In biology, the purpose of gender is for reproduction(sexual repro.), but what about Transformers?

 

Did you just assume those robots gender



Dude. You are trying to apply adult logic to a media franchise aimed at kids.

You need to have characters kids can associate to.

 

Fiction wise, this should answer most questions! It changes from continuity to continuity, so there is no single reason.
Female Transformer - Transformers Wiki

Outside of fiction, it's likely so as to not leave female fans feeling alienated by having an entirely (perceived) male cast.

I say perceived, in that it's all robots, and more importantly, toys. It's what you say it is!

 

This is a very original topic that has not been beaten to death a hundred times over.

 

Because.

 

Now, now, we don't need to invoke rule 3. This isn't a discussion that is inherently political, even if it easily can end up being so.

...That said, this is correct.

 

Because fembots are awesome

 

If we follow the G1 continuity, Transformers were created by the Quintessons as a line of robots used for civil and military duties. It's not hard to imagine that they could have been given genders to make them more relatable to customers who wanted to utilize them. Today's digital assistants like Cortana or Siri have a gender too, after all.

 

You're confusing sex with gender, OP. Anyway...

Just because they don't reproduce sexually doesn't mean they can't have gender. I'm in the "there doesn't need to be an explanation for gender in Transformers" camp, they just are. Some are he, some are she, some might be they, doesn't matter.

 

This is the best reasoning I've read regarding this subject. There is no biological need for different sexes, but with that origin gender could have been based on consumer wants.

Of course, the real reason is to appeal to more fans and for story-lines in which writers want female characters, often including relationships.

 

So female VAs can voice them.

 

If you go by Quintesson origin... If they built them, maybe the Quints have sexes, and imposed their thoughts on to their creations?

 

I've always said Transformers having gender is basically the same as your GPS having a gender. You can have a male or female voice, but it's really just an aesthetic thing. In-universe, it could be because they were programmed with genders to make them feel more natural to organic species who might interact with them.

I also kind of like the idea that Transformers weren't programmed with a specific gender in-mind, and that organics just perceive them as male or female based on their voices and appearances. Kind of like how some cars are said to look more "masculine" or "feminine", but in actuality they completely lack gender (and many car designer probably don't even take that into consideration). Maybe a different alien species could even interpret Optimus as a female. Since Cybertronian doesn't have a functioning language (like Klingon or Elvish), there's no way of knowing if they have gender pronouns, or just refer to each other as "it". Maybe humans are the first ones to use gender pronouns for them.

Out-of-universe, it's simply because the actors portraying them have gender. I mean, they could give all the Transformers some kind of gender-neutral text-to-speech voice or R2-D2-style beeps, but that would be impersonal and awkward for humans to watch (especially children, who want a wide variety of voices). It would also be weird to call them all "it" instead of "he" or "she".

 

They don’t have gender. They are not Male or female. But they do have characteristics that are similar to human masculinity and femininity. If they act and sound like a human Male, they are referred to with male pronouns. If they act and sound like a human female, they are referred to with female pronouns. That doesn’t mean they are biologically Male or female though.

And that’s really all there is to it.

Some writers try to make them exactly the same as human gender identification and sexuality, but I don’t care for that. There needs to be some differences in what makes Cybertronians different to humans.

In some universes, the Cybertronians are completely unaware of the concept of gender. It is completely alien to their race, but they are able to identify and even personally relate to organic genders. A Cybertronian discovering an alien race of organic beings and identifying with the female of the species that they start referring to themselves as female is fine. That doesn’t mean they are though.

 

My head-canon is that transformers have 13 "genders" based on which original prime the "descend" from. This dictates there shape and manners similar to DNA inherence for humans. Two types stand out, those from Onix Prime have beast robo modes like Ravage and Ratbat and those from Solus Prime have rounder bodies (and lipstick). I imagine there is a cultural stigma against these two in particular where beast are seen as less intelligent and, as Solus was a builder, those descendent of Solus are expected to stay out of combat and build stuff. They may also be seen as physical weaker and unfit for combat.
It is possible that these two (or all thirteen) have different pronouns in cybertronian languages but when translated to English they become “it” for Onix and “she” for Solus.

In short. To me, transformers “genders” is more like zodiac signs that at best determens some personality qurks.

 

It doesn't really serve a purpose, from a utility standpoint at least. Which makes the amusing response to Furman trying to make them genderless all the more hilarious since it's such a superficial feature that doesn't add anything to the overall universe. It could not exist and the story would be the exact same.

While I get what you're most likely trying to say, kids will associate with characters (or should be able to) regardless of their biological sex, race etc. Because they (hopefully) haven't been taught to care so much about what's on the surface.

If your child feels like they can't relate to someone not like them, that means you need to teach them otherwise, not to focus on or care so much about superficial elements of a person. This is something that M. Scott should've been taught because she felt like Beast Wars wasn't for her because the cast just happened to feature more 'male' robots than girl ones. That means her parents didn't do their job properly and allowed this flawed perception she gained from when she was a child to shape her future beliefs.

Kids won't care, they can relate to anyone of any species.

 

This beyond a shadow of a doubt. My daughter loves watching the different Spider-Man cartoons on Disney+, irrelevant of his sex/gender or hers.

 

To market it towards girls, even Arcee was created for that reason.
But in all seriousness I don't know.

 

The answer is boobies.

 

The Face of the Nijika is the episode that preceded The return of Optimus Prime

it wasn’t a bad episode but I don’t think it would have been a fitting ending