Your personal cases of Viewer Gender Confusion

All the sheep in Shaun The Sheep. I like though that only Timmy and Shaun himself are male.

I thought Pusheen was male until I read her bio on the back of a library book.

I thought that Knuckles was a girl. I'm pretty sure a lot of people had this misconception and that's why they made his fur red instead of pink.

There was a cartoon called C.O.P.S. growing up had a character named Dr. Bad Vibes. I still don't know if the character was man or a woman.

My first watch of The Wire, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize Snoop was a woman

Me Too. Snoop was a woman?! I was genuinely surprised by this.

I grew up with the 1980s iteration of the Care Bears where Lotsa Heart Elephant was apparently a guy but I always thought he was a girl because he had a high-pitched voice, eyelashes and was pink.

The first time that my brother and I watched Chicken Run, we briefly thought that Mrs. Tweedy was a man because she lacked any tertiary sexual characteristics, had short hair and an androgynous sounding voice. However, we quickly realized that we were wrong as soon as she was referred to as "Mrs.".

A real life example would be due to the fact that all of the boys in my class had short hair growing up, it was not uncommon for me to mistake boys/men with long hair for girls/women. There were also a few instances where I mistook girls with really short hair for boys.

Somehow, by some opposite of a miracle, when I first played Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, I thought Cheryl was a guy. I don't even know how I managed to mess that up. It took seeing her Bulbapedia article for me to realize.

I thought Tweety Bird was female, like many people did.

For whatever reason, I went into Wings of Fire blind enough to not know Starflight's gender, and I got surprised when the first book used male pronouns for him. Again, I have no idea why this happened.

For a more obscure example, in the DeviantArt webcomic The Crazy High Sea Adventure, I thought Luze from Chapter 6 was female, even though he had no eyelashes. I only learned he was male in a discussion with the comic's creator on Discord.

Last time I checked, my little brother still thinks Tails is a girl, even if his real name is Miles Prower, which is usually a guy's name.

Much like some other people, I used to think Alphys was a boy.

Admitedlly, I like her actual gender better.

When I was a kid, I thought George the hippo from Rainbow was a girl. He’s not, he’s just very effeminate.

Mine are:

• Freddi Fish (is female, mistook for male)
• Hat Kid (is female, mistook for non-binary)
• Bluey (is female, mistook for male)
• Charmy Bee (is male, mistook for female)

I also thought Charmy was a girl.

I feel like most people initially feel like Bluey is a guy, myself included.

I thought Brick from Incredibles 2 was male the first few times I saw the movie. The fact that she had a fairly androgynous-sounding voice didn't help.

Before I saw Turning Red, I also assumed that Miriam was a boy.

I used to think Nermal and Tweety Bird were girls. And I thought Blue from Blue's Clues was a boy when I first watched the show as a very small child (I figured it out when Steve said "I'm looking for Blue. She's my puppy.)

I also thought Jasper from Steven Universe was male at first considering her voice and name (okay, technically Gems are genderless, but still....)

I definately remember thinking Tails was a girl

Most recent case for me: I initially thought Elm was female or nonbinary. He is, in fact, male. Doesn't help that even his voice sounds rather androgynous.

For the longest time I used to think Kurama was a girl and my homie who also likes the show had to tell me he's a guy about a year ago

When I read Chainsaw Man for the first time, I somehow thought Quanxi was a man for a good while (if you're wondering how, it was the censored version, as well as me speed reading)

Edited by BILLYMAYS!!!! on Apr 3rd 2023 at 11:42:52 AM

Oh yes, I forgot about Jasper. Not only I thought she was a man, I didn't even think she was a Gem. I didn't watch the episodes yet, just saw a few pictures and heard about a musical number so I assumed that this Jasper dude was some old glam rocker pal of Greg who renewed his musical career with his new song titled "Stronger than You".

I thought Ralsei was a girl when he took his mask off.

As a young kid I used to think Jerry was a girl, mainly because of his eyelashes. Doesn't help that "Jerry" isn't a common name here, so kid-me didn't know it's typically a male name

When I saw the trailers for Persona 5: The Phantom X, I thought the protagonist was a tomboyish girl based on his outfit. It wasn't until I went to the wiki and found out that he is a guy.

I vaguely remember thinking that Blue from Blue's Clues was male, although considering I watched that show all the time when I was younger and (as that show's entry on Viewer Gender Confusion mentions) Blue is regularly referred to by female pronouns, so I think I managed to figure it out pretty quickly.

I do remember hearing the Common Knowledge about Magenta being a boy, in an inversion of Pink Girl, Blue Boy, and briefly assuming it might be true.

When we were very young, my brother and I thought Luigi was a girl. Don't ask how; apparently we're ignoring that stache he's got and based the thought on his SMB 2 sprite.

As for recent times, when Fire Emblem: Three Houses was in the pipeline and characters are shown off, I thought Linhardt was a dapper-looking girl.

Edited by Berrenta on Apr 6th 2023 at 11:35:21 AM