Advice/Help How do I keep Androgynous/Gender Unknown Characters Gender Unknown?

[Crow]

Title says it.

For how I'm doing it right now, I do what I can to avoid pronouns, or mix hes and shes in referring to the same character.

There are a lot of contexts for this, like whether no one knows the character's gender or if one character or two know the character's gender. In the former case I would stick to using either he or she, or use both. In the latter case I avoid pronouns.

 

[Meredith]

"They" is a gender neutral singular pronoun you could use. Is there any aversion to that?

 

[Tulik]

They, them, their.

 

[Crayons]

They is your best bet.

Also I've had an androgynous character go by he or she depending on how they presented at the time. And one non-gendered character with whom I used the pronoun "it" although be careful with that one as some may find it offensive if it's applied to people. This character was a walking skeleton so "it" seemed appropriate, and was how the character thought of itself.

 

[rae2nerdy]

They or some people use Xe (saw that in a fantasy novel to describe agender character)

Xe, Xer I believe where the combos.

 

[MechanicalSnake]

They or some people use Xe (saw that in a fantasy novel to describe agender character)

Xe, Xer I believe where the combos.

This!
Personally, I use they just because most people nowadays understand it. But I saw the Xi/Xe/Xir in a fantasy novel too.

 

[MechanicalSnake]

Sadly, I have a problem with it in my own language though. We have nothing to express this and no book that expresses it has been translated into Czech.

 

[Macabre]

Like others have said, they/them is probably your best bet - I'd personally stray away from xe/xem if the character is simply ambiguous or unknown, simply because that might give players the impression that the character themselves identify as non-binary (which can make any potential gender reveal have less impact/even be read into the wrong way). If that isn't your intention, then mix-ups and attempting to avoid pronouns altogether is probably your best bet.

 

[Idea]

I recommend using the name as well as stand-in names. For instance:

“Legolas drew his bow. The elf knew that the prey was not far.”

Beyond that, use they/them to avoid seeming like you are referring to two different characters. I do think the pronoun switch CAN work but only if you draw attention to the fact they are referencing the same character. If your intention is to make it less noticeable then use another method than that.

There is also another trick you can use depending on your narrator. If you’re using a third person cinematic narrator (aka no getting in character’s heads) you could use how things look and state them as facts. If a male character looks and acts female enough, they could be called female all the time with such a narrator until the reveal.

 

[Crayons]

I recommend using the name as well as stand-in names. For instance:

“Legolas drew his bow. The elf knew that the prey was not far.”

Beyond that, use they/them to avoid seeming like you are referring to two different characters. I do think the pronoun switch CAN work but only if you draw attention to the fact they are referencing the same character. If your intention is to make it less noticeable then use another method than that.

There is also another trick you can use depending on your narrator. If you’re using a third person cinematic narrator (aka no getting in character’s heads) you could use how things look and state them as facts. If a male character looks and acts female enough, they could be called female all the time with such a narrator until the reveal.

Tbf this can be equally as confusing if not moreso than "they". In the example you used, we all know Legolas is an elf so fine, but most of the time that won't be the case. If you keep referring to the character as "the elf" "the tall person", "the blonde", "the archer", etc etc then you have to make sure everyone knows and remembers all those things about the character all the time, and be totally sure there aren't two characters matching that description in the scene, otherwise you could be talking about multiple different people. The elf could be one person, Legolas another, the blonde another one still, etc etc.

I'd like it if you could use they with singular verbs if it's referring to one person but I don't think the world is ready for that yet.

 

[Idea]

Tbf this can be equally as confusing if not moreso than "they". In the example you used, we all know Legolas is an elf so fine, but most of the time that won't be the case. If you keep referring to the character as "the elf" "the tall person", "the blonde", "the archer", etc etc then you have to make sure everyone knows and remembers all those things about the character all the time, and be totally sure there aren't two characters matching that description in the scene, otherwise you could be talking about multiple different people. The elf could be one person, Legolas another, the blonde another one still, etc etc.

I'd like it if you could use they with singular verbs if it's referring to one person but I don't think the world is ready for that yet.

I have to disagree. All the traits, even if the person doesn’t know them initially, could be inferred to still refer to the same person by context clues. “He” and “she” though, are opposites. Intuitively they can’t refer to the same person, and that’s what makes it confusing.

 

[jaded]

Hey. I'm nonbinary and have a foreign language, so I think I can weigh in.

If there isn't yet a word in your native language, simply make one up. The languages of people are often much older than the pronouns and nouns of the language. For example, "girl" was used to refer to all children while "man" was used to refer to all adults before the invention of "boy" and "woman" and everyone was referred to as "he" in third person or "they" in second person before the words "she" and "you" were invented.

For Spanish, my other language, everything ends in a/o to denote gender. For neutrality, a lot of us started using "e". For example, instead of a Latino (a Latin American man) or Latina (a Latin American person), we started using Latine (a Latin American person). Even "they" is gendered in my language, which is "ellas" for a group of all women and "ellos" for every other kind of group, mixed gender or all-male. We have proposed using "elles" (pronounced ay-yes) for neutral plural and "elle" (ay-yay) for neutral singular. Hope this helps!

 

[Crayons]

I have to disagree. All the traits, even if the person doesn’t know them initially, could be inferred to still refer to the same person by context clues. “He” and “she” though, are opposites. Intuitively they can’t refer to the same person, and that’s what makes it confusing.

We were talking about descriptors versus "they", not he and she.

 

[Idea]

We were talking about descriptors versus "they", not he and she.

In that case I'm confused because I did say to use that?