Chao are mysterious little creatures, aren’t they? According to an official writer for the IDW Sonic Comic, SEGA has confirmed that they’re genderless!
Evan Stanley, one of IDW’s writers for the current Sonic the Hedgehog comic, answered a question on her Tumblr page regarding the pronouns given to Cheese the Chao, Cream’s partner. While Cheese used to be referred to as a “he/him,” suddenly in issue #33 Cheese was referred to as “they/them,” a common preferred pronoun for non-binary persons.
What’s also noteworthy about this news is that it’s not a lone writer making guesswork of Sonic lore, but SEGA themselves made it policy to refer to all Chao this way. We see here that SEGA is still very much involved in and concerned with how the series is portrayed in media outside of the games, and they are willing to make changes or outright retcon things.
Be sure to stay tuned to the Sonic Stadium for all things Sonic, and check out Evan Stanley’s Tumblr while you’re at it!
via Tumblr
Chao have always been genderless, but I guess Sega decided to go with “They/Them” pronouns instead of “He/him”, which they used in the past. This is really just an overly complex way of explaining why we don’t see two chao screwing each other in Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, and I wouldn’t read too much into it.
There was that time Tikal humped a Chao in SA1 tho
Chao are descendants of/related to Namekians confirmed.
“Super Sonic must’ve neutralized him, so he’s nice again.” ~ Tails
Chaos from Sonic Adventure is a mutated chao. But everyone called him a “he”. I guess it works like NiGHTS being referred as a male by default.