Unsettling Gender Reveal: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Sexual attraction is a funny thing, and sometimes if a character ''physically appears'' to be the right gender to appeal to their sexual preference, then they'll become attracted to them, regardless of what that character's ''actual'' gender might be. Usually said character's true gender is being kept secret purposefully and they are a male [[Disguised in Drag]] or a female [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguised as a male]], but whether the misunderstanding was intentional or not, due to [[Rule of Drama]], they ''will'' find out and it ''will'' be awkward, hilarious and possibly traumatizing for all involved.

 

 

 

Compare with [[Shapeshifting Squick]], [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]], [[Lady Looks Like a Dude]], [[Bifauxnen]], [[Gender Blender Name]] and [[Samus Is a Girl]]. Often accompanied by [[Attractive Bent Gender]]. Contrast [[Jumping the Gender Barrier]] and [[She's a Man In Japan]]. A subtrope of [[Gender Reveal]].

 

'''[[Spoilers Off]] for this trope and all other gender reveal tropes, due to the fact spoilered pronouns are by definition self-fulfilling.'''

{{examples}}

* ''[[Shugo Chara]]'': Nadeshiko/Nagihiko, whose family has a long-standing tradition of making its boys dress, act, and, for all intents and purposes, ''be'' girls for about the first twelve years of their lives. He had to repress all boyish desires, no matter how slight, and was forbidden from revealing his true gender to anyone.

* ''Juubei-Chan 2''. Dropped on the audience ''and'' on Jiyu, who spent the entire series thinking this person was either chibi spirit Koinosuke or reincarnated baby Koinosuke... only for it to end up being Koinosuke's never-before-mentioned daughter who looks exactly like him.

* ''[[School Rumble]]: Second Semester'' plays this straight at the end of the third episode. One of the characters present [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the moment beautifully.

* In ''The Secret Devil-chan'': Kurosaki Sou, discovers this about Devil-chan, after just 10 pages into the manga.

** His [[Cool Big Sis]] Hungary used to be so tomboyish that she was mistaken as a boy by her rivals, and she herself thought she was a boy due to chronic lack of sex-ed [[Values Dissonance|in these times.]] It wasn't until she was a teenager that other nations realized Hungary was a girl, starting with her old rival Prussia when he sees her badly beaten after a battle and [[Clothing Damage|notices that her blouse and armor are torn]] to [[Absolute Cleavage]] levels..

** Also, Hong Kong is often mistaken as a [[Bifauxnen]], when in reality he's male.

** Happens twice in the same minute in the anime. A dim bunch of henchmen have been told to apprehend a high-school-age boy, and they identify Fuko (a very tomboyish, macho girl) as their target. Immediately afterward, the rather feminine Tokiya screams at them, "You idiots! I bet you thought I was a girl!"

** Subverted in the manga. Recca asks Aoi [[Rule of Three|three questions]], the third being "Are you a guy or a girl?". Aoi answers that he's a [[Villainous Crossdresser|guy]], but instead of being stupefied about the gender, Recca merely brushes it off to mean that [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|he can fight as he pleases.]]

* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'':

** Minako manages to nonchalantly gush over Haruka a few times well after everyone else was clued in to her being a girl.

** In an early episode of the R season, Mamoru and Usagi team up to take care of a baby named Manami. When they change the baby's diapers, it turns out Manami is a boy and not a girl; he has a [[Gender Blender Name]] and had been referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. (The dubs generally handle it by referring to the baby as a girl irst, and then as a boy.)

* Happens in the anime ''[[Girls Bravo]]'', where Fukuyama starts hitting on and eventually sticks his hand into the panties of a crossdressing Yukinari . His reaction is not pleasant considering the fact that he is extremely androphobic and is allergic to other men.

** In ''.hack//SIGN'', Tsukasa is the Bridget that gets dropped on ''herself''. Among the initial worries that come with [[Tomato in the Mirror|a revelation like this]] is that her gender will affect her relationship with Subaru. Turns out, [[If It's You It's Okay|it didn't matter]].

** It also happened in ''.hack//Roots'' when two female players attacked Haseo and their voices change.

* The relatively obscure manga and animated movie ''[[They Were Eleven]]'' by Moto Hagio features an incredibly feminine recruit who is eventually revealed to be an alien who hasn't yet decided whether to be male or female, and actually became a recruit to avoid being forced to become a girl as well as a pawn in [[Arranged Marriage]] imposed by their family.

* ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'':

** Luca, a pop star that Hayate helps after the robot hurts her, falls for it too, even going so far as to change in front of him. Due to the large amount of stress she's under, Hayate tries to keep up the disguise, digging deeper and deeper with lies. The plan finally fails [[It Got Worse|when]] [http://manga.redhawkscans.com/reader/read/hayate_no_gotoku/en/0/325/page/14 she gets into a bath that he's in,] along with more than one of his female classmates.

** One butler falls in love with Hayate, who at the moment is under a crossdressing curse ([[Visible Silence|...]]). Although initially devastated when Hayate's cover is blown, he quickly comes around and tries to convince Hayate to travel with him to the Netherlands, where same-sex marriages are legal. (Cue Nagi's [[Megaton Punch|Megaton Kick]].)

* Jan Suk in ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' has the Bridget to end all Bridgets dropped on him when he starts confiding in a cute blonde girl he met at a bar. Not only is she actually a man, but she's {{spoiler|''[[Villainous Crossdresser|Johan]]''.}} Also counts for the viewers, as it's a [[Shocking Swerve]]. Has caused anime clubs to riot.

* ''[[Naruto]]'':

** During the Land of Waves [[Story Arc]], Naruto meets Haku, whom he takes for a girl ([[Dude Looks Like a Lady|Not that]] [[Wholesome Crossdresser|this]] [[Yamato Nadeshiko|is]] [[Cross-Dressing Voices|hard]]), and Haku corrected him on this assumption right before he left.

** Before the anime gave him a deep, masculine voice, Deidara was frequently mistaken as female.

* Happened to Karin in ''[[Kamichama Karin]]'' at the end of volume 4 finding out her crush, Kirika-senpai, is female through an incident of seeing (and accidentally feeling) her revealed cleavage in an unconscious state. The audience gets the Bridget dropped on them first as it's revealed in an earlier chapter.

* ''[[Wandering Son]]''

** This happens to Riku Seya, a classmate of the Shuichi's older sister, Maho. Seya saw Shuuichi dressed as a girl and became infatuated, and convinced Maho to set them up. A future date at the aquarium turns into a rather shocking revelation which is not helped by a friend of Shuu's, "Mako-chan" (No, not [[Minami-ke|that one]]) also revealing himself. Seya is left rather confused by it all.

* In ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', [[Villainous Crossdresser]] Kamatari drops a Bridget on his opponent Misao (and everyone defending the Aoiya as well) quite dramatically, complete with pixellated naughty bits. Note that particular scene was only in the manga (though the actual reveal still happened).

** Kenshin himself often causes this with viewers, and the fact that he's [[Cross-Dressing Voices|voiced by a woman in the original Japanese]] makes it worse (and legend has it that the character designer for ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' first came up with the character Baiken after making this mistake) and he's in fact based on a historical samurai, [[wikipedia:Kawakami Gensai|Kawakami Gensai]], who used his feminine appearance to get close to his targets and even managed to assassinate a man in broad daylight. He even hid out in a brothel at one point after an assassination.

** Surprisingly does ''not'' happen with Haruhi's [[Drag Queen]] father Ranka. The host club knows that he's her father from the moment he enters the scene.

* An oddly sexuality-inverted version occurs in ''[[Glass Fleet]]'' when Holy Emperor Vetti Sforza finally manages to get Michel Volban, the leader of [[La Résistance]], into his clutches... and, upon drugging Michel in order to have his way with him, discovers that Michel is actually a [[Wholesome Crossdresser|woman]]. Vetti seems rather put out about it.

** The reverse happens to Akane at the very beginning of the series. She wasn't exactly thrilled to [[Naked First Impression|find out]] that the shy and awkward girl she had just made friends with was actually [[Gender Bender|a guy]].

** A subversion: Hiroshi and Daisuke's discovery that the cute [[Heroes Want Redheads|redheaded]] girl they were hot for is actually their male best friend does absolutely ''nothing'' to stifle their crush ("Why can't there be more girls like him?")... though this is because Ranma doesn't wear bras and tends to get "her" shirt destroyed in public fairly often, as well as being willing to dress up in deliberately "sexy" clothes in order to manipulate Kunô or some other sap.

** Happens to Greed in one OVA in which he flirts with "Winry" who is actually the shapeshifter Envy, who is male in this version.

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'': Ed! Nobody finds out she's a girl until Faye tickles her! Everyone else can be forgiven since she's a pre-pubescent [[Tomboy]] with little social skill, and it's also a [[Mythology Gag]] to when Ed really was a boy in the original version of the story before being changed to a girl for balance.

* An episode of ''[[Kodocha]]'' has a subplot where one of Sana's friends develops a crush on an [[Sempai-Kohai|upperclassman]] tennis player. When she confesses her love, the object of her crush explains that she's a girl.

* In the anime of ''[[Rose of Versailles]]'', the Duke of Orleans tried to do this by having a very girlish and young-looking henchman impersonate [[Marie Antoinette]], thus ruining the marriage to the Dauphin. It doesn't work.

* In the Hideshi Hino short story ''Sailor Psycho'', a girl is invited to the school idol's house to paint her portrait. She ends up discovering that the school idol is really a crossdressing boy with a school uniform fetish. The girl is killed when she freaks out and we find out that the idol's "mother" is really his crossdresser father and the old caretakers of their mansion are ''also'' crossdressers.

* Subverted in ''[[The Day of Revolution]]'' [[Gender Bender|Former boy]] Megumi actually wants to drop a Bridget on the only boy at school who doesn't know her "secret" but the other girls forbid it for reasons of their own. (And when she finally did decide to tell him he wasn't listening.)

* In episode three of ''[[Kino's Journey]]'', a Bridget was dropped on all the audience members who thought [[Ambiguous Gender|Kino]] was {{spoiler|a boy}}. The ones who guessed right didn't hesitate to pat themselves on the back.

* In ''[[Maria Holic]]'' Kanako, the lesbian protagonist, meets the girl of her dreams in the form of the Mariya after transferring to all girls school. Later she walks in on Mariya changing and discovers ''his'' secret. She spends the rest of the series being relentlessly bullied by him into keeping his secret and suffering innumerable [[Stupid Sexy Flanders]] moments.

* In the [[Arina Tanemura]] manga ''Gentleman's Alliance Cross'' (''[[Shinshi Doumei Cross]]''), the character Maora was so feminine in the first volume that even the staff who read it thought that he was a girl. His real gender wasn't revealed until the second volume.

* ''[[Pokémon Special]]'':

'''Bugsy:''' I...I'm Bugsy from Azalea Town. And... well... I'm a ''guy''. }}

* ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'':

** In the anime, [[Lovable Sex Maniac|Brock]] wound up subverting this on one occasion. He knew something was wrong when a ridiculously [[Hot Scientist]] ''didn't'' make him delusional. Turned out to be a man in disguise working for Team Magma. In a later episode, he identifies the same disguised man out of two otherwise indistinguishable [[Inexplicably Identical Individuals|Jennies]] by the same lack of a [[Raging Stiffie]].

** And then later he accidentally hits on [[Ambiguously Gay|Harley]].

** He also failed to realize that Anabel/Reira was a [[Bifauxnen]].

'''Anabel:''' No, it's because even if I don't look like the part... I'm a girl. }}

** Brock also sometimes falls for Ash whenever he [[Disguised in Drag|dressed up as a girl]].

** Much later, Conan, Hakuba and Heiji get a reverse Bridget drop when they see that the "Detective of the South", Koshimizu, is a [[Bokukko]]. They only find out when [[She Cleans Up Nicely|she puts on]] [[Joshikousei|her school uniform]]... a feminine ''[[wikipedia:Gakuran#Sailor outfit|seifuku]]'' instead of a male ''[[wikipedia:Gakuran#Gakuran|gakuran]]''. (OTOH the "Detective of the North", Junya Tokitsu, already knew and didn't tell them; in fact, he was ''surprised'' to learn that they didn't know about Natsuki's gender.)

** And the reverse-drop happens ''again'' when [[Action Girl]] Sera Masumi appears. Conan, Ran and Sonoko don't find out that the [[Troubled but Cute|handsome and devil-may-care boy]] that said Ran was "his type" and helped them resolve a case, was actually a [[Bifauxnen]]... until she appears in a female highschool uniform and transfers to the girls's class.

* Inverted in ''[[Akahori Gedou Hour Rabuge]]'' episode 9, where the son of a businessman that Kaoruko is babysitting (the kid, not the businessman) ends up being a girl, much to Kaoruko's dismay.

* ''[[Soul Eater]]'':

** This '''will''' happen with Crona if the author ever gets tired of their "gender will always remain ambiguous" concept. One side will go "I knew it, Crona ''was'' a guy/girl" and the other will go all "awwwww, not the gender I thought of."

* This happens to Wataru Takatsuki in ''[[Yubisaki Milk Tea]]'' in recent chapters. However, despite Yoshinori Ikeda's initial beliefs to the contrary, Wataru actually likes him even more.

* In ''[[Heartcatch Pretty Cure]]'', Tsubomi quickly becomes smitten with the handsome [[Student Council President]] Itsuki. When she learns that "he" is actually [[Bifauxnen|a handsome girl]], she's upset and shocked enough to end up staying home with a fever.

** Cobraja ends up choosing Itsuki to be a Desertian (mostly) because he thinks she's a beautiful man and when Cure Marine reveals that he's a she, he promptly freaks.

* Natsume Takashi from ''[[Natsume Yuujinchou]]'' tends to get mistaken for his [[Identical Grandson|grandmother, Reiko,]] by Youkai on an almost constant basis. One of these Youkai is Hinoe, who ''[[Les Yay|really]]'' liked Reiko and [[Does Not Like Men]]. She gets as far as groping Natsume's non-existent breasts before she learns her mistake.

* In ''[[Sakura Gari]]'', we have a boy named Youya... better known as Sakurako Saiki. This is ''not'' [[Played for Laughs]] as s/he is an [[Jerkass Woobie|insane, thoroughly broken]] [[Yandere]], who ends up [[Driven to Suicide]].

* ''[[Black Butler]]'': While undercover in a circus, Ciel shares a tent with a skinny teen that he calls "Freckles". Turns out that he is really a girl named Doll. She offers to show him her privates so he can be sure.

* ''[[Kuragehime]]'' has Kuranosuke.

* [[Played for Laughs]] with Karara's debut in the ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' anime: Tamama spends the entire episode flitting between jealousy at the thought of being replaced as the platoon's [[Cute Shotaro Boy|Cute Shotaro Tadpole]] and being charmed by the new 'recruit's' [[Hero Worship]] of him. Then, when Karara heads home, ''she'' promises to become a good future bride for him...

* In ''Adolescence of Utena'', the ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' movie, Utena is so [[Bifauxnen]] that one of the main characters (Saionji) thinks she's a guy until halfway into a duel when he manages to cut her shirt open. While surprised, it's only evident in his choice of words, his face and voice remain as level as ever (for him) and he [[Would Hit a Girl|continues to attack her]].

* In ''[[Otomen]]'', when he was a little boy, Kasuga developed a crush on his sweet, gentle cousin. Flash-forward ten years, and imagine his shock when he learned that his cousin grew up to be a tall, handsome guy.

* In episode 6 of ''[[Kämpfer]]'', Natsuru inadvertently does this to {{spoiler|Mikoto}} when his identity is compromised. Apparently, his clothes only change during transformations if [[Gender Bender|he/she]] is wearing the Seitetsu Academy uniform.

* ''[[Iono the Fanatics]]'': Well, [[Girls Love|Dropped a Bridget on Her]] really. However, inverted. Iono not only isn't uncomfortable with Tomo Senoo when she finds out the cute girl she was crushing on is a he, she's actually impressed.

* Subverted in ''[[Wild Rock]]''. Yuuen [[Disguised in Drag|dresses up as a girl]] for a [[Honey Trap]] plot, but eventually feels guilty and upset that Emba is [[Loves My Alter Ego|in love with his female persona]] and decides to run away rather than "drop a bridget" on himself. He then finds out Emba actually knew all along but didn't mention it because he didn't want him to stop coming.

* Poor Masamunya has one dropped by the title character of ''[[Nyanpire]]'' seconds after developing a crush on him.

* PG version in ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''. When Sakura, Kero and Tomoyo have to catch a Clow Card that has taken residence in a painting, they meet with a boy named Yuuki whose [[Disappeared Dad]] is the artist who painted it. At the end of the episode Yuuki's nice hat falls off and reveals ''very'' long [[Rapunzel Hair]], thus showing the trio (and us) that Yuuki is a tomboyish girl.

* Author Mineyo Maya of ''Patalliro!'' Fans are shocked to find out that the shounen-ai author is a happily married man with three kids.

* Inverted in ''[[Mayo Chiki]]''. The butler for a local rich girl, Konoe Subaru, is actually a girl. She was allowed to be a butler, which is a men's only profession, on the condition that she can hide her gender from the students at school. Her cover is nearly blown when [[Ordinary High School Student]] Jiro accidentally finds it out. But luckily for her, he agrees to keep it a secret (largely due to blackmail from said local rich girl, who also promises to help cure his gynophobia, or fear of women, as he suffers from nosebleeds anytime a woman touches him).

* The backstory of ''[[Prism (manga)|Prism]]'' has Megu spending a romantic day with a boy back in grade school... only to discover on her first day of high school that Hikaru is actually a ''girl''.

* In the ''[[D.N.Angel]]'' manga Satoshi once went [[Disguised in Drag]] and Dark [[Ho Yay|almost kissed him]] before he realized he's a guy.

* In [[Moyashimon]], a certain {{spoiler|cute goth-loli attired "girl"}} is not all she seems. Oikawa goes on a rampage when this is revealed to her after she witnessed a kiss. {{spoiler|It appears that Yuuki not only cross-dressinges but has a thing for his best friend.}}

 

* Even [[DC Comics]]' woman-lovin', homicidal, [[Anti-Hero]] [[Badass]] [[Lobo]] has had this happen to him. In "Lobo's Big Babe Special", he is hired as a bodyguard for an intergalactic beauty pageant. But each of the ladies in the pageant has one nasty surprise or another (even the ones he knew!) and were subsequently eliminated. Each of them, that is, except the extremely busty T.V., the one Lobo has been drooling over the entire time. Once T.V. was crowned the winner, the horny Main Man made his move, despite her subtle hints that it wasn't a good idea. Finally, T.V. tells him to "put your hand ''here''." [[Meaningful Name|I think Lobo and everyone reading now knows what the name "T.V." stands for...]]

* Used, of course, in ''[[Liberty Meadows]]''. Dean goes to a bar and sees someone who, from behind, appears to be a lovely long-haired lady. He proceeds to crudely offer to play some "tonsil hockey" with her before discovering that "she" is in fact a long-haired man.

* In ''[[Camelot 3000]]'', Tom Prentice awakens memories of Camelot in Sir Tristan's reincarnation, who happens to be a [[Gender Bender|gorgeous young woman]]. Tom's [[Love At First Sight|instant crush]] on the reborn Tristan plays out this trope. {{spoiler|Ultimately it proves hopeless, as Tristan refuses to accept life as a hetero female, eventually entering a lesbian relationship with Isolde's reincarnation.}}

 

* Frieza did this to Krillin in ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]''. Later, {{spoiler|Dodoria}} inverted this to ''everyone''. {{spoiler|Granted, part of the joke is [[She's a Man In Japan|she's a man in the original series...]]}}

* A slightly different version used in the sequel to ''[[A Very Potter Musical]]'': the gay Dumbledore falls for the rather mannish Professor Umbridge (who, incidentally, is played by a man), and is shocked and horrified when he discovers that she doesn't have a penis.

 

* Handled much more realistically in possibly the most famous example, [[It Was His Sled|Fergus and Dil]] from ''[[The Crying Game]]''. Subverted in that, even after finding out about Dil, Fergus realises that [[If It's You It's Okay|he still loves her]]. For most, this is [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"]].

* Madmartigan's performance in ''[[Willow]]''.

'''Madmartigan:''' Meet Lug. }}

* ''[[The Associate]]'': A gender-swapped version of this trope occurs when Camille Scott, a business associate of main character Laurel Ayres (a black woman), goes public with a story about being pregnant with the child of Ayres' business partner, Robert Cutty (an elderly white man) after Cutty refuses to sleep with her when they meet privately one evening. At the climax of the movie, Cutty reveals that "he" actually ''is'' a [[Latex Perfection|well-disguised]] Ayres.

* The ending to ''[[Some Like It Hot]]'' has "Daphne" revealing his true identity to the millionaire who is about to marry "her". His response [[Film/Funny|is priceless]].

* {{spoiler|Tanya's}} silhouette reveal as (possibly?) a joke in ''[[The Naked Gun]] 33 1/3''. The DVD commentary revealed it was a stand-by and they were going to use {{spoiler|a hairy butt instead}}. Luckily, the cable TV airing show this variant, while movie channel keep the silhouette intact.

* Played straight in the Japanese rock 'n' roll zombie epic ''[[Wild Zero]]'', when the male lead finds out that the girl he's been chasing all movie is actually a guy in drag... then wondrously averted when the god of rock and roll himself tells the guy not to be such a wuss, as love knows no gender. One of the best film lines ever:

* As you can guess by its title, ''[[Victor Victoria]]'' provides a few perfect examples of the reverse of this. The one that stands out most is when Victoria, dressed as Victor, pulls Norma into a bedroom and acts as if she wants to have sex with her. Norma later bursts out of the room and proceeds to yell angrily at her ex(?)-boyfriend (who is now dating Victoria) that Victor is a woman.

* Is the plot of a Mexican comedy ''Los Dos Rivales''.

* The [[Cult Classic]] horror movie form the 80's, ''[[Sleepaway Camp]]'' sets this up as a big reveal. It's probably one of the few times this trope is played for horror and not laughs/drama.

** What's even better, [[Robot Chicken|somebody remembered it and wrote a comedy sketch about it!]]

 

* There is a pornographic story that was [[Gender Neutral Writing|written in first person]], in which the narrator makes love to a man. In the last sentence of the story, it is revealed that the narrator is also male, which is a revelation to the ''reader''.

* Done with a twist in the ''[[Darkover]]'' novel ''Hawkmistress'': The main character is a young woman disguised as a young man, and is traveling with a group of mercenaries. The leader of the group starts hitting on her. She figures he's seen through her disguise; turns out he's gay.

* At the end of the third ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]'' novel, ''Tong Lashing'', the revelation that evil crime syndicate leader (and Apropos' brief lover) Verah Wang Ho is a man leads to his (anti)[[Heroic BSOD]] which ends with {{spoiler|the Hiroshima-like destruction of the city they're all in.}}

* A variation of this happens to Ivan Vorpatril in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|A Civil Campaign]]'' when he, realizing how slim pickings were for long-term female companionship, decides to intercept his old (and older) lover Lady Donna Vorryuter on her way back from Beta Colony (something related to an inheritance dispute surrounding her brother the late Count Vorryuter) and perhaps renew matters with said divorcee. Now who is that [[Gender Bender|fellow with the black beard]] accompanying the Vorryuter Armsmen and why do his [[Oh Crap|eyes look so familiar]]?

* In ''[[Moon Over Soho]]'' Ash Thames (one of the river spirits from the Upper Thames river) picks up a girl in a bar, when he gets her into bed he discovers she is a very convincing crossdresser. It [[Suddenly Sexuality|turns out not]] to bother him, because in his own words...

* In ''[[Let the Right One In]],'' Oskar finds out that {{spoiler|Eli is actually a castrated boy.}} He doesn't mind, though. The Swedish film includes this plot point but is a bit more ambiguous about it, while the American remake mostly removes it, and a deleted scene suggests that {{spoiler|Abby is probably is an actual girl}}.

 

* Korean drama ''[[Coffee Prince]]'' is actually an odd example. The manager initially thought he was in a gay relationship, and was hesitant for this reason. But since he was trying to avoid arranged marriages and was so shocked to suddenly find this out, even though it was a workable relationship.

* Oh, [[David Tennant]]! Or should I say, ''"Davina"''... [http://youtube.com/watch?v=xB-M_tYhLGU Seriously, watch this!]

** Also Akiko is one of the male-seeming bodyguards.

* The [[Korean Series]] ''[[You Are Beautiful]]'' has a convent novitiate [[Wholesome Crossdresser|dressing]] like her twin brother to join a pop band. And the drummer was the last to figure it out...

* In ''[[Cory in The House]],'' it happens to Newt Livingstone when Cory [[Disguised in Drag|poses as his sister Raven]] (for reasons too convoluted to get into here) and Newt [[Attractive Bent Gender|falls for him]] despite "her" clearly being [[Wig, Dress, Accent|his best friend in a dress and a wig]]. Then again, [[Wig, Dress, Accent]] was a staple of ''CITH'''s parent show ''That's So Raven'', and [[The Ditz|Newt is very stupid]].

* Another sexuality-inverted instance occurs in an episode of ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', in which a [[Girl of the Week|Guy Of The Week]] dumps Sally when he finds out, to his dismay, that she ''isn't'' a guy in drag.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': The Doctor {{spoiler|actually manages to do this to himself after his regeneration into [[Matt Smith]].}}

** At the end of the 1999 [[Comic Relief]] [[Affectionate Parody]] ''Doctor Who and The Curse of Fatal Death'', the Doctor regenerates into Joanna Lumley. His companion and fiancée Emma is disappointed as with him being "Not the man I fell in love with".... [[Jumping the Gender Barrier|the Master, on the other hand]]....

* One episode of ''[[1000 Ways to Die]]'' featured a rapist targeting a lady as she left a gym. As it so happens, the "lady" was a cross-dressing semi-pro boxer, who killed the rapist with one punch.

* Done for revenge in ''[[Rab C. Nesbitt]]'' when Mary Nesbitt's sexually abusive boss is tricked into groping [[David Tennant]].

* ''[[CSI]]'' has had at least two murders traced to violent reactions to this trope.

* ''[[CSI: NY]]'' had one as well.

* ''[[Chicago Hope]]'' did it in the middle of its run when one of the doctors, a very manly hockey player, starts dating Mia Sara. When she informs that she has something to tell him, he says that he already knows... that she has fake boobs and he's fine with it, she informs him that she actually used to be his best friend and hockey teammate in high school.

* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'': Shows up in more than one context:

** Invoked and subverted by Maeby, who wants Steve Holt to think Lindsay is her ''father'', not her mother. She goes so far as to buy her mother a shirt with a label "in French":

** Barry Zuckerkorn apparently ''seeks out'' this trope, exclusively:

'''Prostitute''': No, baby, I’m the real thing. (Barry floors it and drives away.) }}

* ''[[Bones]]'': The subplot of an episode revolved around the team trying to figure out whether a Japanese assistant is a man or a woman. It is debated at some length before Angela figures it out in her own way. {{spoiler|The character is a man...the actress is a woman.}}

* ''[[Will and Grace]]'': Jack freaks out when he gets turned on by the stripper at Leo's bachelor party, until he finds out the stripper is a pre-op who dances to raise money for her operation.

* In ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'', Charlie Sheen meets an old flame who has had a sex change and become Chris O'Donnell. He is freaked out by it but eventually comes to terms with the idea {{spoiler|until his mother starts dating his ex}}.

** Also a [[Running Gag]] is a certain [[Noodle Incident]] where he hit on a woman who later turned out to be a man. And from such statements it was pretty obvious but Charlie was too drunk to notice at the time.

'''Alan''': She had an Adam's apple the size of my fist and could palm a basketball. }}

* ''[[Nip Tuck]]'': In an early season, Matt starts a relationship with an older woman named Ava, much to the displeasure of his three parents. (Sidenote: It's f* ck'n' [[Famke Janssen]]! WHO WOULDN'T!?) Christian seduces her in an effort to get her to stay away from Matt and immediately deduces she used to be a man (and later describes her as "the goddamned Hope Diamond of transsexuals").

* Happens to Herb Tarlek on ''[[WKRP in Cincinnati]]'' twice (sort of):

** In one episode, Herb starts flirting with a woman who claims she knew him in high school. While making out with her, he learns he did know her in high school... [[Something's Different About You Now|before she had the operation]]. She was a teammate of his on the high school football team, in fact the center to Herb's quarterback. To say Herb had a case of the ''[[Squick]]'' is putting it midly.

* ''[[Community]]'': Pierce has to be corrected as to the gender of the singer that made Hawthorne Wipes a gay icon. The same singer is seen later on, arm in arm with [[Casanova Wannabe|Chang]], leading to this beautifully ironic line:

 

* "Well I'm not the world's most masculine man / But I know what I am / And I'm glad I'm a man / [[The Kinks|And so is Lola]]"

* The second version of "Uneasy Rider", when the singer and his friend go into a gay bar and the friend goes off dancing with a lovely lady.

** Used in this case to [[Depraved Homosexual|show how depraved the homosexuals are]] [[Values Dissonance|in the singer's eyes]], and both preceded and followed by gay bashing, since one of the other patrons in the bar did [[Disproportionate Retribution|flirt with him.]]

* ''The Doug Anthony All Stars'' song Sailor's Arms also has this theme.

* [[Pet Shop Boys]]' "One thing leads to another". The protagonist [[Drowning My Sorrows|gets drunk]], picks up a woman in a bar, attempts to make love to her, and discovers she's has a penis. He drives off, confused, and crashes his car and dies.

* The lead singer/guitarist of The Silversun Pickups has a very high register, causing a mild version of this for someone who hasn't seen them perform before.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzjMPPyze7I Ritsu Namine] is a boy

* Biz Markie's "A Thing Named Kim": "She didn't look none like she looked across the room/She had big broad shoulders and her titties was big/They were filled with silicone, and her hair was a wig... So I hurried out and left, she said, "Please stay"/I said, "Sorry money grip, I don't go that way"/So I stepped out in a hurry, to gather my wits/And thought ''that's a damn shame, he had nice tits''/And that's the last I ever saw of Kim/You wanna know why? Cause she's a he and her's a him." Needless to say, Markie didn't win many GLAAD awards for that one.

* In a rare example that has nothing to do with appearance, most people are surprised to learn that Angela Gossow, the vocalist of Swedish band Arch Enemy, is a woman. Why? Well... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGpcjzb67Q just listen.]

** This is taken to its logical extreme by Piko, who has a known reputation as a "Ryouseirui" - aka, a trap singer. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIo7ifkyuiY It's not hard to see why].

* [[Leet Street Boys]] song: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8WGCUHkucY "Lady And The Trap".]

* In Wilfrido Vargas's "Macho Man", a guy falls for a pretty girl that he later finds out, while they are almost intimate, is a pretty boy; he freaks out and runs away, losing his shoes in the process.

* In Rodney Carrington's appropriately named "I Think I'm Dancing with a Man" the singer begins to get suspicious of the woman he's been dancing with because of many masculine traits. His friend then takes "her" for a dance and "her" skirt falls off confirming it.

 

* A common prank that people pull on the internet is to post a picture of a hot girl for everyone to oggle, only to reveal that the hot girl is really a very feminine man.

* Let's not forget all the hot women in the internet that are actually [[GIRL|guys posing as women online.]]

* Many [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAs7IFvnhZA online] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ8oTyG0ey8&feature=channel_video_title webcam] pranks invoke this trope.

 

== Print Media ==

* Occured on a huge scale in an issue of ''[[Maximum PC]]'' with an advertisement. Sufficient numbers of people were surprised that the actor was male, that it was mentioned in the letter from the editor in the next issue. The ad in question featured [[Toplessness From the Back]], but a very effeminate male.

 

 

 

* The play (and subsequent film) ''M. Butterfly'' is about a French diplomat who has an affair with a Chinese opera singer, unaware that she is a) a spy for the Chinese government and b) a man in disguise. This is, believe it or not, a case of [[Truth in Television]]: the play is partially based on the life of [[wikipedia:Bernard Boursicot|Bernard Boursicot]].

* This one's [[Older Than Steam]] because [[Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare did it first.]] Someone falls for the [[Sweet Polly Oliver]] in both ''Twelfth Night'' and ''As You Like It''.

 

* Bridget, the [[Wholesome Crossdresser]] teenage boy in a nun habit from the ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' series, and former [[Trope Namer]]. In Bridget's birth town there was a superstition that if twins of the same gender are born, disaster will come. Rather than let the town sentence him to death, baby Bridget's parents put him into the custody of the local convent's nun who raised him as a girl. Bridget's gender is never a secret in the game, at least not to the audience, and is spelled out right at the beginning of his storyline. He also never intentionally hides that fact (anymore; it's a long story), thus [[Downplayed Trope|only a few characters actually get the unsettling reveal]]. The problem is that most other characters simply ''assume'' he's a girl, either because he's lived most of his childhood as one or because of his [[Moe Moe]] nun outfit.

** Even Zappa from ''[[Guilty Gear]] XX'' has a Bridget dropped on him in Story Mode. As written in a letter to his mom (which he writes during his brief periods of lucidity), he says he found an injured young girl by the side of the road who he wished to make his wife. (He is unaware that he is the one who pounded her into the pavement). But when he attempted to pick her up and carry her, he finds...

** At least he isn't in Johnny's shoes. That poor goon has a ''story mode ending'' about finding out too late that Bridget is a guy. ("I can't believe I hit on another man!")

** Not to mention a little [[Yonkoma]] about [http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/19660/4koma-axl_low-bridget-comedy-comic-crotch_grab-gui Axl trying to hit on Bridget]. Bridget gets fed up, grabs his arm and pulls it below the panel, with the word "TOUCH♡". The final panel has Axl gripping said hand with a horrified expression, going "What the hell did I just touch?". And "DESTROYED" in large letters above him, referencing the [[One-Hit Kill]] attacks from the games.

** Over here in [[Real Life]], people have found it quite amusing to show Bridget to those who aren't familiar with the Guilty Gear series, and get their reactions when they drop the bombshell, as it were (she and other characters of this trope are called "traps" for this reason). [[Memetic Mutation|As the meme says]], "Everyone is gay for Bridget".

* ''[[Disgaea]]''

** The Alraune trap is brought back again in ''[[Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten]]'' when the [[Cute Monster Girl]] in question is revealed as a guy in front of "her" adoring fans. Said fans decide that they "don't mind a little trap action."

* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'', it turns out that Shale was actually once a female dwarf. Thanks to [[The Fog of Ages]], even the character in question is stunned by this, making it a rare case of the ''character in question'' experiencing the unsettling reveal.

** According to an in-character [[Quinton Flynn]], "Why would I even care? I'm not even [[Barbie Doll Anatomy|anatomically correct]]! I run around naked and I got no junk!" ...That might say something...

* In ''[[Fire Emblem]] 7'', Serra is rather cold to Lucius when she thinks he's a girl in their C support, but when she finds out he's a guy, their B support has her going all starry-eyed.

* Flea from ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' has confused generations of gamers with his/her claim that he/she is actually a guy, despite having obvious cleavage in the artwork. Not to mention the actual heroes, of course. Luckily Flea plays no role whatsoever in the story other than to be a [[Mini Boss]].

* ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' has a certain dancer in the town of {{spoiler|Fabul}}.

* The ''[[Digimon]]'' series has played with Renamon's gender (or lack thereof) for some time, but ''Digimon World Data Squad'' amped it up by giving us a ''male'' Renamon with a painfully obvious female voice (in fact, it was the same voice actress who played Renamon in ''[[Digimon Tamers|Tamers]]''). Let's ignore the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of a male Sakuyamon.

** [[She's a Man In Japan|The German fans must've been laughing hard at that one.]]

** Sting is all too happy to play with the latter situation, by the way; as is the norm, a number of [[Fan Service]]-y phone cards are being produced. One features Male!Iita smirking and slowly peeling the clothes off of his ''very'' female body.

* While the title heroine of ''[[Atelier Annie]]'' has her moments due to her (unfortunate) [[Bifauxnen]] status, the game also gives a somewhat bizarre example when some men tried to hit on, of all people, ''Hans''. The bizarre part is that they genuinely mistook him as a girl, while his co-workers in the Committee see him as a guy just fine.

* Unsurprisingly, the Camwhore class in ''[[Forum Warz]]'' has this as a standard attack, if one not often seen. (It's down the line of a skill chain which many players respec out of before obtaining it.) Note that the gender, age and race of ''every'' player character is defined as "whatever happens to be squickiest at this instant". The same applies to any NPCs who use multiple or artificial personas, eliminating any potential shock value out of gender. (Especially as very few players would be attracted to most of the NPCs.)

 

* This joke was done as a gag during a scene where Hal is trying hit on women in episode 6 of ''[[Bowser's Kingdom]]''.

 

* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', this happens quite a lot when someone's stepped out of their normal gender. Somewhat unusually, it often gets milked for some drama in the process.

** Justin and Susan almost do something they'd regret later while both gender-bent for Grace's birthday party. Good thing they didn't, since Justin likes ''guys''; things would have gotten awkward once Susan became a woman again.

** The "Sister" arc was ''full'' of this. Minor characters were falling at Elliot's feet, and that's ''before'' Ellen took on a life of her own.

* ''[[The Wotch]]'' manages to do this to ''both'' participants, [http://www.thewotch.com/index.php?epDate=2003-09-10 here] when Jason is transformed into Satyr Sonja he has random flirty outbursts he can't control. When he "puts the moves" on Robin they both freak out. Jason continues to flirt-and-freak throughout the arc. And one flirt-and-freak recipient winds up wanting to date "Sonja" later.

** A [[Running Gag]] is that masculine characters tend to have sex with Freddy... who, despite having breasts, is male and revels in it. They tend to be very drunk at the time.

** Subverted when Belkar hits on a [[Gender Bender|magically gender-swapped]] Roy. Turns out, he knew it was Roy the whole time, and he was just doing it to squick him out.

* ''[[Concession]]'': Artie wakes up to discover he has {{spoiler|engaged in inappropriate acts with hypersexual preteen Chelsie Warner while in a brain-tumour-induced -- or, as it turned out, Joel-induced --}} trance, and confides in his boss:

* In [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971007 this] strip of ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', Riff and Torg run into First Officer Brenas, a shapely woman who is actually the male of the species. Riff and Torg subvert the trope by not being bothered at all.

'''Riff:''' Can you jump up and down for us, mister? }}

* ''[[Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures]]'':

** In another story arc, the shapeshifting incubus Abel takes a job working at the Lost Lake Inn. Dan gripes that it'll be an unfortunate adventurer who comes into an inn hoping for the traditional greeting and service by a perky cute beer wench. Abel: "Oh, well if THAT's your only issue..." Dan * turns around to see Abel has put on a very convincing female form* "YIGG!" Page caption: "Don't worry, adventurers are used to dealing with traps."

** Later on Dan meets Mink, who is androgynously pretty, flat-chested, and runs around in a skirt and no shirt. Dan outright asks Mink whether they are a boy or a girl, only to find that Mink has forgotten hirself (being another shapeshifting 'cubi). Mink is on the point of taking a peak down hir skirt to refresh hir memory when Dan decides that he doesn't really need to know that badly.

* ''[[Material Girl]]'', in which the character the title refers to isn't ''really'' a girl.

* A double inversion of this trope occurs in ''[[Teh Gladiators]]'', first when the Murlocs that join the heroes turn out to actually be female, and then when one of them, Yolanda, develops a crush on Vallant rather than vice versa.

* Done in [http://headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com/d/20060330.html this strip] of ''[[Head Trip]]''.

* Reversed in ''[[Kevin and Kell]]''. Rachel, upon first meeting Bruno, tries to romance him because she thought he was a sheep. To be more specific, ''not a male sheep''. (Rachel's a rhino with bad eyesight, and had gone by the smell of the sheepskin Bruno was wearing, which was made from his girlfriend Corrie). The end result was Bruno added ram horns to the sheepskin so he's never mistaken for a girl again.

* Done in [http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2010/08/05/package-deal/ this] strip of ''[[Dueling Analogs]]'', where one man mistakes a Bridget cosplayer for [[Chrono Crusade|Rosette Christopher]].

* ''[[Sexy Losers]]'' loves playing with this trope. Most notable is one comic in which a man picks up a woman with short hair at a bar, only to take her home and discover {{spoiler|she is a woman, but he's gay and he thought he was hitting on a man to begin with.}}

** {{spoiler|Would that be a booby trap?}}

** Another has a man approach a suicidal woman whom he asks for a BJ before she jumps. After the act, he asks why she was going to jump. Turns out her parents disowned him for dressing up like a woman. {{spoiler|So the guy jumps before the cross-dresser does}}.

** And a final one has a subway groper realize this. {{spoiler|[[It Makes Sense in Context|It ends up with the "and that's how you were born"]] [[Running Gag]].}}

 

* The title [[Wholesome Crossdresser]] in ''[[The Saga of Tuck]]'' does this both when crossdressed and in his normal, baggy boy clothes. The latter tends to annoy him.

* ''[[Awkward]] 4'' has a flashback sequence of a series of Alex's ill-fated blind dates, one of whom is a man who stammers "Alex" in shock and quickly checks to confirm that, yep, that's an adam's apple before running for dear life.

* ''[[Desu Des Brigade]]'': Professor Otaku admits in his Quick Hits review of ''[[Gravitation]]'' that he didn't realize [[Uke|Shuichi]] was male until he was halfway through an internet porn search of "her".

* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] uses the Austin Powers "She's a man!" joke to express her doubts about Mel C being a real woman.

 

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'': Patrick does this in the episode "That's No Lady" to everybody in the Krusty Krab, including Mr. Krabs and Squidward who had fallen for "her" after he tears off the girl disguise he was wearing.

* ''[[Family Guy]]'':

** Pervert Glen Quagmire gets quite an unsettling revelation when he tells Peter and the gang that he loves Taylor Hanson from the 1990s band [[Hanson]].

'''Quagmire:''' W-well, this is insane! That's impossible! Oh, my God. Oh, my God! Oh, my God, I can't... Oh, God! I-oh, I got all these magazines. Oh G-oh God! Oh, God! }}

** Quagmire tends to get this trope fairly often. An episode where Brian is recruited by the force as a drug dog has Quagmire coming off a plane from Manila, where Brian comments:

'''Quagmire:''' ...'''''[[Big No|Aaugh!]]''''' }}

** In a similar vein, Brian was the subject of a B-plot where he was completely frustrated over the family really not seeming to give any sort of care at all to him. Rather than coming home, he goes to a hotel bar, meets up with a woman, and they intellectually hit it off. After quite a few drinks he goes back to her room, and the next day is telling Stewie about his conquest... Only for Stewie to realize that the woman he was with had all the correct parts ''now'', but just a couple days ago was Quagmire's ''father''; the main plot of the episode was the man going through a sex change operation and how everyone around was dealing with it. When Brian found out, he had an [[Refuge in Vulgarity|impossibly long vomit session]].

* ''[[The Cleveland Show]]'' has a moment in the Thanksgiving special wherein Cleveland gets revenge on his wayward and emotionally abusive father by not telling him that the "woman" he's about to get in bed with is actually a man (and totally ''[[No Celebrities Were Harmed|not]]'' [[Tyler Perry]] / Madea). As it happens, the "woman" in question is actually Uncle Kevin, who disguised himself as a woman so Donna would have a positive female role model after her mother passed away. And then when Cleveland DOES tell him, it's not heard, but you see the two men gesturing... then the dad [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot|vomits for thirty seconds.]]

* ''[[Futurama]]'': There is the Valentine's Day episode in which [[General Failure|Zapp Brannigan]] is on a blind date with a very burly man in drag, who leaves unexpectedly early...

** Also played with in Lrr (ruler of Omicron Persei 8)'s date with what he believes to be an Omicronian woman, who turns out to be a (human) cross-species dresser. He feels shocked and violated.

* ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' sees Ra's Al-Ghul transferring his mind into his daughter Talia's body... and Bruce Wayne has quite the history with her [[Celibate Hero|(Well, as much as he does with anyone)]]. What transpires thoroughly creeps both Bruce and Terry out.

* In a later episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Peggy befriends a drag queen, after discovering "she" has size 16 feet like her.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Gender Blending Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]