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Harmless Lady Disguise

 Harmless Lady Disguise
type
FeatureClass
 Harmless Lady Disguise
label
Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise
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HarmlessLadyDisguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise
comment
See that harmless little lady over there? She's actually a man — a masculine, adventurous man who uses the dress to appear harmless and hide in plain sight.
Men are active, women are passive. That's the way things are, at least according to traditional gender roles.
Thus, if a man wants to become invisible and appear nonthreatening, it can be beneficial for him to pretend to be a woman. In sharp contrast to most forms of regular cross-dressing, this is done as a way of avoiding attention.
Contrast Sweet Polly Oliver, which is something of the inverse of this trope, since those women dress as men in order to openly embrace the male gender role of being active and potentially dangerous.
Many of the examples specifically have a male character disguising himself as an old woman, which is somewhat less reliant on sexist perceptions since senior citizens are (stereo)typically weak and frail (and it's also somewhat more believable that a man could look like an older woman than a younger one).
Subtrope of Disguised in Drag. May overlap with Wig, Dress, Accent or Mugging the Monster.

Examples
 Harmless Lady Disguise
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 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_201bbfb2
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_201bbfb2
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In The Invisible Library, the protagonist, who is a real woman, often makes use of sexist stereotyping in the worlds she visits to make herself seem harmless, often by combining her oppressed status as women in patriarchy with dressing as lower class (whether that is a disguise is questionable, as the librarians exist outside time and space and thus, any class system). In the first chapter, she is seen cleaning the floors of a school, which is part of a plot to steal a book from there. When traveling a patriarchal world with a new trainee, she pretends to be his secretary, but the resident Great Detective quickly figures out that she is actually the one in charge. There is also a villain who disguises as a woman by much more magical means.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_201bbfb2
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 The Invisible Library
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 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_205d4696
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_205d4696
comment
Played straight in Lou when the title character, a middle-aged female ex-CIA agent, uses this trope to approach a couple of ex-Green Beret associates of the villain and kill them.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_205d4696
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 Lou (2022)
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Harmless Lady Disguise / int_205d4696
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_32c541e6
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In Fullmetal Alchemist, Roy runs into a kind old lady at a cemetery—who, it turns out, is actually Lt. General Grumman.
Disguising himself as a kind-hearted female shopkeeper is a favorite trick of Barry the Chopper.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_32c541e6
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 Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_33a61b13
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One Hundred Years of Solitude: Colonel Gregorio Stevenson disguises himself as an old woman to safely get to Macondo to warn them of their incoming defeat and advise them to surrender, without getting caught and killed along the way.
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 One Hundred Years of Solitude
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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During Rei's introduction in Fist of the North Star, he's disguising himself as a helpless woman with a cloak in order to attract bandits and kill them for their food.
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 Fist of the North Star (Manga)
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Discworld:
Nobby has occasionally worn women's clothes during sting operations, even when partnered with Angua, a very attractive werewolf.
On one occasion, Nobby dressed up as an old lady crossing the street so slowly that traffic stopped... and the other Watchmen start giving the drivers tickets for illegal parking.
While in Klatch, Nobby goes in disguise as a harem dancer. The crowd pays for him to keep his clothes on.
In Monstrous Regiment, the soldiers attempt to gain access to a heavily guarded fortress by disguising themselves as washerwomen. Subverted in that all of the soldiers save the lieutenant are actually women... who just happen to be disguised as men. It Makes Sense in Context. So when a guard starts laughing at the old "washerwoman disguise" trick, Shufti shows that she's pregnant by pulling up her skirts and Tonker bursts into tears over this cruel treatment of harmless young women who've been forced to walk for days without food while fearing for their virtues every moment, and Polly finishes the poor man off by icily asking if he's seen everything he wanted to see and if he enjoyed himself.
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_4b2d7e6c
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Used by the villain of The Devil-Doll to bluff his way through encounters with his intended victims and the police, and also as an excuse to carry around his "dolls" (actually miniaturized assassins) in public.
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 The Devil-Doll
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Robin (1993): A grounded Tim Drake who cannot get out of the house without his dad noticing spots an internationally wanted criminal who dresses up as a pregnant woman and then leaves as one of their own hostages on a breaking news segment. His frantic hushed calls to the rest of the Batfamily result in the crook's capture when he pulls the same stunt to try and escape the police in Gotham.
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 Robin (1993) (Comic Book)
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_5755b96a
comment
The Order of the Stick took this a bit further when Roy used a magical belt temporarily to turn female, in order to avoid some assassins, who, true to the trope, just assumed he was a prostitute and ignored him — except for the dwarf, who invited him up to his room. That bit didn't end well for anyone involved. However, while their assumption falls under this trope, Roy just wanted to disguise himself and the belt was the only disguise on hand.
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 The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)
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In both the silent and talking versions of The Unholy Three, Lon Chaney is a criminal and burglar who disguises himself as a sweet old grandma as part of a complicated plot to gain entry into the houses of rich folks.
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 The Unholy Three
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In A Study in Scarlet is fooled (for a while) by a man disguised as an old woman.
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 A Study in Scarlet
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In the world of A Brother's Price women are the dominant sex and men are so rare it's unthinkably dangerous for one to go out alone. Men are also long-haired, makeup-wearing, and don less practical prettier clothing. However, whores in this world do themselves up to look like men and take on male mannerisms - so when Jerin has to go out, he masquerades as a whore.
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 A Brother's Price
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The title character on Baretta frequently did this. A couple of them can be seen in the opening credits.
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 Baretta
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Big Finish Doctor Who. In "The Heavenly Paradigm", an ordinary house in Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire holds a Time Lord depository of forbidden weapons. The little old lady who lives there is actually a Time Lord agent who suffered Rapid Aging during the Time War, and is now waiting out her time till her next regeneration.
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 Big Finish Doctor Who (Audio Play)
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In the Quick Draw McGraw episode "Bad Guys Disguise" Quick Draw dressed like a widowed woman to get into Bad Guy Territory and arrest a bandit. The bandit fell for the disguise too well and fell in love with Quick Draw.
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 Quick Draw McGraw
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Quark in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Profit and Lace". An extreme example since Quark underwent surgical transformation rather than just donning a disguise, as female Ferengi have much smaller ears.
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 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Starfighters of Adumar has the infamous "Escape Done In Drag". Wedge ordered his three pilots to get him four sets of women's clothing, in which they snuck into a base while a diversion went on. On Adumar, women can take all the combat positions men take, but Wedge and his pilots were male and being hunted by pretty much the entire city, so a group of four women would be less suspect. Hobbie cemented the disguise by doing a convincing scream.
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 X-Wing Series
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The A-Team:
In one episode, Hannibal dressed as a nun.
In another episode, he's dressed as a bag lady as part of a movie he's working on.
In yet another episode, he pretended to be Murdock's mother.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_75c31694
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 The A-Team
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In Monstrous Regiment, the soldiers attempt to gain access to a heavily guarded fortress by disguising themselves as washerwomen. Subverted in that all of the soldiers save the lieutenant are actually women... who just happen to be disguised as men. It Makes Sense in Context. So when a guard starts laughing at the old "washerwoman disguise" trick, Shufti shows that she's pregnant by pulling up her skirts and Tonker bursts into tears over this cruel treatment of harmless young women who've been forced to walk for days without food while fearing for their virtues every moment, and Polly finishes the poor man off by icily asking if he's seen everything he wanted to see and if he enjoyed himself.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_769da46e
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 Monstrous Regiment
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Batman did it in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, as an old female customer at a liquor store.
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 Batman (Franchise)
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In Are You Being Served?, Mr. Humphries disguises himself both as Mrs. Slocombe and as a nun to hide from Cesar.
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 Are You Being Served?
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In one second season episode of Servant of the People, Vasiliy, the President of Ukraine, disguises himself as an old woman.
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 Servant of the People
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In Hogan's Heroes, Newkirk occasionally utilizes a 'little old German lady' disguise to fool the Germans.
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 Hogan's Heroes
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In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch Jr. escapes Azkaban disguised as his elderly mother.
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 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal: Captain Qwark disguises himself as a woman more than once. One of the occasions was in a vid-comic sidescrolling minigame.
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 Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (Video Game)
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At the end of Mulan, the villain has the place guarded to stop any soldiers coming in to save the day, but a few of Mulan's male colleagues talk their way in, disguised as concubines. Ugly concubines.
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 Mulan
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In Dad's Army (1971), Mr. Mainwaring tells General Fullard that German spies are disguising themselves as nuns to avoid suspicion.
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 Dad's Army (1971)
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In the "Moonlight Sonata" arc in Case Closed, after a young boy named Seiji Asou escaped the strange death of the rest of his family because he was hospitalized in Tokyo, he was adopted by an old friend of his dead family (which let him stay unnoticed), and grew up into a handsome (and girly-looking) doctor. He then returned to his island under the false name Narumi Asai (not totally false, actually)—as a female doctor—to investigate their murders and have his Revenge. He got away with almost all of it, confronting and then killing all the culprits while leaving strange music-related messages... but when he was caught by Conan, Seiji set his family's old house on fire and stayed inside as it burned down, calmly playing the Moonlight Sonata in his father's old piano despite Conan's desperate pleas for him to live. Note: he, like most villains in the series, was portrayed with so much sympathy that viewers would, at worst, consider him an Anti-Villain. Strangely, in Italy, due to homosexual connotations, the trope wasn't spelled out (but still implied) to get it past the Media Watchdogs.
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 Case Closed (Manga)
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Madmartigan's lady disguise ends up serving as this in Willow when the villains are searching the town he's in. It doesn't fool them for long, though...
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 Willow
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One of the villains on Dynomutt, Dog Wonder assumed the disguise of an old woman so Dynomutt would help him escape in a taxicab. Blue Falcon wasn't so easily fooled.
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 Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
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Used ad nauseam in 'Allo 'Allo!.
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 'Allo 'Allo!
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The Magician: In "Illusion of Black Gold", three bikers disguise themselves as old ladies to crash a funeral parlour and stage a kidnapping.
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 The Magician
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The first season of Bosom Buddies has two male characters dress as women so they can live at an inexpensive hotel for women.
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Joseph Joestar of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure disguises himself as a lady in order to get inside a Nazi compound. It doesn't work - he's over six feet tall and has the build of a professional wrestler. The Nazis take one look at him and ready their guns. He settled on plan B, knock out the guards and steal their uniforms.
Joseph gets the "tequila" outfit as an alternate costume in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, with him claiming that he's trying to pull this routine on their opponents. Most of the cast has special dialog where they tell him what a poor disguise it is (which will happen in a Mirror Match between two Tequila Josephs), call him a creep, or try to teach him how to crossdress better; amusingly, Polnareff points out the obvious flaw in the disguise (the whole "six feet tall and beefy" thing) and Joseph's reaction is "OH NO! I didn't even consider that!" Even more hilariously, Polnareff has an alternate line where he falls for it and flirts with Tequila Joseph, before finding out it's Joseph if he wins. Pitting Tequila Joseph against DIO will have the poor guy muse that he should have changed. And if he wins...
There's also of course what happens if he's pitted against his future self...
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Agent Smecker in The Boondock Saints dressed as a tartish woman to get through a mobster's defenses (and it's implied to get through their pants as well.)
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 The Boondock Saints
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After the riot in Doctor in the House (1954), Grimsdyke tries to pass himself off as a nurse to avoid being arrested.
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 Doctor in the House (1954)
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In an episode of Grounded for Life, Sean is unable to change a flat tire, so he wears a shawl and pretends to be an old woman while Claudia shows some leg to flag down another motorist to help.
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 Grounded for Life
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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The existence of this trope in the popular imagination winds up getting the protagonist of Breakfast on Pluto (a possibly transgender Wholesome Crossdresser) in a lot of trouble. Kitten is not a violent person at all, but when a nightclub she visits is bombed, the authorities suspect that the biologically-male Irish person in women's clothing is an IRA operative, and she's arrested and treated very badly.
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Subverted in Suffragette; one of the suffragists, who is actually a woman, disguises herself as harmless lady by using a baby carriage to hide the brickstones she's going to smash windows with.
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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In the Jim Belushi comedy Taking Care of Business, Jimmy Dorsey disguises himself as his own mother to break into a prison. It somehow works.
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 Taking Care of Business
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Harmless Lady Disguise / int_bc45dbc6
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_bdc49dbe
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The Laundry Files. In a same-sex version, Mo isn't happy when she's picked for a covert assignment because she's a "woman of a certain age", so her superiors believe that no-one will be paying attention to her.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_bdc49dbe
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 The Laundry Files
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_c0da5437
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A mob boss "disguised" himself as a woman for years to avoid being killed by The Punisher. His nephew later joined him out of fear of the same fate.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_c0da5437
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1.0
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 The Punisher (Comic Book)
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Harmless Lady Disguise / int_c0da5437
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_c2297a9c
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Judge Dredd: In one story the undead superfiend Judge Death escaped from his confinement and murdered an old woman to use her dead body as a disguise. Though he really wouldn't be able to pass for human if someone took a closer look at him.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_c2297a9c
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Doctor Who:
In "The Highlanders", the Second Doctor disguises himself as harmless washer-woman with a gun concealed in her robes. (It's not like it was even loaded, though.)
The Third Doctor infiltrates Global Chemicals disguised as a cleaning lady in "The Green Death". Captain Yates of UNIT compliments his handbag, and the Doctor threatens to slosh him with it (it's a bucket).
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_cd713f4
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The Stainless Steel Rat once took several dozen army deserters through a military checkpoint dressed as women. On bicycles.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_cd713f4
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1.0
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_cd713f4
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 The Stainless Steel Rat
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Harmless Lady Disguise / int_cd713f4
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_d858c276
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The Scarlet Pimpernel is famous for this, and probably the trope maker.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_d858c276
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 The Scarlet Pimpernel
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Neville Savage of Mission Top Secret once disguised as an old lady with his accomplice pushing "her" wheelchair. It allowed him to pass under the protagonists' nose, but they later find the discarded costume.
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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The Lone Ranger disguised himself from time to time in order to reconnoiter; very occasionally he dressed up as an old woman.
 Harmless Lady Disguise / int_e4ed33fb
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 The Lone Ranger (Radio)
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Mal in Firefly pulled this stunt in one episode, pretending to be Jayne's wife.
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 Firefly
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Robbie Rotten of LazyTown disguised himself as an old lady to give the hero a spiked apple and capture him.
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Sherlock Holmes:
In A Study in Scarlet is fooled (for a while) by a man disguised as an old woman.
Holmes himself pulls off this disguise in order to trail a villain in "The Mazarin Stone".
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Joseph gets the "tequila" outfit as an alternate costume in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, with him claiming that he's trying to pull this routine on their opponents. Most of the cast has special dialog where they tell him what a poor disguise it is (which will happen in a Mirror Match between two Tequila Josephs), call him a creep, or try to teach him how to crossdress better; amusingly, Polnareff points out the obvious flaw in the disguise (the whole "six feet tall and beefy" thing) and Joseph's reaction is "OH NO! I didn't even consider that!" Even more hilariously, Polnareff has an alternate line where he falls for it and flirts with Tequila Joseph, before finding out it's Joseph if he wins. Pitting Tequila Joseph against DIO will have the poor guy muse that he should have changed. And if he wins...
There's also of course what happens if he's pitted against his future self...
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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In Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twlight, the male heroes disguise themselves as women to infiltrate the slave-mine Pax Tharkas. This causes some issues for Riverwind whose people have a cultural taboo about males dressing in female clothing.
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Violeta: After the 1973 military coup, Violeta's son is wanted and has to go into hiding. Violeta manages to get false documents for him, including travel documents under the name of "Lorena Benítez". She eventually locates where her son Juan Martín is hiding, clean-shaven, wearing a dress and prepared to pass for "Lorena".
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Early Captain America disguised himself as a grandmother and Bucky as a small child and then going to Nazi-occupied France.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Harmless Lady Disguise
processingCategory2
Disguise Tropes
 Harmless Lady Disguise
processingCategory2
Gender and Sexuality Tropes
 Harmless Lady Disguise
processingCategory2
Gender-Blending Tropes
 Super Mario Adventures (Comic Book) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Little Orphan Annie (Comic Strip) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 The Disney Loops (Fanfic) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Are You Being Served? / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Batman Forever / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Dad's Army (1971) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 District 13: Ultimatum / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Doctor in the House (1954) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Lou (2022) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 A Brother's Price / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Bony / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Dragonlance / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 One Hundred Years of Solitude / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Spiral Arm / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 The Inkworld Trilogy / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Gorgeous Irene (Manga) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Baretta / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Eretz Nehederet / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Mission Top Secret / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Secret Army / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 The Magician / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Harmless Lady Disguise
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Muzzy in Gondoland / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 Robin Hood (1973) / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise
 The Unholy Three / int_78848a7b
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Harmless Lady Disguise