Basic Trope: A male character with a feminine appearance.
- Straight: Alex has long hair, a soft face, and is clean-shaven. He is often mistaken for a female.
- Exaggerated:
- No one sees Alex as a man, even his family forgets he is a man too.
- Alex is so ridiculously girly looking that he once won a beauty contest against top female models. Alex even renames herself Alice.
- Alex has long hair, a soft face, an Effeminate Voice, a full hip, lacks body hair, and even has some breasts too.
- Downplayed:
- Some people mistake Alex for a woman, but it is cleared up quickly when they look at him closely and/or hear his voice, all confusion is cleared immediately.
- Alex is slightly androgynous at best.
- Pretty Boy
- Bishōnen
- Justified:
- Alex grows his hair out and wears makeup because he's a singer and it's what his fans like.
- Alex is an alien disguised as a human that doesn't quite understand the differences between the sexes.
- Alex is transgender and is currently in the process of transitioning.
- Alex uncannily looks like a Spear Counterpart of his mother due to her stronger genetics.
- Inverted: Lady Looks Like a Dude
- Subverted: Alex is thought to be a girly-looking boy, but turns out to be an actual woman.
- Double Subverted: Except he was lying about that and actually is a guy.
- Parodied:
- Alex is a 15-year-old boy, but looks like an 80-year-old woman.
- Alex is muscular and has a full beard, so he is clearly a man, but he is still mistaken for a lady due to his soft facial features and his Effeminate Voice.
- Alex looks, dresses, acts, and sounds completely manly according to the audience, but in-universe characters still mistake him for a woman. Bonus points if there are so many Lady Looks Like a Dude in the cast.
- ... And to make things "worse", even Alex himself forgets the fact that he is also a man too!
- Zig Zagged:
- Alex looks like a girl, but is muscular and has a noticeable bulge.
- Some people think Alex looks like a lady, and some don't.
- Alex's physical appearance and public image vary Depending on the Writer.
- Averted: Alex is male and looks male.
- Enforced:
- Alex is played by a woman.
- It's a Chromosome Casting Cast Full of Pretty Boys and the creators don't want to add female characters to the team, so they create a guy who only looks female instead.
- Alex is the main character in Otokonoko Genre.
- Alex is an Uke in Yaoi Genre.
- Lampshaded: "Looking for Alex? If you see an extremely flat-chested girl, that's him."
- Invoked: Wholesome Crossdresser.
- Exploited: Alex takes advantage of the fact that he looks like a girl and poses as one for a certain event.
- Defied: The moment he's called girly, Alex cuts his hair short, starts growing a beard, and gains more muscle.
- Discussed: "Hmm. We're hopping between parallel universes. I wonder what Alex will look like."
- Conversed: "Why does every anime have one of those girly-boy characters?"
- Deconstructed: Though Alex firmly views himself as male, others are unnerved by his very feminine appearance, making up all kinds of justifications on their own. Thus Alex is frequently treated as if he's transgender, was once female, is homosexual, and so on. Eventually, Alex ends up questioning his own identity because of them, forcibly making himself more masculine or even buying into the uninformed behavior just so he'll be socially accepted.
- Reconstructed: Though people may make assumptions about Alex because of his feminine appearance, he doesn't engage in anything actively feminine. Thus, the people that know him understand very well his orientation and gender identity, whilst for strangers, he calmly breaks down their assumptions or just ignores them if they won't listen.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alex's roommate walks in on him changing from behind. Hilarity Ensues.
- Alex land a date with a lesbian and/or a girl who Does Not Like Men because she doesn't see him as a man.
- Played For Drama:
- Alex is in love with Jane, but she won't date him because of his looks.
- Alex and Jane are a couple until Jane realizes she's a lesbian in denial and is only attracted to Alex because of his feminine appearance.
- Being mistaken for a woman causes Alex to hate himself and have an identity crisis.
- Alex is harassed by a bunch of He-Man Woman Hater because they don't see him as a man and think that he is weaker than other men.
- Alternately, the Straw Feminist giving grief to Alex, who are discovered to have been female-passing.
- Played For Horror: Alex uses the fact that he looks like a girl to become a serial rapist, and gets away with it by poses himself as one.
- Implied: A feminine-looking Ambiguous Gender person is called "Alexander".
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