Janeva is a Carja NPC, encountered during the side quest “Sunstone Rock”. Janeva’s gender is not stated, though they assert that they are “not one of [Aloy’s] sisters,” and are clearly a soldier (for Carja, a profession exclusively for men). In the game, Carja women have names ending in vowels, so Janeva was probably assigned female at birth. The game creators have not explicitly addressed Janeva’s gender, but they resist being misgendered as a woman in the game. They are possibly either trans-masculine or nonbinary. Some players have appreciated trans representation in HZD through Janeva, while others have criticized the way the creators handled this character. Still other players seemed to have missed the possibility that Janeva is trans altogether. (See here, here and here.)

LGBTQ References in this game:

Brageld

Ella Pontes

Janeva

Petra Forgewoman

Gera

Citations:

1. Dale, Laura. (2017, March 21). Zelda, Mass Effect, and Horizon all struggle with introducing their trans characters. Polygon. Retrieved from:https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/21/15004956/zelda-mass-effect-horizon-zero-dawn-trans-characters
2. InFlame. (2017, March 6). Horizon: Zero Dawn Sunstone Rock Quest Walkthrough. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOCLBK6zqb0
3. Janeva. (n.d.). Horizon Wiki. Retrieved from https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Janeva
4. Quinn. (2020, May 17). Best Transgender and Non-Binrary Characters in Video Games. But Why Tho? Retrieved from: https://butwhythopodcast.com/2020/05/17/best-transgender-non-binary-characters-in-video-games/
5. u/vingateleo. (n.d.) Representation matters. Reddit. Retrieved from: https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/5zvp41/representation_matters/