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Gender-Neutral Writing (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:xkcd_145_-_parody_week_-_dinosaur_comics_-_ALSO_HOW_ABOUT_IN_THIS_WORLD_EVERYONE_IS_BICURIOUS_5551.png|link=Xkcd (Webcomic)|right]]
Many times, a writer of fiction wants to give a character an [[Ambiguous Gender]]. It might be because it's an important detail in the mystery or because the character is really in disguise and the writer doesn't want any potential crossdressing stigma. The easy solution is to only have the character be directly addressed, but what happens if you need to have other characters talk about them?
 
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== [[Fan Fics]] ==
* In ''[[With Strings Attached (Fanfic)|With Strings Attached]]'', the Baravadans never refer to an individual's sex via pronouns; all persons are “sars,” and gods are “godsars.” This is because rebirth is common {{spoiler|(or at least it was when the Baravadans were actually having children),}} and how do you refer to a woman who is reborn in a boy's body? Also, the Dalns gods are sexless, so it would be inappropriate to assign gender to them.
** Notably, when referring to the individual noted above, George at first tries to remember to use “sar,” but gives up and refers to sar as “she” for the rest of the book. And when the four use gender-specific pronouns, one Baravadan notes how archaic their terminology is.
 
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* [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein's]] ''Tunnel In The Sky'': Rod meets Jack, and doesn't realize her name is short for "Jacqueline" until someone else tells him she's a girl. Up until then there had been no explicit reference to Jack's gender.
* The novel ''Written on the Body'' by Jeanette Winterson is written in first person, which makes it easier for the reader not to notice that there are no explicit indicators as to the main character's gender.
* Fantasy author [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] wrote "The Secret of the Blue Star", a ''[[Thieves' World]]'' story about the heroine Lythande (a female wizard in a world where wizards are always male), which is gender neutral until the last two paragraphs.
** Almost, but not quite. At one point Ms. Bradley slipped up and repeatedly referred to Lythande as a male.
{{quote| Lythande drew from the folds of his robe a small pouch containing a quantity of sweet-smelling herbs, rolled them into a blue-grey leaf, and touched his ring to spark the roll alight. He drew on the smoke, which drifted up sweet and greyish. }}
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* Done very well by Vonda N. McIntyre with [[Ambiguous Gender|Merideth]] in ''[[Dreamsnake]]''.
* Sam Berlant, a minor character in ''The Android's Dream'' by [[John Scalzi]], never has a specified gender. Sam's partner is definitely male, but Sam could be any gender as long as Sam's sexuality involves being attracted to men.
* In the ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' series, the rule seems to be: When discussing non-specific people in the generic, use your ''own'' gender as the neutral pronoun. So women like Honor use "she", "her" and "hers", while men like White Haven use "he", "him" and "his".
* [http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2009/03/234-ronald-searle-and-geoffrey-gorer.html This] character profile from Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Gorer's 1955 "Modern Types". The illustration is [[Ambiguous Gender|ambiguously gendered]] as well.
 
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* Played for comedy in ''[[30 Rock (TV)|Thirty Rock]]''. Jack sets Liz up on a blind date with [[Tomboyish Name|"Thomas"]], not mentioning that the date's full name is ''Gretchen'' Thomas...
* An episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother (TV)|How I Met Your Mother]]'' revolves around Marshall telling his friends anecdotes about a [[Crazy Awesome]] workmate of his; when it turns out she's a she, he reveals he carefully avoided specifying her gender so his wife wouldn't disapprove of his hanging around with her. All the [[Flash Back]] clips show him [[Last-Name Basis|only referring to her as "Jenkins"]], and never [[Pronoun Trouble|using any pronouns at all]]. Must have been difficult to carry on any kind of extended conversation like that...
{{quote| '''Marshall:''' So he just starts randomly pointing to people, and goes, 'Him! Her! Her! Him! Him! ...Jenkins!'}}
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In Third Edition ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' averted this by using gender pronouns but ''alternating'' which gender between sections. 4th Edition is pretty much entirely written in second person, using "you". Except for in the DM guide, where it alternates.
** Third Edition also created the "Iconic Characters" to make things easier. If giving an example of a cleric doing something they could use Jozan the Cleric, a "he". If they were talking about a wizard they'd use Mialee, a "she".
** This actually started in Second Edition, which had a section explaining the use of the "he" pronoun as generic.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] with lazy designers frequently make use of this due to the character creation almost always allowing for male or female characters. Most, however, will at least have a cipher that can alternate between the gender pronouns when necessary.
** ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]'' uses this exclusively... and looks pretty silly in places because of it. One particular example of dialogue is, "A foolish youngster called [insert player name here] tried to stop me, but it was no contest. The nuisance was easily dispatched. If I had only known what was in store, perhaps I would have hoped to lose." Who honestly talks like that?
** It's been straight up phased out in the recent updates. The Mission Architect gives the option of using gender-specific pronouns.
* Everything John Jackson Miller in the ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' comics writes about the {{spoiler|Revanchist AKA Darth Revan}}. That's because this character will become the player character in the game, whose gender is selectable.
* In the computer game ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]: Voyager: Elite Force'', you can choose to play as a male or female. Either way, you are Ensign "Alex" Munro, with "Alex" short for either Alexander or Alexandria. Everyone addresses you as "Ensign", "Munro", or "Ensign Munro", so it works.
* In ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]:Justice For All'': {{spoiler|everyone in court refers to Adrian Andrews this way while the assassin De Killer is listening to proceedings, because in one later testimony he refers to the [[Gender Blender Name|(female) Adrian as 'him']], thus revealing that he did not meet her in person}}.
** However, earlier, without being told, refers to his client's manager as a she without being told, most likely an oversight or having never heard the manager's actual name.
** One [[Fanfic]] plays around with this, having {{spoiler|Matt}} go into long and mildly explicit descriptions of what he'd like to do to her, leaving {{spoiler|Shelly de Killer}} rather unnerved by his client's flagrant display of gay.
* During Jack's recruitment mission in ''[[Mass Effect 2 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 2]]'', the writers were careful not to use any pronouns when referring to Jack (and they talk about Jack a ''lot'') until [[The Reveal]]. It probably would have worked, too, if it weren't for the fact that [[Trailers Always Spoil|she was featured in one of the trailers]]. Oops.
* The Pyro of ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' is intended to be [[Ambiguous Gender|ambiguously gendered]], though a few people from Valve accidentally (or not) ''failed'' to do this once in an interview, and most of the player base now [[Word of God|assumes]] that the Pyro is {{spoiler|oh, come on, guess}}.
** In post on the official TF2 blog, the phrase "when Pyro hears about this, she'll be inconsolable" popped up. It was quickly altered to "Pyro is going to be inconsolable now".
* In the [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''[[Jigsaw]]'', the gender of Black, a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] and the PC's intended [[Love Interest]], is never mentioned, and neither is the PC's - though they do seem to be of opposite genders (or at least capable of [[Bifauxnen|passing]] [[Dude Looks Like a Lady|as such]]).
* The Japanese manual of ''[[Metroid]]'' works with this, but the US translation deliberately positions Samus as a [[Samus Is a Girl|man]].
* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days Over 2 Days|Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days]]'', almost nobody but Roxas refers to Xion by gender. This is understandable, since {{spoiler|as a clone basically made of memories, it really has no gender, and furthermore they don't know how Roxas sees it}}.
* ''[[Ni GHTSNiGHTS Into Dreams|NiGHTS Journey Of Dreams]]'', in the English manual translations at least, never uses pronouns, always referring to [[Ni GHTS]] as "[[Ni GHTS]]".
* Sometimes comes up in ''[[Pokémon]]''. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] as it's a localisation and the original Japanese text could be less jarring, but certain sentences such as "My kid is called MAY! MAY is a Pokemon Trainer! You should go see MAY!" are a little jarring.
* Also comes up in the text for ''[[The Sims 2]]'''s memory system, though in this case it's just the designers being too lazy to make alternate text strings. They didn't even bother with names, so you'll see phrases like "I like this sim and they are great!"
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Vaarsuvius of ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' fame. Comic author Richard Burlew has so far been able to combine coherent verbosity and gender-neutral writing in a way that still keeps the readers guessing at Vaarsuvius' gender.
** Part of this is that characters in the strip itself rarely use gender-neutral terms to describe V, unless they're playing up V's androgyny. It's just that individual characters are all over the map regarding ''which'' pronoun they use.
** And on [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0629.html this strip], {{spoiler|his/her children refer to their parents as "Parent" and "Other Parent"}}. This is a quirk of the fact that they are speaking elf but under [[Translation Convention]].
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]: The Beast with a Billion Backs'', in which the character the title refers to does not have a human gender and prefers to be referred to as "shklim" or "shkler" rather than him or her.
 
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