Why are the genders of most legendary/mythical Pokemon unknown?

Question

It has always bothered me that people call some Pokemon "gender-less," because it just isn't canon. In every pokedex entry, Pokemon book, and any other official resource has listed them as gender unknown. This implies they have a gender, they just haven't been identified. (Because Pokemon are clearly not void beings)
So, what is it: do they have genders, or don't they?

The difficult part is if they did, why haven't they been identified? This could be chalked up to the scientists never seen them breed or anything, or in legendary's/mythical's case, could be that they are infertile. Then, why are lati@s and others gendered? They are not the only ones referred to as being clearly one gender and not the other.

Please try to use canon reasoning. Thank you!

Comments

It's not an answer you're looking for so this is just a comment, but Gamefreak probably never bothered giving them genders for newer lengendaries even when some of them like Lunala in her Sun Pokedex entry clearly states it's the Female version of Cosmog since they don't breed anyway.

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Pokemon with genders do have a slight disadvantage in battles, so gender might be considered a bad thing for Pokemon that can't breed. Stuff like Cresselia and Tornadus might have genders as part of their designs. I have no idea why Heatran has genders, though.

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It is apparent that Solgaleo is male and Lunala is female. I also have a theory that Zamazenta is male and Zacian is female because a Pokedex entry says something about Zacian being the sister of the two.

Answer 1

I think it's more like they can't breed, or like you said for the legendaries, they're infertile. The only reason they can 'breed' with ditto is because they aren't 'breeding' the ditto is just making a copy of their species' DNA (of course, not perfectly the one that's in the Daycare with them, or else using on as a parent for competitive wouldn't work). As for Latias and Latios, maybe they are the same 'species' just with a massive difference between genders, like Nidoking/Nidoqueen, and can't breed, again like Nidoqueen. With Cresselia, I really don't know. Heatran can be male or female, and I don't see any reason (other then it being a legendary) that it can't breed. I hope this was good, I kinda got a bit of topic. Also, I think it should be noted that in the show, all Pokemon are called 'it', so maybe it's really difficult to tell a Pokemon's gender? But that wouldn't work with the games.

Comments

Legendary Pokemon can't breed with Ditto, though.

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Good points, everyone. I would still like pokemon like Lunala female and Solgaleo male just because i don't care if they're susceptible to attract and rivalry, but it looks like not everyone gets what they want. I'll still refer to them as male and female, though.

Answer 2

my friend checked in an email a while back to the Pokemon company. they have confirmed every Pokemon has a gender but its hard to tell what their gender is. this is why they don't show the gender