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Given that the 13th Doctor will be female, we can no longer assume the explanation is that the Doctor is always male. Assuming the in-universe explanation is not just that it was pure chance since it would be overwhelmingly unlikely that the first twelve Doctors would all be male,

What is the in-universe explanation for why the Doctor was male twelve out of thirteen times?

We need not go into the out of universe reasons.

ThePopMachine
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    Regeneration. It's a lottery – DisturbedNeo Jul 19 '17 at 15:02
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    Because he was born male? Perhaps birth gender weighs the odds heavily for that side. – amflare Jul 19 '17 at 15:03
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    Fun fact: Sydney Newman told the BBC to give the role to a woman back in 1986, but the BBC refused and gave the role to Sylvestor McCoy instead. – DisturbedNeo Jul 19 '17 at 15:05
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    This may well get explained in the next series... – The Dark Lord Jul 19 '17 at 15:09
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    Question: do Time Lords even have genitalia? In some canons they're entirely sterile. Is what we perceive as sexual dimorphism just pure coincidence? – OrangeDog Jul 19 '17 at 17:54
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    Simple! There are two types of regeneration! The Doctor had the original type which locks you into one gender. When the Time Lords gave him a new set of regenerations, they upgraded him to the type where both sexes are possible! – CJ Dennis Jul 19 '17 at 23:14
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    Even if it were pure chance, 1 in 2^12 isn't really that rare. If there's 7 billion time lords, like there are 7 billion people, there's almost 2 million of them kicking around in their 12th straight regeneration to the same sex. – Daniel Wagner Jul 20 '17 at 00:15
  • Don't forget selection bias. Sexual dimorphism in Timelords may include characteristics that make an individual more or less likely to engage in -- and survive -- the Doctor's lifestyle. – Beta Jul 20 '17 at 01:37
  • Your starting assumption appears to be that 50% of the (human?) population of the universe is male and 50% female. Where did you acquire this information? – Michael Kay Jul 20 '17 at 11:49
  • Rule #1 The Doctor lies maybe he just didn't mention the regenerations when he was a women. – StrongBad Jul 20 '17 at 20:10

4 Answers4

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I don't think there is a lot of in universe reasons. But I'll try to give some

Even though Regeneration is a lottery, some control over it seems to be possible

The best example is given during the Melody -> River regeneration, where she says to "Focus on a dress size".

We have one other example of one Timelords/ladies tend to keep the same sex

In Hell Bent, The General goes into regeneration and goes from male to female. (I'm using neutral to talk of the character for obvious reasons)They then says that they are "Back to normal". Which supposes that the character consider the female sex to be their classical state. Moreover, they say (before this one) having 6 regeneration left.

So we can assume that this character has known a lot more female incarnation then male incarnation, and would not be target to the out of universes reasons.

The Master also has a lot of male incarnations, but here, out of universe reasons might (probably) apply

Edelk
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    I remember a conversation (I think in the first Capaldi season) where the Doctor was told that his new regeneration form suits what his own subconscious thinks he needs. E.g. Smith was sillier because Tennant had been too serious, Capaldi was old so that his companions would not fall in (romantic) love with him like they did with Smith. Similarly, his subconscious may never have considered changing gender by merit of having a "male brain", but e.g. seeing the Master as a woman may have opened his subconcious to the idea of becoming a woman. – Flater Jul 19 '17 at 16:06
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    There is a discussion about how Capaldi "choose his face", that's a good point, I'll add it in my later edit (to add scripts and so on) – Edelk Jul 19 '17 at 16:07
  • @Flater I don't remember any companion falling for Smith, neither Amy nor Clara. Well Amy for 1 episode and just 2 episods after she clearly chooses Rory over the Doctor – Edelk Jul 19 '17 at 16:13
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    Amy tried to kiss him, and Clara, in The Time of the Doctor, says (whilst under the effects of the truth field): "I'm an English teacher from planet Earth, and I've run off with a man from space because I really fancy him...". – DisturbedNeo Jul 19 '17 at 16:43
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    @DisturbedNeo: Amy tried to cheat on her fiancé with him! And I think the Doctor imagined kissing her just before he regenerated into Capaldi. – Paul D. Waite Jul 19 '17 at 17:04
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    Then the real question is: Why isn't the doctor a ginger? – Nathan Merrill Jul 19 '17 at 17:25
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    Yeah. I always just assumed that the Doctor liked being male (and British), this being a preference that he had picked up due to hanging around in Britain a lot. While he couldn’t totally control his regenerations, his preferences influenced them to some extent. Similar with the Master usually being male and the General usually being female, as you mentioned. Some Time Lords, such as the Corsair, might have a more even split. – Adamant Jul 19 '17 at 18:09
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    Don't forget we've seen Romana directly choosing a specific body while regenerating, trying on multiple bodies in the process, but choosing one which looks identical to someone she has recently seen. This implies she had complete control of the body into which she regenerated. Perhaps how much control they have varies based on how prepared they are for the regeneration and/or if the regeneration is due to their choice vs. if the regeneration is because they must regenerate in order to survive. – Makyen Jul 19 '17 at 18:20
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    Re the General: immediately after regenerating, she explicitly says, "Oh, back to normal, am I? The only time I've been a man, that last body. Dear Lord, how do you cope with all that ego?" Perhaps she wanted to become a man for the Time War? – Rand al'Thor Jul 19 '17 at 23:02
  • @Randal'Thor: Assuming that there is some level of gender stereotyping for Gallifreyans; masculinity can be a desired trait for wartime (perceived military aptitude through gender stereotyping). The quote about coping with male ego also implies that a Time Lord's gender influences their behavior from a hormonal perspective, therefore probably also making males physically stronger than women (on average); which again is a desirable trait for wartime. Whichever the reason, it probably hinges on the General's subconscious perception of the benefits of males vs females. – Flater Jul 20 '17 at 09:19
  • @NathanMerrill Because it's trying to attract kids, not the fetishists! –  Jul 20 '17 at 12:02
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This answer is not explicitly canonical, but it is worth noting as it may very well be the explanation.

The Monte Carlo fallacy states that no amount of previous outcomes in a randomized event will predict the outcome of that randomized event.

For example, if I were to flip a coin 100 times, we could expect the outcome to be roughly 50 flips landing on heads and 50 flips landing on tails. So if we now say that after 50 flips I have only gotten heads, will the 51st flip be tails? Not necessarily, because the chances of the coin landing on tails is 50% EVERY FLIP.

If we apply this to the Doctor, every time the Doctor regenerates, there is a 50/50 chance of male or female. The fact that the 13th regeneration is the first time that female was the result is statistically speaking no more or less remarkable that any other pattern of outcomes because every time there is a regeneration, the chances of the result being male or female remain the same.

Again I must stress, this answer does not detail some canonical information as there may not yet be any, but this is not an out of universe answer as the Monte Carlo fallacy exists both in this universe and (presumably) in the Whoniverse as well.

Magikarp Master
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    "If we apply this to the Doctor, every time the Doctor regenerates, there is a 50/50 chance of male or female." Though there's no reason to assume the probability is 50/50 to begin with. – eyeballfrog Jul 19 '17 at 17:15
  • @eyeballfrog Granted, there may be some hidden factor that makes it more of a 60/40 split, but in the absence of any evidence pointing to that fact, it seems a safe assumption to give the two options equal weight. – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 17:19
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    @Magikarp Master, it is true, but given that the two timelords for wich we have a lot of informations on their regeneration (Doctor and Master) both have a skewd distribution, you can compute the chance of this hapening under a 50/50 situations. And they are low. So it seems that we are not at a 50/50, not even a 60/40 – Edelk Jul 19 '17 at 17:29
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    The greater amount of "flips", the greater chance of a 50/50 pattern overall. So, 5 million flips has a decent chance of ~2.5 million heads and ~2.5 million tails. The 5,000,001st flip is equally likely to be heads or tails, but this isn't the pattern of the whole, just the individual. Considering this, the fact that 12/13 regenerations are male implies a higher likelihood of male regenerations than an even 50/50. It would be more indicative if we had a larger sample size though. And that's still assuming a randomly determined regen sex, not based on some other unknown factors. – TVann Jul 19 '17 at 17:29
  • Or, since it was added at the same time, what @Edelk said. Lol. – TVann Jul 19 '17 at 17:31
  • This is all assuming that previous results have any kind of predictive power, which is not necessarily the case. I could flip a coin 30 trillion times and only get tails. Statistically speaking that outcome is no more remarkable than any other pattern of outcomes because the chances do not change between flips. – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 17:37
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    We have no evidence that regenerations aren't influenced by previous regenerations. We also don't know that gender is random at all. Not only that, Time Lords can exert conscious control over their regenerations, so I really don't see the point in this answer. – Azor Ahai -him- Jul 19 '17 at 17:46
  • The Doctor has clearly stated that regeneration is a lottery and the Doctor had to drink a special elixir prepared by the sisters of time to have any real control over his regeneration. If he did have control, why would he always be disappointed over not being ginger? Regen is canonically random – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 17:49
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    @Edelk Romana and The General also have highly skewed gender distributions (especially if you count the Romana regeneration as multiple regenerations). – OrangeDog Jul 19 '17 at 17:52
  • The liklihood of any particular set of outcomes is equal if you consider the pattern. If, however, you interpret the question as related to "the odds of getting 12 heads and 1 tails," that outcome is far less likely than "6 heads and 6 tails" because that phrasing sums the results. – Cort Ammon Jul 19 '17 at 20:20
  • @CortAmmon The chances of getting 12 heads and 1 tails are the same as getting 6 heads and 7 tails. Any pattern of outcomes in a series of randomized events is just as likely as any other pattern provided that the chances are the same after each event. This is the whole point of the Monte Carlo fallacy. The results of a randomized series of events has no predictive power. – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 20:22
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    @MagikarpMaster Consider the case of 3 coins. There is one way to get all heads HHH. There are three ways to get two heads, HHT HTH THH. There are three ways to get one head, TTH THT HTT. There is one way to get all tails TTT. Your statement would be true if it were phrased "The chances of getting 12 heads and 1 tails, in that order, are the same as getting 6 heads and 7 tails, in that order." Without considering order, the odds are different. – Cort Ammon Jul 19 '17 at 20:28
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    I get what you are saying, but here's the thing. Every time you flip the coin, it is a 50/50 split. That never changes no matter how many times you flip it. With that in mind, every pattern has the exact same odds of occurring. We need not consider the order in which the results arise. – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 20:34
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    Well that's clearly not true at all. Whilst every unique pattern has an equal chance of occurring, every group of patterns does not have to do so- for instance, grouping HHT HTH THH together. In this case, the odds of any pattern in a particular group occurring is clearly higher than one single specific pattern occurring. – DeadMG Jul 19 '17 at 20:36
  • Why are we bothering talking about groups? The Doctor is one person, who has regenerated 12 times, each of those times there was a 50/50 shot at being male or female. Since the chances did not change from regen to regen, how can we say that this outcome is any more or less likely than any other outcome? – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 20:40
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    Because the chance of the Doctor not being female at least one time is a (negation of a) group. All the possible patterns that have the Doctor being female at least one time are in a group. You are comparing the chance of any possible pattern from that group to the single unique pattern of "Male 13 times". – DeadMG Jul 19 '17 at 20:45
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    @Magickarp Master You're both right... in a way! Firstly, Magickarp :You're bang on in describing the Monte Carlo (Gambler's) fallacy: that is exactly how it works. But unfortunately the Gambler's Fallacy does not apply to events where the probabilities are unknown. It specifically applies to events like a fair coin toss or dice roll. So because the probability of a single regeneration resulting in M/F is not known, the Gambler's Fallacy does not apply in this case unless we make an assumption about the nature of the regeneration process being 50/50. – ConjureFlyingFoxes Jul 19 '17 at 23:02
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    @ConjureFlyingFoxes you make a valid point. I would argue that in the absence of canon info, we are left assuming the two options are equally weighted. Here's the real question though. If the Doctor regenerates alone in a closed tardis, and no-one opens the tardis, is the doctor male or female? – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 23:06
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    @MagikarpMaster Hmm... are you sure we don't need a deadly poison in there somewhere too? I remember that being important. XD – ConjureFlyingFoxes Jul 19 '17 at 23:08
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    We already had the deadly poison, that's why the doctor is regenerating @ConjureFlyingFoxes – Magikarp Master Jul 19 '17 at 23:09
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    As for everyone else saying that certain groups are more/less likely: we really can't say because we don't know the probability distribution that resulted in those outcomes. However, we can use inductive reasoning: based on the twelve previous outcomes being Male we can propose that the probability distribution of Doctor male vs. female is biased towards male. Even though it is perfectly possible for it to be a 50/50 probability and result in the same outcomes! – ConjureFlyingFoxes Jul 19 '17 at 23:11
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    Assuming 50% probability for male versus female, there's a 0.5^12 = 0.02% chance of getting 12 males in a row from some given starting point, or a 99.98% chance of getting at least one female. If you were to ask "what's the probability of the doctor being female, given 12 males so far", the Monte Carlo fallacy would apply, but simply calculating the probability of some given sequence has nothing to do with that. – NotThatGuy Jul 19 '17 at 23:51
  • Excellent point @NotThatGuy, but the question was not about probability. The question was "what's with all the dudes?" (I'm paraphrasing of course). Given that question, assuming a 50% chance of male or female, the Monte Carlo fallacy is an acceptable potential answer. – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 00:17
  • We know that both the Doctor and the Master were boys before becoming Time Lords (and thus even their first regeneration), as shown in Listen and Sound of Drums, so there may be a skew towards the birth gender of the individual rather than 50/50. – Gary Myers Jul 20 '17 at 03:25
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    This answer and all this discussion are so wrong I would downvote ten times and I can no longer remain silent. Why? Because this claims to have a deep understanding but in fact it's the complete opposite. I'm going to call this The Monte Carlo Metafallacy. The Monte Carlo Fallacy is not some magical law of the universe that says that previous outcomes cannot affect future ones. It says that it's true for random uncorellated results as in casino games or coin flips, etc. We have no idea what effects are in play for Time Lord regeneration, and in fact that's what the question is about. – ThePopMachine Jul 20 '17 at 05:20
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    ... To make this less abstract, it could be that the Doctor has control and prefers to be male. It could be that he has a 95% chance of being male. It could be that he has a 95% chance of remaining the same gender in each regeneration. It could be damn near anything, but whatever it is there is absolutely no reason to think Monte Carlo applies. We should not assume uniformly distributed statistically independent processes just because it's the simplest assumption. There is no basis for that here. – ThePopMachine Jul 20 '17 at 05:26
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    @MagikarpMaster This question and the Monte Carlo fallacy (i.e. this answer) are both absolutely about probability. The question is essentially, IMO, "why did this seemingly exceeding improbable thing happen". "The chances" (which appears a few times in your answer) is synonymous to "the probability". If you flip a coin 12 times, there is not a 50% chance of getting heads 12 times in a row (which is this question), but there is a 50% chance of getting heads on the next flip given that info (which relates to the fallacy). You're focusing on the woman, but the question is about the men. – NotThatGuy Jul 20 '17 at 10:17
  • Interesting point @NotThatGuy, but what is the difference? The question is still "what's with all the dudes?" and my answer is still "This outcome is just as likely as any other single pattern of outcomes, given the Monte Carlo fallacy." Where am I wrong? – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 10:21
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    "the Monte Carlo fallacy exists ... in the Whoniverse" Your answer depends completely on this assertion, so if you want to claim it as an in-universe answer you really should show that this assertion has a foundation by either patterns in the show or explicit mentions in the show. – Adam Davis Jul 20 '17 at 10:25
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    So are we meant to assume that the Whoniverse operates on completely different mathematical laws? If I were to claim that on the Whoniverse equivalent of Earth objects fall at a rate of approx 10 meters per second per second, I would be making an incorrect assertion? Unless explicitly otherwise stated, it is not unreasonable to assume that basic rules of logic and mathematics apply. – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 10:32
  • I missed the editing window. Please ignore my previous comment. It comes across far ruder than I would like it to be. I prostrate myself at your feet @AdamDavis and beg your pardon – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 10:39
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    @MagikarpMaster "This outcome is just as likely as any other single pattern of outcomes" is true, but it's not the Monte Carlo fallacy (as that only relates to the outcome of a single event, not a pattern) and it's somewhat irrelevant - if you were to flip a coin 12 times and get heads each time, that's suspicious and you'd think the coin is rigged or unbalanced (which the other answer supports). Just because it has the same probability as getting 6 heads followed by 5 tails (in order), for example, doesn't take away from the fact that not getting tails at all is highly unlikely. – NotThatGuy Jul 20 '17 at 10:43
  • @MagikarpMaster "Unless explicitly otherwise stated, it is not unreasonable to assume that basic rules of logic and mathematics apply." And that is where I'd disagree, and why I asked you to be more explicit with your in-universe explanation. You don't need to defend your assertions if you don't want to, just be aware that the evidence you provide is weaker than evidence that's backed up with in-universe examples. – Adam Davis Jul 20 '17 at 12:37
  • @AdamDavis I shall attempt to defend my position, but I do hope you accept my apology for my previous rudeness. I would argue that in any work of fiction, there are a basket of assumptions that we as an audience carry into this new world. As the story progresses, we may encounter things that lead us to abandon some of the contents of that basket, but there is no work of fiction where we throw away the whole basket and make no assumptions about how the world works. In the Whoniverse, I am unaware of anything that would make me abandon the belief that the gambler's fallacy exists. – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 12:42
  • @MagikarpMaster I'm not offended, but in any case I accept your apology. I'm not going to argue the negative, that's a losing proposition. However I'd like to point out by way of rhetorical question the main issue I have with your assertion: Are we talking about the same show, the one where Doctor Who seems incredibly, impossibly, overly "lucky" in situations where chance should have a say? Even if there's a basket, are you really saying that chance/luck/statistics is anywhere near the basket? – Adam Davis Jul 20 '17 at 13:00
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    I would say that if chance and luck were outside the basket, it would not be a very exciting show. – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 13:06
  • When you're really clever like the Doctor is, nothing is ever truly random . I believe he's said something to that effect on multiple occasions. – Cronax Jul 20 '17 at 14:29
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    @ThePopMachine I think the argument is better than ten-downvotes wrong =) The interpretation I glean from it is that, even if the sex selection process for regeneration is well modeled as an independent identically distributed (IID) random variable, the probability of there being a Time Lord which was male the whole time is actually quite high" In fact, even if we focus on just the Doctor, I'd say a 1:4096 probability of being male that many times in a row is actually quite common-place compared to the improbable things that happen around him every episode! – Cort Ammon Jul 20 '17 at 17:01
  • @CortAmmon: Without quibbling about whether 1:4096 is "likely" or "overwhelmingly unlikely", the fact is, that what you say is NOT what the answer says. The answer misapplies the Monte Carlo fallacy to a situation where there is every reasonable reason to believe it is not IID and no reason to think it is. Authoritatively claiming false information and also claiming the authority is infinitely worse than merely making unauthoritative claims. – ThePopMachine Jul 20 '17 at 17:31
  • @ThePopMachine read the first sentence of my answer. I explicitly state that my answer is a possible explanation. I am making no authoritative claim, I am merely offering my own speculation, and attempting to justify my speculation. – Magikarp Master Jul 20 '17 at 17:39
  • @MagikarpMaster: That just makes no sense. It like saying, "Well, you won the lottery, but all outcomes are equally likely, so the fact you won is unremarkable." No. Even if we accept that it is uniformly random, it would be there's only a 1/4096 chance that this outcome would occur. It means that in 1 out of 4096 universes, I should accept this answer and in 4095 out of 4096 universes, I should not. Sorry, no checkmark. ... – ThePopMachine Jul 20 '17 at 20:27
  • The only way these assumptions would make sense is if the showrunners said "Yes, it is completely random and by complete chance the first 12 regenerations were male." -- which I suppose they could do, but then there's no sense in trying to reason about it. – ThePopMachine Jul 20 '17 at 20:28
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Every answer to this question is inherently speculative (although an official answer may well come with the new series), but my assumption has always been that changing sex is less likely.

That is, Time Lords can regenerate into male or female forms, but changing sex involves a significantly greater physiological change so requires more regeneration energy and is thus less likely. Alternatively, it may be possible only when sufficient damage has occurred to the relevant organs.

If this is true, we would expect 13 to be followed by a string of female Doctors (but a male 14 is also possible).

Some maths: If there is, say, a 10% chance of changing sex at each regeneration (and excluding the metacrisis, but not the War Doctor), a string of 14 male incarnations is the single most likely outcome, with a 23% chance of occurring.

Changing at some chosen time, resulting in N male Doctors followed by 14 - N females, has a probability of only 3%; this includes the position in which we find ourselves now. But there are 13 possible values of N, resulting in a "single change" probability of 33%; this value is more informative.

The probability of there having been more than one change by now is thus 56%.

This implies that a sex change is somewhat overdue, but it is by no means unreasonable that one would not have occurred yet. The probability can, of course, be tweaked to fit reality even better (or according to the writers' whims); a lower probability will make the model fit better.

georgewatson
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The honest answer to this question is that we don't know. Until the most recent series's (Timelord General, Corsair comments etc) everything written and shown on tv clearly pointed to Timelord gender being fixed. It is only in the past 5-7 years that the "rules" have been changed to allow a Timelord to change gender.

Richard C
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    Wrong. There never was an explicit "rule" saying timelords were gender-fixed. In fact, back in 1981 when Tom Baker finished his stint as The Doctor, he said in an interview "Good luck to the new Doctor, whoever he OR she may be." – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Jul 20 '17 at 08:47
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    Also, "there was never any evidence to the contrary" is not the same as "clearly points to". – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Jul 20 '17 at 08:49
  • While it was suggested by Tom Baker outside of the universe until now nothing within the Fiction has suggested it was possible every regeneration has remained same gender until Matt Smiths Dr. I am happy with the decision to make it possible but I think we have to accept that until recently it didn't happen. I hope that early on in the new series the DR explains why this is the first transformation into a female dr. – Richard C Jul 20 '17 at 15:25