Aquillion
Since: Jan, 2001
Aug 28th 2015 at 2:57:10 AM
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As an aside (for anyone reading this since then), later pages confirmed that angels are not supposed to be gendered at all and that among them, identifying as a gender is considered deviant.
As far as 82's gender goes, I noticed this page uses male pronouns for them — obviously 82 indicates they're not female, but have they ever asserted that they're male? Given their status as an angel, and their decided lack of any physical gender-identifiers, it's possible that 82 simply objects to being described in gendered terms at all.
I mentioned this because I noticed that Cio, who, out of the characters we've seen so far, seems like the closest thing to a friend 82 has, still refers to them with female pronouns. My assumption is that Cio wouldn't do that if male ones were obviously more appropriate, but might do it if neither are appropriate and she simply doesn't care about 82's insistence on being non-gendered. In fact, I just reread, and nobody uses male pronouns for 82 at any point in the story, nor does anyone refer to 82 as male (the closest thing is someone calling 82 a 'lawman', which, noticeably, 82 immediately disavows, though it's not clear whether that's because "peacekeeper" is a more accurate title or because 'lawman' is implicitly gendered.)
Of course, I assume if 82 doesn't identify as male, that will come up eventually in-story, but I thought I'd point it out — "I am not female" doesn't automatically mean "I identify as male". (I also noticed another angel referred to 82 as "sisterbrother", which might have been an insult given how 82 responds to being referred to as female, but might also simply have been a reference to 82's non-binary gender or the non-binary gender of angels in general — especially given that just 'sister' would have been a more obvious insult if that was their intent.)
In fact, 23's full comment is "Sisterbrother certainly liked to hear her tongue wag", using what's apparently a third-gender term, but a female pronoun, which makes me suspect that angels (or at least 82's type) are a third gender that gets female pronouns. I mean, like I said, 23 could have just been being insulting or ignoring 82's identity, but then why use "sisterbrother?"
Edited by Aquillion Hide / Show Replies