One-Gender Race: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Namekians 2409.png|link=Dragon Ball|frame|As in...they don't ''have'' a gender.]]

 

Not a tribe, but an entire race or group of humanoids inexplicably made up of one sex. Male is usually the default, but females under the [[Cute Monster Girl]] rules are becoming more common and more obvious. The lack of the other sex is [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] briefly; Disaster wiping out the other half, or voluntary separation are two common reasons, although sometimes it seems they just don't appear.

 

{{examples}}

* The Namekians of ''[[Dragon Ball]]''. As described by [[Word of God|Akira Toriyama]], Namekians are designed after slugs, and in-show they reproduce asexually. That said, their secondary sexual characteristics are distinctly male (see the fellow in the moustache in the picture above).

* Angels{{spoiler|, Seeds of Life (Adam/Lilith), and probably the Evas themselves by extension}} in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' are strongly implied to be hermaphrodites: the genome analyses shows that they have 24 chromosome pairs, which includes both Y and X sex chromosomes (meaning they have the karyotype XXYY).<ref>Probably counts as [[Art Major Biology]], considering the [[wikipedia:XXYY|known biological consequences of doubling up on sex chromosomes]]</ref> and that the very existence of paired Y chromosomes generates a bit of [[Fridge Logic]].

* The Kuja in ''[[One Piece]]'' may be this. It's not known for sure if they are merely a tribe on an isolated island, or if they are a race separate from regular humans. What makes them weird is that they do not have one-gendered reproduction, and they have to leave their island to get pregnant with a man. The child will then always turn out to be a girl. Furthermore, they seem to be better than other people to awaken and train their Haki, but appearance-wise they are similar to other human females.

 

* While this is not true in all ''[[Transformers]]'' comics, some (especially those written by Simon Furman) display the Transformer race as free of gender, with the only "females" being failed alterations or side projects. While this makes sense as they are sexless robots, it's noteworthy that they all look and act "male". Being as the fandom is male-directed, I think we can guess why.

* The Amazons in ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' avoided the question by making their race immortal.

* Leprechauns in ''[[Wormwood Gentleman Corpse]]'' are all male. {{spoiler|Even the queen.}} We aren't given details on how they reproduce.

 

 

* The Draks from the movie ''[[Enemy Mine]]'' are masculine ("I... am ''not''... ''a woman!''"), but reproduce asexually. The Barry B. Longyear books on which the movie was based stated that yes, Draks ''could'' have more than one child in their lifetime. The books also confirmed that Draks don't ''always'' reproduce asexually. And that ''falling in love'' could result in pregnancy all on its own.

* Closely related to this trope: pretty much all the Immortals shown in the ''[[Highlander]]'' movie ([[Fanon Discontinuity|notice that there is only one]]) are male. One theory is that since an Immortal must suffer a violent death to become... well, ''immortal'', and that in past times women were less likely to suffer violent deaths, there would be fewer female Immortals. At the same time, women were less likely to have sword training at the time of their death, and would find themselves more likely to lose a duel, even discounting any physical disadvantage. There are a number of female Immortals on the TV show, most of whom are [[Action Girl|skilled, tough and clever]] enough to have at least survived a few duels.

* The Hutts of ''[[Star Wars]]'' are hermaphroditic, but as a cultural thing, they alternate gender terminology between the periods when they are capable of reproduction and when they are not.

* While not exactly a single race or species, dinosaurs in [[Jurassic Park]] are all female to prevent uncontrolled reproduction. {{spoiler|Or that's what they thought.}}

* Possibly the Frost Giants from the movie version of [[Thor (film)|Thor]]. We only see the males but we do know that their king had a son with no indication of a mother.

 

* In Piers Anthony's ''[[Xanth]]'' novels: All-male satyrs mate with all-female dryads, and all-male fauns mate with all-female nymphs.

* Several examples in the ''[[Women of the Otherworld]]'' series. [[Witch Species|Witches]] are always female, and sorcerers always male, and both reproduce with humans. These are explicitly stated not to be male and female version of the same race. ( {{spoiler|Until Savannah came along, that is. There are some hints that the characters may be mistaken about that "not the same race" idea...}}) The werewolf gene only passes down to sons. Werewolves reproduce with human women, but their daughters are human. Lycanthropy can be caught via infection/attack, though until recently the werewolves thought no woman could survive the Change. An infected werewolf will pass the trait down to his sons. At the end of ''Broken'', {{spoiler|Elena, the first and only female werewolf, gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Both of them are lycanthropes, though they will not change until [[Puberty Superpower|adolescence]]. Since their father is also a werewolf, it is unclear whether sons inherit from fathers and daughters from mothers, or if mothers pass lycanthropy down to both genders.}}

** The Aes Sedai - men and women are born with The Power, but since Saidin was tainted by the Dark One at the end of (and in large part ''causing'' the end of) the Age of Legends, male Aes Sedai have been out of fashion - as in, hunted down and Gentled by the Red Ajah, out of fashion. Which makes them suicidally apathetic. Turns out, though, that the practice effectively culled the magic property from humans, in a pseudo-genetic way. Awkward.

* Justified with the Confessors in Terry Goodkind's ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, since male Confessors don't have the recovery time after using their powers that their female counterparts have, they turn into absolute tyrants. {{spoiler|Male infanticide has been practiced since the last male Confessor was killed, and YMMV on whether it's made more or less horrifying by the Confessed lovers of Confessors having to do the killing.}}

 

* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' has the J'Naii, a species of androgynous/hermaphroditic beings. However, one identifies far more as female than male, and falls in love with Riker. As she explains, she's ''always'' felt more female than male, and is certain there are members of her race who feel the same way, or are more male than female. The ruling J'Naii, however, cannot accept this, and so have her "re-educated". The episode, of course, is a "[[Anvilicious|thinly-veiled]]" [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|metaphor for acceptance of homosexuality and transgender identities]]. (Or, at least, [[Broken Aesop|it's meant to be]].)

** Tribbles. One sex, seemingly born pregnant, according to Dr. McCoy ("Seems to be a helluva time saver!").

* On the new ''[[Outer Limits]]'' series, one of the episodes involved an all female post-apocalyptic society in which almost all males were wiped off the planet due to a scourge virus. They decided to not reintroduce the remaining men into the population because every time they took one out of stasis, it caused conflict in the society because the men pushed limits that the elders were not comfortable with, like building generators or stealing from other towns. Sucks to be male.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': All the pak'ma'ra you see are male ... like a [[Gender Flip]] of the real life deep sea-angler fish, the female of their species is a limbless symbiote. That, as it turns out, is what the hump that some (but not all) of their species possess is. A pak'ma'ra without a hump should be considered 'single'.

 

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: [[Greek Mythology]] has many humanoid beings that appear to be of a single sex, such as female harpies, male satyrs, male centaurs, and female nymphs (which are minor deities that can interbreed with human men). This has inspired many of the other examples on this page. In late Classical works there were female centaurs and satyrs, but these are unusual cases; kentaurides (the female centaurs) were barely spoken of in ancient Greek literature and only one example, Hylonome, is mentioned by name, while the satyresses (the female satyrs) are [[Canon Immigrant]]s from late 15th/early 16th century poems and art, and didn't exist at all in the ancient works.

** Originally satyrs were depicted as human men with beards, bald foreheads, pug noses, pointed ears, horses tails, and constant erections. Technically, only the tails and ears set them apart from standard image of a 'wild man'.

** The original Greek depiction of the very human Amazon civilization variably implied they replenished their numbers the way most warrior cultures did, from [[Abduction Is Love|invading villages]]. And depending on how charitable the writer was, any male children were either returned to be reared in those villages, or killed.

** Most bizarre of all, [[Hesiod]] apparently considered ''humanity'' to be all male before the gods "cursed" men with the horror of living with women, ruining human society forever. [[Sarcasm Mode|Nope, no misogyny here.]]

 

* In the paper-and-pencil RPG ''[[Castle Falkenstein]]'', Dwarves ''are'', in fact, exclusively male. They mate with the females of other Faerie-kind; male offspring are Dwarves, while female offspring are the same kind of Fae as their mother.

* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'':

* The Medusas of ''[[GURPS Banestorm]]'' are all female. They mate (carefully) with humans, elves, and orcs' males to produce offspring. The kids are usually medusas, but some are boys with a recessive medusa trait.

** [[Word of God]] says that the world of the Banestorm also has ''Euryales,'' a small all-female reptilian race, whose eggs are fertilized by eating their dead; and ''Sthenos,'' a much bigger all-female reptilian race, produced by a virus that infects human (or orc or elf) women, and spontaneously transforms them if they are violently injured.

 

** 'How do you know you've never seen a female dwarf? Eh? Eh?'

** Similarly, the Harpies appear to be this, as all 3 humanoid forms are female, and while never directly explained it's implied the griffins that accompany them could possibly be their males.

** Half Giants are all male, though they can procreate with other races. A quest explains that {{spoiler|they originated when a group of Agallan giants betrayed their kin and for this they and their offspring were cursed to be small. There were no women among the traitors, so all Half-Giants are male.}}

* Mithra and Galka in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', where players can create only female and male types, respectively. The Galka reproduce by reincarnation, with it suggesting that the number of Galka in the world is a fixed figure (or decreasing, if being killed before their time prevents reincarnation). Even with no need for sexuality, the Galka still seem to fall in love with females of other races. Among the [[Catgirl|Mithra]], males are rare and as a result, have been forced into protective status (probably not too enviable a position, with them most likely being treated as little more than objects and forced into passionless sex for reproduction only on a constant basis). Doesn't really change that ''Wings of the Goddess'' (which takes place during the Crystal War) just ignores this and keeps the mostly female motif present in the modern day (giving us ''one'' token male that just seems to exist as Square telling people to stop asking questions about the males at conventions).

** Later, an all-female [[Exclusively Evil|enemy race]] called the Lamia was added to the game, though their status as a One-Gender Race may be [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the insinuation that they're actually an [[Biological Mashup|artificial race]] used as biological weapons...and because the mythical creatures they're based on are always depicted as female.

* Also in the ''Final Fantasy'' franchise, the [[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance|various incarnations]] [[Final Fantasy XII|of Ivalice]] (aside from the all-human original [[Final Fantasy Tactics]]) feature the Gria. Except for humans, most other races are effectively all-male, as well, but it appears simply because they have no alternate gender appearance, and ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' has a Luck Stick vendor and exchanger who are described in-game as male and female, respectively, in spite of appearing completely identical. The Seeq have an official female sprite, though it's just a Seeq Viking with a pink outfit and lipstick, and not playable.

* As far as ''[[Final Fantasy XIV]]'' goes, we haven't ''seen'' female Roegadyn or male Miqo'te yet, and it apparently hasn't been decided whether or not they'll appear in-game (although [[Word of God]] confirms their existence). And the Highland Hyur have only male adventurers.

* The Gerudo from ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' are an entirely female race of warrior-thieves. Even though they're apparently human, only one Gerudo male is born every hundred years (the only one known is [[Big Bad|Ganondorf]]) and is destined to become king. In fact, the gossip stones found in the game reveal that the Gerudo often visit the town for the purpose of finding a man to borrow in order to make more little Gerudo. There seem to be no Goron women, though this is difficult to tell based on their strange appearance.

** Breeding a male only creature (We'll say Tauros) with anything (apart from Ditto) will never, ever get you another Tauros. If you breed it with a Ditto, the implication seems to be it became a female bull. Sort of.

** Dittos are also genderless until they transform. In-Universe, nobody knows the difference between a male and female Pokémon, aside from Gen 4 on, which have a few visible differences (Pikachu with a heart shaped tail, for example). Nobody knows how they make eggs either, but that's going off topic.

* The Dremora from ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' are all men, except for one (randomly generated) Dremora lord from ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion''. In addition, both the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers of the [[Expansion Pack]] have a similar but reversed gender ratio, though there are considerably more male Golden Saints and Dark Seducers than female Dremora. It's proclaimed by an in-game book as [[Justified Trope|justified]], saying that Mehrunes Dagon (creator of said Dremora) sees females as inferior in war. No one said the god of war was politically correct, and Dremora are entirely immortal and entirely sterile, technically not even making them a species at all. As they have no interest in sex at all, and may not even [[Nonhumans Lack Attributes|be equipped for that in the first place]], gender is more of an aesthetic concern, anyway.

* Zig-Zagged in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. The developers clearly didn't write the races as a One-Gender Race, but looking at the playerbase you'd probably jump to this conclusion. While most player characters were obviously male or female depending on the race (Night elves were mostly female; Trolls were mostly male) and some races were about equal ratio (Humans, gnomes, Undead) but you'd be hard-pressed to find a female dwarf who isn't an NPC! It was even a joke saying that dwarves were a race of "Reverse amazons" on the board for a while in classic. Tauren and Orc women are likewise rare in terms of player characters.

** When new races were added, things got different. It may be a joke to the common hairstyles of the blood elves but most blood elves appear to be female, especially since they're quite frail looking. (Then again though, the [[Reality Is Unrealistic|males are actually the most realistically-proportioned character models in the game]]) Draenei seemed to be well balanced, as do the Goblin and Worgens, although it's not uncommon to see a higher male to female population in the playerbase.

** Oracles, Murlocs, and Kobolds seem rather one-gendery.... though they maybe don't have any sexual dimorphism at all. Furbolgs are a good example of this. The one female furbolg seen looks exactly like every other furbolg out there.

* In the MMORPG ''Trickster'', Cats, rabbits, foxes, and sheep are female, raccoons, dragons, lions, and bulls (well, duh) are male. Less so than most examples in that all the characters [[Little Bit Beastly|are really humans with costumes consisting of a headband and a tail]].

* In ''[[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'', several of the playable races can only be male. This has an in-game justification of the females of certain races being deliberately sheltered and do not go adventuring. The real reason was technical; there was not enough room on one CD for all the sprites required to have females for all the races.

* The Kaka clan of ''[[BlazBlue]]'' are at least close to being a {{spoiler|genetically engineered}} One-Gender Race that reproduce via parthenogenesis. Kaka males are mentioned as being incredibly rare, and none are seen in game.

* In ''[[Daily Life with Monster Girl|Monster Girl Quest]]'', all the monsters are female, and survive by raping human males. Early on, we find out that this isn't their fault: The human's goddess has forbidden sexual intercourse with monsters. Again, they're all female, so it's just a slow form of genocide.

 

* For a very long time, the webcomic ''[[Freefall]]'' left it apparent that all of the robots (whose enormous population forms a major part of the cast) were considered male by default. Only in strip ''[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01403.htm # 1,403]'' does the question finally come up. Disappointingly, the explanation is as stereotypical as it is silly: the robots determine themselves to be male or female based on how much ''talking'' they do.

* The Uryuoms in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' don't normally have genders, per se; any two Uryuoms can [[Bizarre Alien Biology|form an egg]] together, and they can use DNA from ''any'' living species to fertilize it, including [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] of course (surprisingly, they ''aren't'' [[The Virus]], being relatively benign and somewhat whimsical). Those living on worlds where gendered species are dominant will generally adapt to the local customs; on Earth, they generally choose their own gender at some point, though some have one chosen for them by their parents.

** If you count unit classifications as racially distinct (this world runs on tabletop strategy physics), there are known all female-vampire subraces, although there are also regular female vampires.

 

** And apparently if you try to get into the contests or "Neopian Times" (weekly site newspaper) with a story about a male faerie, it will get rejected solely because of that - the staff doesn't seem to want to endorse any mention of male faeries at all.

 

* While not a concrete example, female [[Transformers]] are exceedingly rare. In fact, in some continuities, they don't exist at all. Why a mechanical race even has genders is a frequently-debated topic, as are... how to put this delicately?... [[Slash Fic|other questions related to gender functions]].

** In the Generation One cartoon, the Transformers were built as civilian and military hardware by the Quintessons for sale to other species. Though the Quints themselves are a One-Gender Race, they know and understand genders and built their products to appeal to their clients. Another thing to note is that for the longest time there were only female Autobots, the civilian line. Female Decepticons (the military line) were unheard of, and we only began seeing female villains in the sequel series ''[[Beast Wars]]'' (Blackarachnia) and ''[[Beast Machines]]'' (Strika). Both of whom might not have been Autobots or their descendants: Blackarachnia was a reprogrammed Maximal (Autobot descendant), and Strika is a revived spark, of unknown original side.

* ''[[My Little Pony]]'' actually made ''more'' sense without the "big brother ponies," when the ponies appeared to be a One-Gender Race that reproduces via parthenogenesis, resulting in babies physically identical to their mothers.

** According to one of the comics, little ponies reproduce by looking in a [[Magic Mirror]] and wishing for a baby, hence the identical babies. The real question is, where did the babies without an adult counterpart come from? The "old way," maybe?

* The Amazonians from ''[[Futurama]]'', who ousted their male population under the compulsion of the mysterious Femputer. The other men died from [[Out with a Bang|crushed pelvises from Snu-Snu]].

* The rolling stock from ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]''. Passenger cars such as Annie and Clarabel, Henrietta, and Old Slow Coach are always female, while freight cars such as the Troublesome Trucks, the Spiteful Brakevan, Hector the hopper car, and Rocky the repair crane are always male.

* ''Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO'' just ''might'' have ''one'' female droid among the entire cast. The droid is pink, but the series consistently averted the [[Pink Means Feminine]] rule. If the droid isn't female, then all robots in this cartoon are male.

 

* The Teiidae family of whiptail lizards includes many species that are either all-female or nearly so. This is made due to parthenogenesis induced by sexual stimulation. Yep, hot girl on girl action producing babies. How wicked can nature ''not'' be?

** There are also lizard species that require sperm to reproduce, so they seduce men of other species.

* There are some species of fish, such as the Amazon Molly Fish, that are only female, reproducing solely with the males of another certain species (one which has both males and females). These species work this way because either the act or the presence of sperm will stimulate egg production. Genetically, the offspring are the mother's.

* The [[wikipedia:Wolbachia|wolbachia]] bacteria (right now confined to arthropods) [[Gendercide|kills all mature males]], [[Gender Bender|turns all other males female]] and allows females to have virgin births. Many species now have it incorporated into their sex-determination system pretty much permanently.

* The barramundi is a species of fish where all start as male and slowly change to female throughout their lifecycle (resulting in the vast, vast majority of large fish being female).