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Clearly, droids are programmed with, or given, a male or female gender. The majority of droid characters are clearly, and definitely, given a male identity and consistently referred to as 'he.' However, TC-14 certainly seemed to be female, plus the server droid in the diner in Episode II and I'm sure there are more.

Is this a part of their programming? Is there a difference between the body of TC-14 and C-3PO for example which makes them have a gender? Could C-3PO be reprogrammed as female, and would this be complicated or more like changing the voice on a sat nav/GPS system? Is it determined by their owner when purchased or first activated?

(These questions are to prompt an answer to the overall one - I don't think I'm really asking multiple questions here).

Edlothiad
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ThruGog
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    the key thing to understand is that, whether it's with real people or fictional droids, gender is performative. The droids are programmed to behave in such a way that humans perceive a gender for them, and pronouns follow suit. This has nothing to do with their sex or the functionality of their bodies, except insofar as said functionality impacts their ability to perform their given role. – ApproachingDarknessFish Mar 01 '18 at 03:00
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    I've changed references from sex to gender since it's clear that's what you're asking about and most droids don't have a sex. – Z. Cochrane Mar 01 '18 at 03:32
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    @zabeus - Or maybe they do, but this can’t be mentioned in Disney films. – Adamant Mar 01 '18 at 03:58
  • My initial thought is that droids are just like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, etc. It's just the software, and you can change the voice between male and female if you want (although for droids, it appears that they are usually set by the factory and not modified by end users). – Thunderforge Mar 01 '18 at 04:25

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