Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Padre Bateleur''': How do you sex such a dangerous animal?

 

So you have a pet and you love him dearly. Let's call him George. One day, you notice that George has become quite fat, you also notice he seems to be sickly. Worriedly you rush George to the veterinarian and ask him worriedly what is wrong with the animal. The vet smiles slyly and informs you that "he" is pregnant. (Apparently you didn't rub George's tummy very often.) Oops.

Can easily be [[Truth in Television]] for rabbits and guinea pigs as well as cats. There are no coat patterns exclusive to male cats, and it takes some experience to be able to identify a cat's genitalia except in particularly blatant cases. The reverse situation is equally common - veterinarians find it just as frequent to let cat owners know that their cat isn't female. Both situations commonly occur with rabbits and guinea pigs as well as it's hard to identify their genitalia as well.

 

 

{{examples}}

 

* In ''[[Aria]]'' (the manga, at least), President Maa is normally refered as Maa-kun and thought to be a male cat, until the trio went to the vet for annual cat vaccine injection, which then reveals that Maa is female. They threw around the idea of calling her "Maa-chan", but by then they'd called her "Maa-kun" for so long that calling her -chan wouldn't have felt right.

 

* In the long running ''[[Giles]]'' comic, the children get Grandma a parrot for Christmas. They name it '[[Attila the Hun]]'. Attila later lays eggs.

* Although not revealed in-story, this is presumably why [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|May Parker]] owns a male dog called Ms Lion in ''[[Pet Avengers|Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers]]''. Apparently, she ''hasn't'' found out yet.

 

* The [[Walt Disney]] live-action film ''The Three Lives of Thomasina'' has this as part of the [[Backstory]], explaining the titular cat's name. [[Fridge Logic|Seems a little odd]] that this mixup occurred with a cat who lived in a veterinarian's home.

{{quote|'''Thomasina''': They started out by calling me Thomas, but when they, um, got to know me better, they changed it to Thomasina.}}

* Kiara at the very beginning of [[The Lion King|''The Lion King II'']].

 

* The book ''Thomasina'' (which inspired the above film) involves a female cat mistaken for a male. Her name was originally Tom. The cats gender was revealed with age. Ironically, Tomisina's owner is the daughter of a vet, but he disliked the cat and didn't bother to check the gender for his daughter.

* There's a ''[[Babysitters Club]]'' book where Jessi is petsitting and thinks that a fat old male hamster is sick, only when she takes him to the vet, she finds out that the hamster is pregnant.

* In ''Harry's Mad'' by [[Dick King-Smith]], after Mad is bird-napped, Harry's family adopts another African grey parrot to replace him, which they name "Fweddy" due to its lisp. After Mad returns home successfully and gets to know the new parrot, an egg suddenly appears, and Fweddy shyly admits "Call me Fwedwika".

* A poem by [[Shel Silverstein]], "If I Had a Brontosaurus":

''I would name him Horace or Morris.

''But if suddenly one day he had

''A lot of little brontosauri--

''I would change his name

* ''[[Pit Dragon Chronicles]]'': Jakkin seems to assume that his dragon is male. Most readers are led to believe this too. But the dragon is always referred to as "it" and near the end, Jakkin's master reveals that it's a female.

* Inverted in ''[[Safehold]]''. Archbishop Maikel Staynair has a pet cat-lizard that he didn't find out was male until after he'd named it after his late wife. Fortunately, his wife had the kind of sense of humor that the family figures that she would've been amused by it.

* Played straight in [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s short story "The Haunted Space Suit." The protagonist, hearing muffled sounds in his suit halfway through an EVA, begins to believe the suit is haunted by the ghost of a former colleague who may - or may not - have died while wearing it. Halfway through requesting a check on the suit's history, he is reduced to incoherent screaming panic when something ''actually'' pats him on the back of the neck. Turns out the ship's cat, Tommy, is badly misnamed... and had found a very interesting place to have 'his' kittens.

 

* Happened in the American ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' pilot.

** Also in the original ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Pete", in which Pete the sparrow is accidentally turned into a tyrannosaurus. At the end of the episode, after they manage to turn Pete back into a sparrow, they come across a dinosaur egg. (A deleted scene elaborates that, yes, Pete is a girl).

* In ''[[The Closer]]'' episode "Batter Up", Brenda Lee Johnson has her cat Kitty taken to the vet because of illness. While he's at the vet, "he" gives birth to a litter of kittens. By habit, Brenda continues to call Kitty "he", even after this revelation.

* Gender-reversed in ''[[Blackadder the Third]].'' Baldrick has a male cat named Mildred (although that's not surprising what with Baldrick being [[Bumbling Sidekick|Baldrick]].)

{{quote|'''Klinger''': Now, if you'll just let me cover the cage, Romeo and Juliet are giving each other that look that only lovers share.

'''Winchester''': Uh, [[Ho Yay|Romeo and ''Mercutio'']] is more like it. }}

 

* "Saturday Morning Confusion" by Bobby Russell includes the following lines:

''If you think you can sleep, it's illusion,

''Harry the dog is as big as can be

 

* In the stage play (and book, and film) ''I Remember Mama'', the youngest daughter's beloved cat, "Elizabeth", is revealed by the girl's brother to be a tom. When the girl presses him on how he found this out, he says "I looked!" before their mother shushes him.

** And the cat is promply renamed "Uncle Elizabeth".

** There are now at least two coffee houses and a women's rock band called Uncle Elizabeth.

* This trope is referenced in "Mister" Mistoffeles' song in the musical ''[[Cats]]''.

 

* In ''[[Heart De Roommate]]'', Tomoe's fat cat, Toshibo, starts feeling sick. When the heroes take Toshibo to their teacher for help, they learn that "he" is pregnant. The revelation that Toshibo is female was revealed to the player in the previous chapter, however.

* In ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'', genders were not displayed for most Pokémon. In ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'' - compatible with the first - they were. Woe betide any Pokémon who is given a gender-specific nickname in the first gen and traded to the second.

**** Which is only an issue for games that use the English or French names. All other names for it are gender-neutral.

 

* Happened in the webcomic ''[[Girly]]'', where the cat that the main characters took in got really fat before giving birth, much to their surprise. A bigger surprise is when they find out who's the father, the black cat with the ear splitting cry.

* Happened in ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]'', kicking off the chapter ''Tiny Miracles''.

* In ''[[Housepets]]'', one old woman has so many Siamese cats that all look nigh identical that she can't be bothered to name them all. So she names them all Mr. Bigglesworth. [http://www.housepetscomic.com/2009/06/03/yes-all-of-them/ Yes, all of them.] [http://www.housepetscomic.com/2009/08/19/increasingly-bizarre-implications/ Not even they can tell each other apart.] [http://www.housepetscomic.com/2010/02/13/quick-valentines-bonus/ This results in hilarity.]

 

* In the ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' episode "One of a Kind", Danny finds himself in a literally awkward position when he discovers the gorilla he is researching to raise his grade is actually female.

{{quote|'''Mr. Lancer:''' ''[in class, reading from an article]'' "Brooding genius, Daniel Fenton did what no other researcher dared to do. He got close enough to this rare purple-back gorilla to realize that Sampson was actually a Delilah." ''[stops, indignant]'' Nobody at that zoo ever bothered to see if it was boy or a girl?

* One episode of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' either plays this straight or subverts it: the Ice King brings his main penguin, Gunter, to the hospital, and the two return later with an egg. A shocked Jake yells "Gunter is a woman?!" and the Ice King replies that no, of course he's not... then [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|checks the relevant body parts]] before shrugging the question aside.

* [[Gorillaz]] bassist Murdoc Niccals named his raven Cortez and referred to it with male pronouns, but later also claimed for it to lay eggs.

* Inverted in one episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' where Bart actually raises a calf in which he names Lulubelle, but then it's revealed that the calf is actually a male, so he renames "him" Lou.

** Also a sort of meta example: there was at least one tie-in book that talked about Simba and Nala's ''son,'' but the sequel only gives them one female cub.

 

* The reverse occurred on Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica. A tabby was taken aboard the ''Endurance'' by a member of the crew and named Mrs. Chippy. A month after setting sail, it was discovered Mrs. Chippy was actually male, but by then the name had stuck.

** It was a kind of tragic discovery really; they had gotten two cubs, a boy and a girl. One sickened and died, and they thought it was the boy (there was a lot going on at the time and there was apparently a mix-up). It wasn't until Amy grew up a little more that they realized which it really was.

* Zookeepers do their best to avoid this trope with captive-bred bird hatchlings or other animals in which gender is not externally apparent. Names aren't assigned to such juveniles until blood tests or the emergence of sex-based traits in adulthood eliminates any doubt.

* The genus name for the beaver is Castor, as it is not possible to tell males from females without... um... ''very'' close inspection; thus, the main reason beavers do not normally fall foul of this trope is that few people keep them as pets—however, the capacity for tragicomedy exists.

* It takes a bit of practice, but it is possible to sex (tell the gender of) a cat by face alone. Mature toms typically have prominent jowls while queens have more pointed faces or at least less prominent jowls.

* Guinea pigs can be sexed usually by squeezing gently on the kidney and rump regions. If the urinary whole produces even the tiniest projection, that usually indicates a male. It takes a little practice, or some (possibly Not Safe For Work) photography study on how sexing works.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Gender Reveal]]

[[Category:Gender Blending Tropes]]

[[Category:Pet and Animal Companion Tropes]]