Talk:Unknown gender

Canon term?

May I ask: 1) where the term genderless comes from; 2) whether it's canon; and 3) whether "gender unknown" (or "unknown gender", or some other variation on the phrase) is potentially also canon or even more canon?

Tiddlywinks gave this edit summary on cosmic duo when I tried to change "unknown gender" to "genderless": Requires discussion. B2W2/XY refer to unknown genders. It's also in the B2W2+ GTS.

I'm not familiar with any of those usages, and I can't find any reference to them on Bulbapedia via the search function. If Tiddlywinks is right about this terminology being canon, and if no one can dig up a canon source for the term genderless, then should we move this page (and all its children/grandchildren, like Category:Genderless Pokémon) to the "unknown" terminology? Pumpkinking0192 (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

To elucidate on the B2W2 and XY references:

From Black 2 (no idea where this is):

Here is a little advice! Keep a lot of Potions! Here is some more advice! Keep a lot of Poké Balls, too!
Your <Pokemon> is male! I wonder what the difference is between male and female Pokémon.
Your <Pokemon> is female! I wonder what the difference is between male and female Pokémon.
Your <Pokemon>... Its gender is unknown. I wonder what the difference is between male and female Pokémon.
I read the Help on the PC. I feel I became smarter!

From XY, either from the Poké Radar guy or in the same room:

There are male Pokémon, female Pokémon, and even Pokémon with unknown genders. Some Pokémon have a different appearance depending on gender.

You should also be able to choose "♂", "♀", or "Unknown" for a gender field in the GTS, but I haven't currently tested it so it could be off somehow.

Tiddlywinks (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Pokédex 3D (and/or Pro) also lists Pokemon as male, female or unknown. I remember a NPC in XY stating that "Pokemon can be male, female, or unknown", or something to that effect. I can't remember if it's the same person as the one Tiddlywinks mentioned or where the NPC was located, though. Ataro (talk) 02:58, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

The official Pokédex also uses unknown. The main reason I believe we aren't using the terminology is that it makes it unclear whether the gender is "unknown" or if the gender hasn't been revealed and is therefore not known. --Abcboy (talk) 04:45, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

There's also Gender unknown, which shows that the term has history. Some Stadium 2 quotes:

An EGG will not be made. <Pokémon>'s gender is unknown.
The gender is unknown.

--Abcboy (talk) 05:40, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Also note that a XY guidebook uses "Gender unknown" over "genderless", apparently. Nescientist (talk) 16:01, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and a persuasive direct quote from the Play! Pokémon video game glossary: The gender of a Pokémon is designated as male, female, or unknown.

Also, I'm not a biologist, but according to Wikipedia, more or less, most starfish seem to have genders (are gonochorous), but you cannot usually tell which. (This includes those species Staryu and Starmie are likely based on.) So, there may even be an intended technical difference between "genderless" and "gender unknown". Nescientist (talk) 09:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Redirect

I believe this should (at least) be a redirect. It's what "female" and "male" do, too. If there's serious concern that the "gender unknown" Egg Group might be what some readers are searching for when typing "gender unknown", then that can easily be a hatnote at the target section. Anyway, the current disambiguation-style article is almost obfuscating the most relevant article/section for the vast majority of cases IMO (which is not part of the bulleted list). Nescientist (talk) 12:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)