Editing Sontaran (section)

===Reproduction and gender identity===
The Sontarans are a [[agender|monogender]]-[[asexuality|asexual]] (a "male gender-only" species); they reproduce by means of [[cloning]] rather than [[sexual reproduction]], and thus for the most part are extremely similar in appearance. Human characters in both ''[[The Sontaran Experiment]]'' and "[[The Sontaran Stratagem]]" comment on how closely individual Sontarans resemble one another; however, their height, skin tone, facial features, vocal timbre and accent, hair, spacing of teeth and even number of fingers have varied from story to story, and sometimes within stories. When [[List of Doctor Who villains#Luke Rattigan|Luke Rattigan]] asks how they can tell each other apart in "The Sontaran Stratagem", General Staal remarks that they say the same of humans.

In ''[[The Time Warrior]]'', Linx states that "at the Sontaran Military Academy we have hatchings of a million cadets at each muster parade." The Doctor also comments in ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' that Sontarans can mass-clone themselves at rates up to a million embryos every four minutes. Thereafter the clones take just ten minutes to grow to adulthood.<ref name="ScienceDW"/> When the Sontaran reach adulthood, under the charge of the Sontaran High Command, each warrior is immediately given a rank and dispatched on a battle mission. From day one, the Sontarans are sent to battle. The audio ''[[The King of Sontar]]'' introduces a unique occasion where one Sontaran is the only result of a clone batch, the resulting Sontaran being essentially a million Sontarans in one, making him far taller than the average for his species and lacking a probic vent.

Sontarans reproduce asexually and all the Sontarans depicted in the television series are of one gender; referred to with masculine pronouns, however it is not known if they possess distinctly male physiologies. General Staal comments that "words are the weapons of womenfolk"<ref name=Stratagem/> and that the clone of Martha Jones performed well "for a female"<ref name=Poison>"[[The Poison Sky]]", Writer [[Helen Raynor]], Director [[Douglas Mackinnon]], Producer [[Susie Liggat]], Executive Producers [[Russell T Davies]], [[Julie Gardner]], [[Phil Collinson]]. ''Doctor Who''. [[BBC One]], Cardiff. 3 May 2008.</ref> as commentary on the gender inequalities of other species. This typifies a Sontaran trait: interested only in the strongest fighters in any group or race. Despite this, Strax appeared perfectly comfortable with the prospect of wearing dresses in "[[The Snowmen#Prequels|The Battle of Demon's Run - Two Days Later]]";<ref>After Vastra lists "some spectacular dresses" among aspects of their lives, Strax asks if they need a "man one". "No," they both reply. "Am ''I'' the man one?" "No!" "So, dresses then," he confidently declares as he joins them to leave.</ref> he ultimately dressed in human gentleman's attire, nevertheless.<ref group=note>"[[The Snowmen#Prequels|The Great Detective]]", "[[The Snowmen#Prequels|Vastra Investigates]]", "[[The Snowmen]]", "[[The Crimson Horror]]", and "[[The Name of the Doctor]]".</ref> In ''[[The Time Warrior]]'', when Linx examines Sarah Jane, he comments on how the human reproduction system is 'inefficient' and that humans 'should change it'. As multiple genders are foreign to them, Sontarans are known to confuse the human [[male]] and [[female]] sexes; Strax routinely addresses young women as "Boy"<ref>Strax calls Jenny Flint "Boy" in both "[[A Good Man Goes to War]]" and "[[The Snowmen#Prequels|The Battle of Demon's Run - Two Days Later]]", as he does Victorian-era [[Clara Oswald]] in "[[The Snowmen]]" and 20th-21st century Clara Oswald in "[[The Crimson Horror]]"</ref> and vice versa,<ref>Strax addresses a Glaswegian telegram boy as "Girl" in "[[The Name of the Doctor]]",</ref> and claims not to have known that [[River Song (Doctor Who)|River Song]] was a woman.<ref>"[[The Name of the Doctor]]"</ref>

In "The Sontaran Stratagem", the Sontarans are seen to create human clones by growing them in tubs of green fluid. ''[[Enemy of the Bane]]'' confirms that Sontarans are cloned in the same way. In a human clone, the umbilical corresponds to the probic vent on the back of a Sontaran's neck, suggesting that the vent is not unlike the human [[navel]], albeit clearly more complex.