Basic Trope: A character's sex/gender is unclear.
- Straight: Sam looks very androgynous, has an androgyonus voice, is never referred to with any pronouns, and their sex and gender are never stated.
- Exaggerated: My'reen belongs to a species with five sexes and a culture that recognizes seven genders, but which sex and gender they are is anyone's guess.
- Downplayed: Characters tend to assume Sam's gender in an inconsistent manner, with some referring to Sam as a woman and others as a man, but Sam doesn't try to correct anyone.
- Justified:
- Sam is from a culture where gender roles and expectations are very different from those of the other characters' and the target audience's culture, and ends up not fitting into any of the latter culture's boxes.
- Sam doesn't try to correct anyone or make their gender clear because they don't consider gender an important part of who they are.
- Sam is intersex.
- Inverted: Sam's gender is known, but Sam is misgendered all the time regardless.
- Subverted: Sam clarifies that he's a man shortly after being introduced.
- Double Subverted: ???
- Parodied: Even Sam has no idea what gender they are.
- Zig-Zagged: Sam claims to be a different gender every time they're asked. They make it clear they aren't Genderfluid either, so they're really just messing with people.
- Averted: Every character's gender is made clear on introduction.
- Enforced: The author thinks the characters' genders are irrelevant, and goes out of their way to avoid revealing anyone's gender.
- Lampshaded: "Okay, what are you?''
- Invoked: Sam dresses in androgynous clothing on purpose to confuse people.
- Exploited: Sam is questioning their gender. They let people assume differently to see if it leads to any gender euphoria or dysphoria in a bid to figure it out.
- Defied: Sam clearly states she's a woman first thing very time she meets someone new because she's tired of people asking or mistaking her for a man.
- Discussed: "So what is Sam's gender?" "I have no idea either".
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Sam never makes a full appearance, but every time they're mentioned, the characters experience Pronoun Trouble.
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played for Laughs: Alice writes to Bob about her hangout with Sam, but constantly needs to pause and rethink how to write her sentences to avoid using pronouns because she doesn't know Sam's gender, and doesn't want to admit this to Bob. As she becomes a bit frustrated, Carol starts making fun of her struggle.
- Played for Drama: Sam is too afraid of going to the bathroom at an event because no matter which one they enter, people might assume they're in the wrong bathroom and mistake them for a creep.
Back to Ambiguous Gender.
