Gender locked race?

[Lauront]

Zero indication of it yet. People are inferring too much from their silence on the topic.

[Senn]

If we are getting male viera, and the male viera are the variant that look like "young elezen", then I think the height difference and build will look like this

It's possible that viera is gender locked, and that this variant is a female viera that looks like a young elezen.

[Umeikoai]

Exactly. It's one of the reasons the Au Ra were disappointing to me on release - tough, feral looking men, but the women were small dainty miqote-except-lizard. I would love to see the reverse sometime. Let women look tough and spiky and feral, for once.

I wouldn't mind small dainty males for once either. So a reverse seems good.

[Kupocoubo]

And of course, there's all the other logic behind it all. What I found out recently that amused me was that the Wandering Dramaturge is Yasumi Matsuno just as Yoshida is the Wandering Minstrel. The wandering Dramaturge speaks about the male Viera in length but does so in the past tense - hinting that things have changed how it was all in the past and things will change even further. Seeing as Yasumi Matsuno was the producer/director of FF tactics and FF12 - and wrote/made the Viera race - well... it seems to me that we might be seeing more of him in jp fan fest - I don't believe Yasumi Matsuno was at Paris; but if anyone made that announcement, I think it'd be him.

My mind is blown.

[Corue]

If we are getting male viera, and the male viera are the variant that look like "young elezen", then I think the height difference and build will look like this

It's possible that viera is gender locked, and that this variant is a female viera that looks like a young elezen.

It's going to be a lot more drastic than that.
If by "young Elezen" they're referring to the child characters (i.e. Rielle) then this supposed second Viera variant will be tiny. As in about half/three quarters the size of the other.

Let's just assume that both characters in this image are the average height their respective races.
Fran is slightly taller than an Elezen.
Now let's compare the height of a young Elezen with an adult Elezen.

(Lala for scale)

These buns will be absolutely dinky.

[Senn]

...

haha omg that's pretty short but I'd be ok with it still. Although in the video clip, they said that the variant looks like a "sort of young elezen", and that "we knew who"? I'm guessing the "who" would be Alphinaud, who is a young elezen. I think we're lacking a short and slim body type for males. Miqo'te still has muscle to them, and although elezen is tall, they aren't short. I think a body type like Alphinaud's would be good.

[Senn]

Alphinaud height compared to elezen sorta

anyone have a better pic that show's Alphinaud's height compared to a player character?

[Nestama]

I can't really see male Viera being short and "young Elezen" in appearance. Wouldn't they look more feral due to living in isolation and, depending on what they do, maybe buff?

Honestly, SE should have just given the Viera lore completely unrelated to FFXII's (I would still prefer they weren't going to be playable in this game at all). The way they wrote the males is far more restrictive than the male Miqo'te (I imagine male Viera who stray from their duties would probably be hunted down by their own kind if they stay/enter the Great Wood).

[Senn]

...

Apparently, there's going to be a variant that looks sort of like a "young elezen". Sort of, not exactly like. So who knows.
Whether this variant is going to be male viera or if viera is going to be female only, no one knows. If it's female only, then the variant will just look similar to a young looking female elezen.
Personally, if the male is the "young elezen" variant, I can't imagine they would be bulky. It's possible they can still look feral, even if short and slim. I think they would retain some of the same kind of grace the female viera have.

[Shippuu]

People are reading way too much into that "young elezen" thing considering it very likely was just referring to hairstyles. Even if it wasn't, it was likely just in reference that the Viera in general look like elzen already, as well as appearing to have a pretty good diversity in terms of height differences available to them (similar to how Female Roegadyn have a much larger range of heights than other races).

They've already talked about having to do extra work for potentially both their feet, ears, AND more variety in hairstyles by having optional bangs/no bangs versions of their racial hairstyles. They aren't going to pile on twice the work making some drastically different variant unless there's some other sacrifice, as in no male version or male only race at all.

Honestly, I think all but D are likely.

Honestly, all things considered. D is probably the most likely. We have Yoshida saying before that if they'd implement Viera he would probably do a different male only race, then later they created concept art in an attempt to get a version of male Viera that he would accept and he still said they seemed "too cute" showing that he likely still wasn't sold on that idea. Combine it with lore that substantiates males being an incredible rarity (justifying why we would never even see male NPCs, meaning they don't have to even make the models.) Add onto that the complete lack of them during the race reveal, with official art showing multiple female viera, and yoshida's unwillingness to even confirm they are in the works, doesn't paint a very positive light on them being made available to players.

He has consistently shown a reluctance regarding male viera (and male bunny stuff in general). And given how they implemented Blue Mage, we know he follows through with things he talks about even if they're very old, or things that he knows would be controversial and unpopular among players.