiki, know Jodi's karate instructor Grand Master Li is a woman, but Ben, Leon, and Skye do not. So when they refuse to accept that Jodi is better at karate than Ben even after beating him more than once, they video call Grand Master Li and presume the man she's sparring with is Grand Master Li. Leon's question about if boys are better than girls is answered when the man informs him his female partner is Grand Master Li.
• In the Stargate SG-1 pilot, Captain Samantha Carter is intentionally referred to as "Sam" so that O'Neill can shoot his mouth off about having 'some new guy' added to his team as she walks in behind him.
• There was an episode of Step by Step where JT Lambert dismisses the idea of female mechanics before sending his car to get fixed by a mechanic named "Sam," who's considered to be the best mechanic in town (and who JT assumes is a guy). It's not until JT meets Sam in person that he learns that Sam is actually a girl (her real name is "Samantha"). JT also discovers that they actually have a lot in common besides cars and mechanics (such as both of them being big fans of the Green Bay Packers)—as a result, they develop feelings for each other and even become boyfriend-and-girlfriend.
• Titus: An episode revolves around Christopher Titus trying to talk his niece out of suicide because she's distraught over her relationship with "Charlie". Come The Tag, it's revealed that Charlie is actually a blonde biker babe (played by a young Riki Lindhome), to Titus's astonishment.
• The mysterious Big Bad of Utopia is only known as Mr. Rabbit, but turns out to be a woman.
• In The X-Files this was planned for Mulder's new Mysterious Informant Mr. X (after Deep Throat is killed), an actress is even the one providing the silhouettes initially, but this was changed at the last minute.
• Elementary: People who know Moriarty's identity only ever refer to her by her name, never by a pronoun, until moments before The Reveal.

Radio

• In Cabin Pressure, when Martin is practicing for his Swiss Air exam, Douglas decides to throw a question at him, asking what he'd do if he was on layover, went to the hotel bar, and saw his first officer in a cocktail dress. Martin begins "Well, we're not on duty, so I respect his life choices and..." before Douglas interrupts to ask why he assumes a first officer must be a man. Carolyn assures him they don't actually do trick questions like that any more.

Tabletop Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons' module Castle Caldwell and Beyond: The quest The Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent mentions that the information in the initial briefing was written in a way that implies that Elwyn is male, and the party should be allowed to believe this so that they will not immediately realize the woman's voice is actually Elwyn, and instead spring the surprise at the final battle. There's no mention on what the surprise should entail.

Video Games

• In Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, "The Company Man", a Master Templar in charge of the New Orleans chapter of the Templar Order that Aveline has been trying to find turns out to be her stepmother Madeline.
• The true identity of the Imperator Librarius in BlazBlue turns out to be a female, Jin and Ragna's long-lost sister Saya a fact disguised by the masculine sounding title. Less so in the original Japanese where the title is the gender-neutral "Mikado."
• The early levels of Candy Crush Saga introduced a mysterious, friendly dragon who is described to be male, but was later on revealed to be actually female and given the name Denize.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the main antagonist of the first half is a masked individual calling themselves the Flame Emperor. While they are presumed male throughout Three Houses itself, Fire Emblem Heroes refers to them with gender-neutral pronouns. She's a woman.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: During the countryside missions that follow the first act, Caeser hooks up CJ with his cousin, whom he only refers to as "they". This is to preserve the reveal that it's Catalina, the antagonist from Grand Theft Auto III.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, long-deceased Predecessor Villain Darth Revan is never referred to with gendered pronouns to hide the twist that their gender is player-determined.
• In Mass Effect 2, you don't see "Jack", the deadly Subject Zero, until the end of the mission. You've heard a number of people in the nightmarish prison Purgatory refer to Jack in terror up until this point. When you release Subject Zero from the cryogenic cell the notorious criminal's been sealed in as a safety measure, most players were probably a little surprised to find that she's a small young woman in her twenties. Unless, of course, you watched the trailers.
• In Metal Gear Solid we hear about Dr. Clark, who turned Gray Fox into the Cyborg Ninja. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots we discover that Dr. Clark is a woman, Para-Medic from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. In this case it's one-half this trope (in universe, since the character who referred to her as man had never actually met her) one part Retcon since they decided to combine what were originally two different characters.
• Persona 5 has the protagonist be contacted by someone going by the name of "Alibaba"; despite the name being an obvious pseudonym, the thieves still refer to this person with "he" pronouns. It's only once they piece what little information they have together that they realise that Alibaba is Futaba Sakura, Sojiro Sakura's adopted daughter. Her previous online handle of Medjed is also fairly gender-neutral.
• In the Tales Series:
  • Harold Berselius, the Mad Scientist in Tales of Destiny 2, is in fact a woman and chose "Harold" on purpose to surprise people.
  • An early subplot in Tales of Vesperia has the party searching for a great mage named Mordio. Upon meeting Rita Mordio, they are surprised to find out they're not only female, but much younger than they expected.

Visual Novels

• In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the culprit of Chapter 3 (Mikan Tsumiki)'s motive is centered around their "beloved". The Japanese version never mentions said "beloved"'s gender, so the audience might be reasonably able to suspect that the "beloved" is a romantic lover. Turns out that said "beloved" is the female Junko Enoshima, which, Les Yay implications aside, means that the culprit likely intended to say that she "loved" her in a fit of despair. The English localization tries to use "their" in a way of covering this up, though it then trips the player's radar as to why it would be used for someone the culprit should most definitely know the gender of.
• In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All, everyone in court refers to Adrian Andrews this way while the assassin De Killer is listening to proceedings, because in one later testimony he refers to the (female) Adrian as 'him', thus revealing that he did not meet her in person.
  • However, earlier, without being told, he refers to his client's manager as a she without being told, most likely an oversight or having never heard the manager's actual name.
  • Another minor example in the same game. Until the trial in chapter 2, the prosecutor is only referred to as "Prosecutor von Karma" or with gender-neutral nouns like von Karma's "kid" or "successor". When the trial starts, Franziska von Karma's opening dialogue acknowledges the reveal and wonders if Phoenix is surprised.

Webcomics

• In Check, Please!, Bitty and the readers are led to believe that the hockey team's manager Lardo is male like the rest of the team due to the hockey players all talking up Lardo as being capable of outdrinking and besting all of them at beer pong. Turns out Lardo is a tiny Vietnamese girl who just happens to be The Lad-ette.
• In Kill Six Billion Demons: Jadis' Prophecy of the Successor speaks of The Chosen One, the Successor, who will defeat the Seven Black Emperors flanked by a black and white flame and wielding the terrible Blade of Want. It is heavily implied that the Prophecy was mistranslated by her priests, however, leading to the use of a male pronoun and thus the Emperors to believe that Zaid is the Successor and not Allison. Only Jadis and Incubus knows better, and neither are telling.

Web Original

• On this very wiki, it is not unheard of for tropers to use gender-neutral "they/them" pronouns in situations where merely specifying a character's gender can run the risk of spoilers. "They/them" is also frequently used for Player Characters whose gender is customizable or left unstated if no canon gender is ever given to them (for example, Commander Shepard from Mass Effect).

Web Videos

• Season one of Pretty Dudes has Eagle, who is referred to in the first several episodes and doesn't appear until the final moments of the fifth.

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: Batman believed the terrorist known as "Red Claw" to be a man until they met.
• In The Loud House episode "L Is For Love", Luna's crush Sam isn't referred to with any pronouns. This is to hide the fact that she's a girl. However, despite the lack of pronouns, the other Louds do seem to assume the crush is a boy judging by their actions.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • In the episode "Oil On Candace", Dr. Doofenshmirtz is awaiting a visit from his old evil science professor, "the mighty Dr. Gevaarlijk!" No pronouns are used to refer to Gevaarlijk before she appears, and she turns out to be a diminutive older lady.
  • Brazilians don't have a gender-neutral equivalent for "Professor". When the episode where Professor Poofenplotz was first mentioned was translated for Brazilian audiences, they used the masculine equivalent. Then the episode "Isabella and the Temple of Sap" reveals Professor Poofenplotz is a woman.
• Pole Position: The heroes once had to meet a T. D. Russel and were never told if Russel was a man or a woman. After getting rid of two men claiming to be Russel, they learn the real one is a woman.
• Gender-neutral writing has crept into the episodes of The Smurfs (1981) to keep Baby Smurf's gender identity anonymous — although at one instance Papa Smurf does refer to Baby Smurf as a "he".
• The season 2 premiere of Wander over Yonder introduced Knight of Cerebus Lord Dominator, who's set up as an Always Someone Better version of erstwhile Big Bad Lord Hater and is only seen as a suit of towering armor until the ending reveals her to the audience as an adorable Psychopathic Womanchild of a Green-Skinned Space Babe. The other characters continue to assume Lord Dominator is male and refer to "him" with male pronouns until she gets a very public Samus Is a Girl reveal in "The Battle Royale," changing the game considerably since more than one of her rivals now wants to date her.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo?: The gang once went to an amusement park without knowing anything about its owners than their names ("Chris" and "Terry") and their fame obtained by building the park's rides. The gang initially expected both of them to be guys, but it turns out that Chris and Terry are actually both girls (and sisters).

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