Yeah, the flippant and complete disregard of the possibility is what bothered me. But to be fair, Oddworld is based on earth, and it seems likely that their gender representations would be analagous to our own, (speaking specifically of the U.S.) So its easy to see that at the very least, Stranger was intended to be greeted as male. The physical distinctions are ambivalent, lending fairly equal weight to both theories, (since we don't know what female steef are like, or even if there actually are female steef)
Some forumers have suggested that Stranger would have to act more "feminine" if it were revealed he actually was female. I disagree. Stranger appears to have been raised in isolation, and as most gender-specific behaviours aren't genetic, the only guidelines he could have would be what best allowed him to survive. And if Stranger is anything, its a survivor.
But as Shell man said, the theory is based on a lack of information. Because we don't know anything about the different sexes of steef, we can assume that the only physical difference is sexual dimorphism, which in turn gives us free rein to postulate that Stranger is smaller because "he" is a "she."
There is some in-game evidence to the contrary though (besides gender specific connotations). At Beek's Opple farm, Stranger makes a sexual reference to the farmer's daughter. It's unlikely that OWI would make Stranger secretly female and secretly a lesbian. One could argue it was just a joke or whatnot, but I think that it more than settled it for me. If for no other reason than having a theory that cannot be disproven annoys me.
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