Gendered Outfit

• Main
• Laconic
• All Subpages
• Create New

Often, when a character has a Gender Flipped or Distaff Counterpart version, gender-specific changes will be made to that character's outfit. For example, pants will become a skirt, a necktie will become a scarf, and a vest will become a corset. Other popular, but relatively minor, changes include removing a collar for an Impossibly Low Neckline or Absolute Cleavage, changing a unitard into a leotard (to show off sexy legs), or changing an outfit that was once loose-fitting into Sensual Spandex. Also, when the male version tends to be a Walking Shirtless Scene, the female counterpart will at least don a complimentary bra.

Since Distaff Counterparts are more common than Spear Counterparts, and Stripperiffic costumes are more common amongst women, most changes will be male-to-female and the costume will be Custom Uniform of Sexy.

However, male examples do exist.

This is a subtrope of Distaff Counterpart, Spear Counterpart, Rule 63, Gender Flip and Gender Bender.

Often in use because of the Rule of Sexy.

Examples of Gendered Outfit include:

Comic Books

• Mary Marvel wears a skirt instead of tights for her uniform.
• Supergirl's costumes over the years have had many gendered components, including (in various combinations) short skirts, short shorts, low necklines, heels, ballet slippers, thigh-high boots, and bared midriffs.
• Power Boy, the Spear Counterpart to Power Girl, is a rare male example. More commonly, though, he went from leotard to unitard.
• As a general rule, the Fantastic Four share the same outfit design. But for a while in the 1990s, the Invisible Woman wore a highly Stripperific version of the FF uniform. She Hulk wore a leotard version of their costume while she was on the team, but that was arguably more like a feminine analogue to The Thing's shorts (i.e., the Big Guy of the team wears less clothing, even if she's a Big Gal.)
• Martian Manhunter's Distaff Counterpart, Miss Martian, wears a cute skirt and a t-shirt under her red "harness."
• Usually, if a male character has a look that's almost, but not completely, a Walking Shirtless Scene look (like Martian Manhunter, above), his female counterpart will have much more fabric covering her chest. Usually. Some exceptions:
  • This Thanagarian warrior makes Hawkgirl's bustier look downright modest.
  • Some of DC's minor female Martian characters, like Cay'an, nearly let it all hang out.
  • Back when She Hulk's transformations were uncontrollable, her tops were like cousin Bruce Banner's pants (but not his shirts) - stretching almost to the point of coming off entirely.
• Galacta, the daughter of Galactus wears a gendered version of her dad's armor. ^{[dead link]}
• Ms. Marvel's classic costume (technically her second, but the first one didn't last long) is a gendered version of Captain Marvel's, complete with a Scarf of Asskicking, Thong of Shielding and Bared Midriff. Picture for reference
• During her tenure as the Girl Wonder, Stephanie Brown was the only Robin to wear a skirt.
• Barbara Gordon, the first Batgirl, wore high heeled boots in her earliest appearances.
• In Earth X, Thor was transformed into a woman as another humility lesson given by his father, Odin. For no explained reason, this costume places Thor's usual metal discs on her breasts like cups, gives her Thigh-High Boots, and frames her figure with holes that show off every curve of her body. Remember, for all intents and purposes, this is a character that was once male. So that means either Thor decided that not having a penis meant that it was time to make a sluttier costume...or Odin did.

Live-Action TV

• In Super Sentai (and by extension Power Rangers), the designs of most female rangers don't differ that much from their male teammates, save for the addition of a skirt or a leotard-like pattern, which doubles to hide that these costumes were often worn by stunt-men. Since the teams are all color-coded, the female rangers will usually wear pink and yellow, and occasionally white or blue as well.
  • In Power Rangers this was avoided with the some of the female yellow rangers prior to Ninja Storm, namely the ones in Mighty Morphin, Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force and Wild Force. This was because the Super Sentai counterparts of those rangers were originally male and the suits in the American footage were kept unchanged to match the Japanese stock footage as much as possible.
  • In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, Takeru Shiba (Shinken Red) is revealed to be a stand-in for a young girl named Kaoru, who is the real heir of the Shiba clan. When Kaoru takes Takeru's place as (Lady) Shinken Red, her outfit is almost identical aside for the addition of a skirt.
  • Nowhere is this better emphasized than in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, where we get several female examples of male suits, and a few male examples of once female suits.
    • This is only averted when Gokai Yellow transforms into Battle Cossack from Battle Fever J. Instead of wearing a leotard like the one wore by Miss America, the Battle Cossack suit remains unaltered when Luka wears it. The Zubaan outfit also remained unchanged when Luka used his Ranger Key in one episode.
    • However, Luka does wear a skirt when she transforms into Vul Panther from Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan, despite the fact there were no female rangers in that team.
  • In the Kyuukyuu Sentai Go Go Five video special, Kyoko (the wannabe sixth member of Gogo Five) inherits the powers of guest hero Demon Hunter Zeek after he dies. When Kyoko transforms into Zeek-Jeanne, she wears a female version of the Zeektector armor with the helmet that shows the lower half of her face.
• Romana II of Doctor Who tried out several outfits/bodies in her first episode, which the fourth Doctor all complains about. She ended up with clothes exactly like those worn by the Doctor, but pink.
• Initially expressed by the Supergirl TV series, which used her classic skirted outfit from the comics at first, but then averted in 2020 when they moved her out of it into what was essentially a copy of Superman's head-to-toe suit.

Video Games

• Every MMO ever.
  • For example: Take a piece of chest armor in World of Warcraft. Put it on a male human. It covers his entire torso. Now, have the male human take the armor off, and give it to a female human. Have her put on the exact same piece of armor that was just shown obscuring the torso of the male. Inexplicably, she's now baring her midriff.
  • Aion is even more blatant about it. There is a certain questable suit of armor (available around lv30; getting the full set requires repeating the quest with 5 or 6 different characters) which looks like a normal, full-body suit on male characters. For example: the one usable by cleric-types looks like a crimson Badass Longcoat. On female characters, any of these armor sets—including the full-plate heavy set—looks like a frilly pink dress.
• In Oblivion the "Huntsman's Leather Vest" switches between an open waistcoat or a Fur Bikini (which is smaller than the default underwear) depending on the gender of the wearer.
• Darkstalkers, SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos, Capcom Fighting Evolution, and MUGEN: All over the place with Dimitri's "Midnight Bliss" technique.
• In Pokémon, the male and female choices for the Pokémon Trainer player class are like this for Pokémon Red and Blue, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, the remakes of Gen I and the Pokémon Ranger spinoff series.
  • Also other trainer classes that are essentially gendered counterparts usually have this, such as Cool Trainers and Picnickers/Campers.
• In The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 and Regulation A, Secret Character Lilly Kane wears a modified version of her brother Billy's garb from pre-Real Bout Fatal Fury and KOF '95. Key differences between their attire includes Lilly wearing a white tank top under her overalls, said overalls having a heart-shaped window (revealing the aforementioned tank top), and her pants being shorts instead of Billy's jeans.
• In Metal Gear Solid: Integral, Meryl gets to wear a female version of Solid Snake's sneaking suit as an alternate outfit (actually an outfit she wears in a Metal Gear Solid audio drama). Unfortunately, there's no way to get Snake and Meryl to wear their sneaking suits together without hacking, since Snake dons the tuxedo when Meryl wears her sneaking suit. The main difference between hers and Snake's is that Snake's is moulded to accommodate his abs, and Meryl's has breast cups.
• Cammy wears a gendered version of Bison's uniform as a downloadable costume in Street Fighter IV
• Monster Hunter has male and female versions of each outfit. Female versions tend to be more figure hugging and sport fewer Spikes of Doom but they don't usually show more skin.
• Maki from Final Fight 2 wears a female version of the Bushin gi that serves as Guy's standard outfit.

Western Animation

• In Adventure Time, Fionna, Finn's female counterpart, wears a skirt instead of shorts and a bunny-eared hat instead of a bear-eared one.
• In the DC Animated Universe, Supergirl wore a white t-shirt and blue skirt in contrast to Superman's classic outfit. This outfit later became canonized in the comics.
• The Powerpuff Girls' Spear Counterparts, the Rowdy Ruff Boys, are another rare male example. Skirts and hair ribbons become pants, shorts, hats and ponytails between the two genders.
• In Young Justice, Miss Martian wears her same t-shirt and skirt from the comics.