There is not a 100% overlap between a character having an androgynous appearance and being unable to determine their sex. A character may, for example, be seen nude or in a sexual situation, making their sex obvious, yet still have an overall androgynous appearance. Tagging such an image with both their sex and the contradictory ambiguous_gender doesn't exactly make sense, and currently the only other option is just not tagging one.

I agree. ambiguous_gender has a very different meaning than androgynous. Androgynous means a person has an appearance that is hard to identify as male or female. ambiguous_gender tends to mean "There is simply not enough information to tell"

Male, Female, intersex, or ambiguous_gender are all gender qualifiers.

Androgynous is a separate quality, not unlike saying a character is masculine, feminine, butch, or girly.

An example would be one of the images I uploaded recently. The siberian tiger in post #94448, you cannot identify if it is male or female from the angle. Hell, you cannot even tell if it is androgynous. You just lack the necessary info to tell what the character is. This image would receive an ambiguous_gender tag. (The character is clearly male in post #94453, and is not androgynous at all)

An example of androgynous is #94621. While we can tell that the person is clearly female, they have an androgynous appearance, neither really male nor female.

On a related note, what about the 'genderless' tag? There are only about 8 or 9 images there... several of which are simply lacking defining sexual characteristics (which I'd retag)... however, there's also a fox-ish character who is apparently genderless. There's some debate in the comments basically saying "He looks like a male" "but he has some girly features!" "But the character is sexless..."

I figure one should just tag what they see, rather then "but he's sexless!".... the.. only possible exception to this being post #53981 and Synx's (Synxi?) are an entirely different kettle of really weird fish... most posts seem to tag Synx as 'neuter'.. which works... perhaps also being best for the ambiguous fox?

SnowWolf said:
On a related note, what about the 'genderless' tag? There are only about 8 or 9 images there... several of which are simply lacking defining sexual characteristics (which I'd retag)... however, there's also a fox-ish character who is apparently genderless. There's some debate in the comments basically saying "He looks like a male" "but he has some girly features!" "But the character is sexless..."

Renard looks like a male, period. This genderless thing is just an interpretation that we should not have been bending to (but i'm really tired of trying to enforce that rule).

As for the alias deletion, i agree, androgynous should imply ambiguous_gender, but is not systematically synonymous.

Um... Did you perhaps mean the other way around? ambiguous_gender -> androgynous? 'Cause the example pic that Marbles listed (which was what originally made me notice the alias) is a prime example of the character being androgynous but not of ambiguous sex within the image.

Anyways, on the subject of Renard: Yeah, the character's supposed to be 'sexless' as far as genitalia goes. However, the 'tag what you see' bit should apply just as much in this case as for intersex types -- the one picture where he's baring a blank crotch would thus be tagged neuter, while the rest should all be tagged male (as his appearance is distinctly masculine).

acct0283476 said:
Um... Did you perhaps mean the other way around? ambiguous_gender -> androgynous? 'Cause the example pic that Marbles listed (which was what originally made me notice the alias) is a prime example of the character being androgynous but not of ambiguous sex within the image.

Anyways, on the subject of Renard: Yeah, the character's supposed to be 'sexless' as far as genitalia goes. However, the 'tag what you see' bit should apply just as much in this case as for intersex types -- the one picture where he's baring a blank crotch would thus be tagged neuter, while the rest should all be tagged male (as his appearance is distinctly masculine).

Imo, visible genitalia instantly excludes "androgynous", or you might just as well substitute it for "girly" (although girly also implies an attitude).
I'd say androgynous characters are those who have features that match both genders (but are not prominent enough to let one decide).

In post #35689, the human is androgynous.

I would however use only ambiguous_gender for feral characters and characters that look too young, or too cartoon-ish to have gender defining features (ex: post #46324).

Kald said:
Renard looks like a male, period. This genderless thing is just an interpretation that we should not have been bending to (but i'm really tired of trying to enforce that rule).

Heck, screw it. the genderless tag no longer has any images under it. :) no one says someone else won't come along after me, but hey.

As for the topic of this post--as I realize with some horror I didn't actually ever address it...

To me, Androgynous is a character that is confusing.

post #63611, post #78075, post #75867 are all confusing. They're not (generally) girly boys, or boyish girls, or traps, etc. They're characters who could be one or the other.

Ambiguous gender is a character who is more then likely one or the other, but due to camera angle, art style, fur, or other reasons, you can't tell.

post #63544, post #69079, post #83409 are all ambiguous. For that matter, so is post #83220

An Ambiguous character is not androgynous, though an androgynous character may be ambiguous... however, I'd argue that ambiguous "should" be used for images where you're not sure... and in any regard, I support the deletion of any aliases connecting those two together :D

Kald said:
Imo, visible genitalia instantly excludes "androgynous", or you might just as well substitute it for "girly" (although girly also implies an attitude).

I think I agree. There's enough 'confusion' with cuntboys, dickgirls, etc On and herms. and she-males. and...

Kald also said: I'd say androgynous characters are those who have features that match both genders (but are not prominent enough to let one decide).

In post #35689, the human is androgynous.

Actually, to me, the human's pretty clearly female... the'res enough boobage there... but this one, I would say is ambiguous, rather then androgynous... however, for that one, both would work. :D

I would however use only ambiguous_gender for feral characters and characters that look too young, or too cartoon-ish to have gender defining features (ex: post #46324).

Disagree..

For some ferals and young characters who are ambiguous, for sure, but cartoons without defining features often have other indicators... by your argument, anyone drawing sonic characters in the original sonic style would have to label most of the characters as ambiguous... the lost you linked, for example, is male to my eyes.. but could be ambiguous. Howeve, there are a great many other characters who are ambiguous without falling in to those categories or without being androgynous, exactly. but, I've already posted about that ^^;;

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Kald said:
Imo, visible genitalia instantly excludes "androgynous", or you might just as well substitute it for "girly" (although girly also implies an attitude).

I mean no offense. But I mean that's simply wrong by the definition of androgynous. You are confusing it with the word "ambiguous"

Androgyny means a mixture of masculine and feminine traits

post #94621 is a perfect example of androgyny. It doesn't matter that you can see the character's genitals, as their whole body is a mixture of masculine and feminine traits, one of the feminine traits happening to be the vagina.

Androgyny is neither "girly male" nor "butch female" but rather what you get if you smash both together, and let it be applicable to either sex. A blurring or blending

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgyny

To put it in layman's terms, this is androgyny:
http://i53.tinypic.com/vh7xc1.jpg

SnowWolf said:
Ambiguous gender is a character who is more then likely one or the other, but due to camera angle, art style, fur, or other reasons, you can't tell.

Well explained. +1 internet for you. I am impressed by your eloquence.

SnowWolf said:
I think I agree. There's enough 'confusion' with cuntboys, dickgirls, etc On and herms. and she-males. and...

Androgynous has NOTHING to do with all of the above.

You can have an androgynous cuntboy, or an androgynous dickgirl, or an androgynous female, or an androgynous male, or an androgynous herm, or an androgynous shemale. Or hell, a picture that is both androgynous and ambiguous_gender at the same time.

It's a term that is closely related to "girly", "butch", "masculine" and "feminine". And specifically means "All of the above and none of the above simultaneously"

EDIT: To not tag androgyny is to tag less accurately. It's not a good thing. Tag what is in the picture. In the excellent and much repeated example of post #94621, it should be tagged both female and androgynous, as that is the accurate tags for that picture.

Marbles said: Well explained. +1 internet for you. I am impressed by your eloquence.

Why thank you :) *nibbles on internet*

Androgynous has NOTHING to do with all of the above.

I agree. The point I was making (or trying to anyway :) ) was that genitalia removes a lot of the 'androgyny' factor in a picture. As it is, I very often see debate and confusion in tags and comments about cuntboys, dickgirls, herms etc. Adding in the extra bonus of 'androgynous' and people may explode :) For many.. cuntboy = flat chest with pussy, dick girls = boobs, with cock, herm = boobs, cock and cunt. They already have enough issues going "I don't see a pussy, that's not a herm" or "That's just a flat chested chick, not a cunt boy, stop making me doubt my sexuality!" ;)

Though I'll say I agree with this:

You can have an androgynous cuntboy, or an androgynous dickgirl, or an androgynous female, or an androgynous male, or an androgynous herm, or an androgynous shemale. Or hell, a picture that is both androgynous and ambiguous_gender at the same time.

but I'm also trying to simplify for tagging. Maybe we need an "androgynous_features" tag or something specifically for the above.

On a side note, am I going crazy? I suddenly can't find anything tagged androgynous... but I swear there were some before...

Maybe it's time for bed... ... just a few more tag edits..

There used to be images tagged androgynous before the alias that turned all the tags into "ambiguous gender"

*sigh*

Goddamn bad aliasing.