Starlights' True Gender - Rushita (Rushita.com) July 12, 2004

One of the most common question on Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon Sailor Stars is
whether Starlights are male or female. A lot of people believe that Starlights are
male and they turn into female when they transform. To answer this question, we can
look into their gender in 2 different levels of depth.

For a quick and simple answer, we can refer to what the characters said and did in
the series. Starlights appeared in male form on earth and became the idol singer
group Three Lights. When they transformed into Sailor Starfighter, Sailor Starmaker,
and Sailor Starhealer, they were in female form. In contrary to popular believes,
they are not male who turn into female when they transform. The transformed form is
their real form. In another words, they were originally female (in earth human
standard) who came to Earth and took the male form as the Three Lights for cover in
order to find their princess, Princess Kakyuu. In the series, they were asked about
their purpose of being Three Lights. They said it gave them a big opportunity to
search for their princess by singing and that their songs have messages hoping to
reach out to their princess. When Princess Kakyuu finally appeared, she talked to
the Starlights in private:

Princess: Fighter, you're using this appearance on earth?
Seiya: In order to find a woman on earth, this was the best appearance.
Princess: I'm sorry. I always heard your songs. But I couldn't be spotted by Galaxia.

It is quite obvious that "this appearance" (aka the male form) isn't their usual
form. It is definitely not how the Starlights usually look like when they were in
Kinmoku-sei (Planet Kinmoku), otherwise Princess Kakyuu won't make such remark. At
the end of the series after Starlights and Princess Kakyuu had their farewell with
the senshi, Seiya, Taiki, and Yaten changed from their male form to their female
senshi form to return to their planet with Princess Kakyuu. This tells us that their
female senshi form is their usual true form and they returned to that form to go
home. Therefore, Starlights are originally "female" (in earth human standard) who
turned into "male" (again, in earth human standard) just to find their princess.

Now, we look at Starlights' gender in a deeper level. Are they female or male? or
are they not female nor male? Let's not forget the fact that they are not even human
to begin with! To be exact, they are humanoid, but not earthly human. To decided
whether they are female or male, one needs to look at the definition of female and
male. They are humanoid from kinmoku-sei, which could have totally different
physiological features from earthly human. The rule of human gender simply doesn't
apply to non-human creatures! Very little is known about kinmoku-sei and kinmoku-sei
people. We don't even know how many different genders there are for kinmoku-sei.
Instead of calling the genders "male" and "female", it would be better to call them
"positive" and "negative" for non-human creatures. There is no rule saying there can
only be 2 genders for kinmoku-sei people. There could even be 3 different genders
("A", "B", "C") with their coresponding definitions of each gender. We don't know
what the differences would be between each gender, but we cannot just base them on
the differences between male and female for human. To avoid things getting more
complicated than it already is, let's just assume there are only 2 genders for
kinmoku-sei people, "positive" and "negative". From all the kinmoku-sei people we
saw in the series, we only know that the Starlights in their senshi form and
Princess Kakyuu has physical features resemble to human female, while the Three
Lights form resemble human male. We do not know what makes the difference between
"positive" gender and "negative" gender for kinmoku-sei people. The differences
could be in something that we cannot easily see from the outside. It is true that
when Starlights are in their senshi form, they have breasts. But that doesn't mean
they are "positive" or "negative" gender just because they have breasts. Having
breasts (and other female features) tells us quite easily that this earthly person
is a female according to human standard and conceptions, but breasts (or the lack of
them) might not be the sign to differentiate "positive" from "negative" gender for
kinmoku-sei people. Maybe all kinmoku-sei people have breasts (or whatever they are
that physically resemble human breasts), and maybe the way to tell whether a
kinmoku-sei person is "positive" or "negative" is by some other "sexual" features
that we cannot easily tell from the series. We cannot rule out the posibility that
the sexual reproductive organs for "positive" and "negative" gender of kinmoku-sei
people are hidden so well that we just can't tell from the outside in the series.

When we look at the relationship between Princess Kakyuu and the Starlights,
especially between Princess Kakyuu and Seiya, we can see something interesting.
Although this is just speculation and possiblity and not a fact, Starlights seem to
have a lot of admiration to Princess Kakyuu, the kind that almost resemble romatic
relationship. When Seiya fell in love with Usagi, Taiki and Yaten thought he
shouldn't do that to the effect that Seiya should give all his love to Princess
Kakyuu instead. It almost seems like there maybe a conflict of love. When Princess
Kakyuu appeared and interacted privately with Seiya, we can tell that Princess
Kakyuu liked Seiya too (whether degree of liking that was). It seems like Princess
Kakyuu and Seiya were really close and there was a speical relationship between the
two. Just from the very little we know about those 4 kinmoku-sei people, it almost
seems like the Starlights and Princess Kakyuu have different genders, even though
both Starlights and Princess Kakyuu have breasts and resemble human female in their
true form. This opens up the possibility that Starlights and Princess Kakyuu could
be of different genders according to kinmoku-sei, while both genders have outer
physical features (e.g., breasts or whatever resemble human breasts, and no visible
feature that resemble human male sexual organ) that resemble human female physical
features. And for the Three Lights form, that was just the form they transformed
into to deliberately mimic human males.

So, what is Starlights' true gender? The answer is, we don't know. But for sure we
know they are not female or male because the definitions of "female" and "male" are
for human and they aren't human to being with. We can only say the senshi form for
Starlights is their true form and their true form resembles human female. The Three
Lights form is their false human male form that they temporarily transformed into
for the purpose of looking for Princess Kakyuu, and just so otaku have bishounen to
daydream about :D