Basic Trope: A woman disguises herself as a man to achieve a certain purpose.
- Straight: Alice disguises herself as a man and becomes a soldier.
- Exaggerated:
- In the army, Alice makes a new friend, Bob — who turns out to be a girl in disguise as well.
- The entire army is only made up of women who disguised themselves as men.
- Downplayed: Alice disguises herself as a man for a single battle, after which she reveals herself.
- Justified:
- Alice is an Action Girl, who has to join the army to protect her beloved Non-Action Guy, who was drafted.
- Alice was raised as a guy.
- Women aren't allowed to serve openly in the military, so the only way for Alice to be a soldier is to dress as a man.
- Inverted: Harmless Lady Disguise — like the Non-Action Guy disguising himself as a woman to avoid the draft.
- Subverted:
- The other soldiers suspect Charlie — a rather feminine peer of theirs — is a woman in disguise. They ask Charlie's bunk mate, who says that Charlie is really a man.
- Charlie is assumed to be a woman but is not pretending to be a man. He is a transgender man.
- Charlie shows 'obvious' tells like having a bandaged chest and never taking his shirt off when other men do. He is later revealed to have gynecomastia and he hid them because he was embarrassed about them.
- Double Subverted:
- …but Charlie's roommate was lying — Charlie is a woman, and her her bunk mate was trying to protect her.
- The story treats this as a bad thing.
- Parodied: Alice's disguise is a (literal) paper mustache or a pair of Groucho glasses
, but the men buy it. - Zig-Zagged: The other soldiers suspect Charlie — who's somewhat feminine, and who never changes in front of them — is a girl in disguise. They snoop to find out, and discover that Charlie is really intersex.
- Averted:
- No one disguises themselves as another gender.
- Everyone who dresses as another gender does so for their own enjoyment, not to accomplish anything.
- Enforced:
- It is an adaptation of Mulan where said aspect is central.
- Alternatively, it's inspired by a similar true story about a woman disguising as a man.
- Lampshaded:
- The soldiers suspect Bob is a girl in disguise. They ask their general about it, and he says, "Oh yeah, that happens all the time."
- Or:"Hey guys I think Charlie is a girl in disguise."
"You mean like Mulan in Mulan?"
"And Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings?"
"And Arya in Game of Thrones?"
[They go on listing examples for 5 minutes]
- Invoked: Alice disguises herself as a boy because her favorite Heroine did.
- Exploited:
- Alice's boss figures this out and blackmails her with this information so she'll sleep with him.
- The Military is suffering from such a severe soldier shortage that it is willing to look the other way and let Alice fight.
- Defied: Alice refuses to dress as a boy, and instead fights for the army to allow women to join.
- Discussed:"But he's going to get drafted! I can't let that happen!"
"You could dress up like a boy, and join with him — all the girls in stories like this do." - Conversed: "Can you imagine pretending to be the opposite gender for a certain purpose?"
- Implied: The guys suspect Bob is a girl in disguise. This is never confirmed nor disproved.
- Deconstructed: Alice dies heroically in battle, but when the medic finds the body her secret is out. In order to save face, the military pretends she never existed.
- Reconstructed: Alice's brothers-in-arms don't forget her sacrifice, and fight furiously to get her the recognition she deserves.
- Gender-Inverted:
- Bob decides he can better serve his country by disguising himself as a woman and hiding among the enemy's maidservants as a spy.
- Or he is a police officer who disguises himself as a woman to catch rapists and purse snatchers.
- Bob disguises himself to join with the Amazon Brigade or a coven because they were barred to him.
- Played For Laughs: "Captain Bob" is obviously a girl in disguise. Everyone around "him" is so stupid that no one notices.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice is captured by the enemy. She soon realizes that as a woman, she's not classified as a soldier, which means the rules protecting POWs don't apply to her...
- Alternatively, see Exploited.
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