Danbooru

Androgynous and 1other/*others

Posted under General

Currently the androgynous wiki has the following clause:

This tag may also apply to characters whose gender is canonically unknown (e.g. Akiyama Mizuki from Project Sekai) and to original characters whose gender cannot be visibly distinguished.

I read this as it automatically applying to any character of unknown or indeterminate gender, like the example given of Akiyama Mizuki. This clause, or a similar one, has been present since the original wiki version from 2006, but I question whether it should be there.

The Cambridge Dictionary has a simple definition that I think most people could agree with:

not clearly male or female

And I think it makes way more sense for androgynous to only apply when a character looks, well, not clearly male or female, similar to how tomboy functions based on look and mannerism. Wiktionary's definitions that aren't ancient are also similar. Akiyama Mizuki would disqualify from "being" androgynous in this case, since they clearly look like a girl in almost every image.

On the more practical side, the way the wiki is worded now would also mean it doubles as a ~1other ~*others search, and that seems unnecessary.

TL;DR I am proposing we remove the clause in my first quote from the wiki of androgynous since this seems to be completely disconnected from real-world use of the word.

I never read that clause as meaning that it "automatically" applies to any character of unknown or indeterminate gender, because it says it "may" apply. To me the fact that it says "may" just clarifies that despite being a tag for characters that display traits of both sexes, it can also apply to characters of unknown genders.
That said it's not a very important clause to have there either way and I think it can be reworded or removed if it's a source of confusion.

Speaking of which - our 1other wiki is also somewhat outdated: as of currently, it states:

An image depicting one character of ambiguous or indeterminate gender, either because their face or features are not visible (ambiguous gender) or because they're androgynous.

But it doesn't mention characters who are canonically nonbinary or of unknown gender at all. Presumably it might have been because they used to fall under androgynous up until this thread, but now that they don't, well. That should probably be added (with a clause for genderswap (otf) and (otm)).

KagayakuShiningGate said:

Speaking of which - our 1other wiki is also somewhat outdated: as of currently, it states:

But it doesn't mention characters who are canonically nonbinary or of unknown gender at all. Presumably it might have been because they used to fall under androgynous up until this thread, but now that they don't, well. That should probably be added (with a clause for genderswap (otf) and (otm)).

Sounds good to me.

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