When it comes to gender and misconceptions, which pronoun?

[Shinoki]

I was just wondering, if you have a character who is pretty much androgynous, and the other characters mistake her for a guy... which pronoun would you use? The masculine or the feminine?

In first person, it'd be totally ok to use masculine for as along as the narrator thinks she's a guy (well it could work reverse if the chara was actually a guy who everyone thought was a girl), but what about in third person narrations?

[trooper6]

Omniscient third person? Female pronouns.
Point of view first person? What that person perceives.
Third person that takes the stance of a specific point of view character? What that person perceives.

I'd recommend reading The Beginning Place and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin. Both novels play with issues of perceptions and misperceptions of gender by point of view characters.

[SinSisters]

I agree with trooper, the pronoun should be based on what the character believes, not on what is actually true. If, though, you are writing NOT from the 'perspective' of any character, then the proper pronoun should be used.

I'm assuming that you're writing limited third person omniscient, however. In that case, it would be the pronoun of what the main character believes the other character to have. (For instance, if the main character is George: "George looks at the boy, trying to place him. Wondering where he may have seen him before, George approaches him. 'Hello good sir," George says. The boy responds, "I am a woman." Confused, George leaves her alone.")

-Nat

[Shinoki]

Thanks!