this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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I did consider using the term “sexual dimorphism” instead, but within the context of the post, “gender dimorphism” felt more correct. The biological sex and chromosomes of the pre-fab Pikachu model would stay the same, but its outward appearance and gender expression has changed to become feminine.
As a real life analogy, lion manes are an example of sexual dimorphism, but due to either hormonal abnormalities and/or a shortage of males, lionesses may grow manes and occupy the masculine role; a mane is sexually dimorphic for lions, but it becomes gender dimorphic for the lionesses who adopt the masculine role in their pride.
Also, as far as I’m aware, within Pokémon media and even within the programming code, they do use gendered terms but they never say the word “sex” specifically, so there is ambiguity within the fictional universe on top of the ambiguity of our own universe’s terminologies and schemata.
You used the term while describing the natural differences between pikachus in the base game. That would be sexual dimorphism, a physical difference between the two sexes.
What we see in the OP could be termed gender dimorphism, but you were refering to the feature of the base game when you used the term, which is very likely the devs intended to be sexual dimorphism. The gender dismprphism mimics the sexual dismorphism to display its role.
I tried to do a little more research to define the differences between the terms but unfortunately gender dimorphism is not a common term used in biology and sexual dimoprhism seems to be used across the board
I wanted my conclusion sentence to be an umbrella term that would apply to both the games/anime and instances such as in the post; that’s why I chose “gender dimorphism” instead of the more limiting “sexual dimorphism”. My terminology was not meant to refer to only one specific use case and exclude another and I’m confused as to why you’d interpret it as that.
Yes, the devs did intend it to act as sexual dimorphism, but there are fringe instances in the animal kingdom and in the Pokémon fandom (and possibly in canon) in which that term does not sufficiently describe an animal’s changed physical and social characteristics. The lioness manes that I had mentioned and the above post are some of those instances.