Learn how Stephen King’s monster in IT: Welcome to Derry defies human labels, using forms as perfect weapons of terror rather than identity.
Fans, after streaming HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, have been asking the deceptively simple question: What is IT’s gender? The question resurfaces every time Pennywise returns to the screen, and the prequel series has only reignited the debate.
While casual viewers may default to calling Pennywise “he,” Stephen King’s original novel, It, provides a far more nuanced and unsettling answer. But before we delve into the answer, one must remember that IT is not human, nor biological in any conventional sense, and not bound by human categories of sex or gender. IT is an ancient Todash entity, a cosmic being whose true form exists beyond human comprehension.
So what humans perceive as the clown, a spider, or the wolf, these are merely projections filtered through limited human understanding. And King’s novel makes it clear that any discussion of the creature’s gender must be understood symbolically instead of biologically. Yet, the question is not entirely ambiguous.
During the final confrontation in the book, through Ben’s pov, King gives us an inkling of what IT’s gender is. Ben understands that IT is female and pregnant, and the narration emphasizes that this is not simply metaphorical or mistaken. King explicitly confirms that seeing IT as female is symbolically correct within human perception, even if the killer clown’s true nature is far beyond such definitions.
However, at the same time, IT is not limited to the human conception of gender and is rather an interdimensional shapeshifting being that explicitly feeds on fear. Yes, it can reproduce, but it does not mean that it is pregnant in the human sense, only metaphorically, according to human understanding.
Hence, while it is difficult to answer the question of IT’s gender since it is supernatural in nature, it won’t be wrong to assume, for the sake of understanding, that it is female due to its reproductive ability.
How Stephen King’s Pennywise Defies Binary Norms
Unlike what people tend to think, Stephen King’s portrayal of IT also fundamentally rejects binary thinking. While the novel confirms that the sinister clown is symbolically female, it also makes it clear that gender is not fixed, consistent, or even limiting when it comes to the Todash entity.
For most of the time, in several of its portrayals, IT appears as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a form coded as male. However, at the same time, as we saw above, IT is not a ‘he’ in a human sense, even if it tends to take the ‘male’ shape most often. Even though calling Pennywise ‘he’ is not wrong within the story’s logic, Pennywise is a mask, and masks can have genders independent of the being behind them.
King reinforces this by showing that IT chooses forms based on psychological impact, not identity. Gender becomes a tool, not a truth. This allows IT to exist outside binary norms while still exploiting them. While IT’s exploitation of psychological tension is what creates true horror, its flexibility also gives it that edge, allowing it to become the perfect weapon of spine-chilling terror.
During the final confrontation in the book, we see that IT’s pregnancy is real, not an illusion or a misunderstanding. But the entity does not operate under earth-like biological classification, confirming that ‘she’ transcends gender in spite of the female symbolism. It is essential to IT’s role as a creature with an insatiable appetite to perpetuate violence while also reproducing to create an endless cycle of terror.
How IT: Welcome to Derry Reinvents the Killer Clown’s Legacy
IT: Welcome to Derry expands upon the ideas that the films only touched briefly. Unlike the previous versions that heavily leaned on Pennywise, the series expands the mythos and depictions of the entity and goes beyond the simple gender labels.
In the series, we see Pennywise the Dancing Clown was a real human performer named Bob Gray, who was killed by the cosmic entity, who later adopted his persona. Rather than adopting a form of manifestation of fear, IT was drawn to Bob by how well he attracted the children, leading IT to assume his identity.
In the series, Pennywise continues to be portrayed by Bill Skarsgård, whose chilling performance as the clown remains a standout through Season 1. Through the use of the creature’s shape-shifting horror, the series solidifies its role as the predatory force at the heart of Derry’s nightmares.
Moreover, through the deliberate delay in showing Pennywise in the early episodes, the show builds dread through atmosphere and various incarnations of the entity before Skarsgård’s final clown reveal, expanding the narrative use of IT beyond a single iconic form. This rightly shows that these ‘forms’ do not confirm IT’s gender but depict it as a tool for predation, based on what will most effectively terrify or attract victims.
In other words, IT: Welcome to Derry reinvents Pennywise’s legacy not by rewriting or expanding the creature’s backstory and sinister motives, but rather by amplifying the horror that comes with the creature’s fluidity.
What are your thoughts about the creature’s gender? Let us know in the comments below.
