Unlike other shōjo heroines that Ouran High School Host Club parodies, Haruhi is an independent, hard-working, asocial character who "embraces, if not a genderqueer identity, then at least a gender-ambivalent one.

"[8] Bisco Hatori appeared at Anime Expo 2019 in Los Angeles, where she revealed that Haruhi was originally meant to be a boy, but one of her editors suggested a gender swap.

Hatori stressed Ouran Koukou Host Club being a story about family and friendship, without any intention of being a pioneer of "fujoshi comedy," though she admitted that it happened just the same.

Taking the dual role of director and lead character, Glass said she felt like she had "something to prove" and, initially, she was under great pressure.

Comparing Haruhi to Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket and Tsukushi Makino from Boys Over Flowers because of her strong sense of empathy and her "take-no-crap" attitude respectively, Bridges praised the character for her intelligence, ability to speak her mind and her "blasé approach to gender roles.

In 2014, Aja Romano of The Daily Dot called Haruhi one of the "rare cases" where a character refuses to return to "safely heteronormative territory.

[18] Writing for The Mary Sue in 2015, Alenka Figa considered the Ouran series as one of the "Top 5 Queer Voices in Anime," citing Haruhi's attitude regarding gender roles as evidence.