Gender Bender/Headscratchers

• Ever notice that a lot of stories that use the mtf changing trope usually involve an unwilling Male? The bent character either never quite gets used to it, receives a personality change, or they'll warm up to it by experiencing a romantic/sexual epiphany. My main question is, is it more difficult to write about a guy who actually WANTS or immediately welcomes the change?
  • Any story about a sudden change will generally have a protagonist who either doesn't want the change or who initially wants it but quickly comes to see unexpected problems, this is for much the same reason that stories tend to end when you get to "Happily ever after". Conflict is a major part of storytelling, and there's generally more that can be done with a character who resents their new status - you can build something out of their discomfort, have them fight against being forced into stereotypically girly roles, have them try to change back somehow, or gradually have them learn to accept their new sex. If the protagonist is happy with the change, doesn't want to turn back and doesn't face any further problems then there's not much of a story.
• I like the trope, in general. What just bugs me is when the trope somehow affects personality as well. For example, a man stuck in a female body suddenly undergoes a personality shift and starts displaying "girly traits" he was never shown to have before. That's gender essentialism at its worst.
  • Well, we do know that the male and female brains are built and work a little differently. There are also different hormones in action. "Realistically"(why are we even trying to apply logic to this trope, again?), a perfect gender change should not make you, say, instantly dislike wrestling and like the color pink, but it WOULD, probably, affect your behavior in subtle ways.
    • Keyword is "subtle". In any case, this "work a little differently" thing operates on statistical averages, which is about as meaningful as comparing average patient body temperature in two nearby hospitals.
    • It strikes me that there could be all manner of plausible changes based on different plumbing, hormones and brain chemistry. I wouldn't inherently rule out any sort of sexual attraction change given all that going on, for instance. "Girly traits" is a little different, but in certain circumstances (not usually met in this sort of thing), they might be justified too. For instance, if the character starts dressing very girly. It could be a semi-conscious reaction (dressing how the character thinks a girl "should" dress) based on a desire to "avoid discovery" (if her previous gender isn't generally known) or to "be treated like a normal girl, not some freak" (if it is generally known.) But yeah, the general watchword should be "subtle," even if it usually isn't.
    • We had a trans-male in our philosophy class who was nearing the end of the process of transitioning. He mentioned there was a definite shift in outlook between before he started hormone treatments and after. One of the things he noticed was certain emotions were more muted, while others were magnified, and he ended up thinking about sex a lot more. As far as emotions, the analogy he made was that before the hormones, he was like a row boat on choppy seas. After starting the hormones, he was like an ice-cutter plowing through the waves as if they were barely there. The one emotion that did become more overpowering for him than from before was aggression. He found himself arguing and flying off the handle at others more than before. He also became more impatient with people.
    • Well personally This Troper does have some girly tendencies that he doesn't act on, but if he were gender bent he'd go crazy with them.
  • Seems to be the fall-back way to milk humor from the concept. There really seems to only be so many times that one can use the actual sex changing for laughs. So the next step is ridiculous changes in taste and behavior which one must deal with, Unfortunate Implications aside.
  • You could argue that a character who changes sex is going to start acting how they think they'd act as the opposite sex, not necessarily how they 'should' act. It could be a coping mechanism to make it seem 'normal', since it's probably pretty damn stressful having an unfamiliar body all of a sudden. And aren't there quite a few examples where the personality is unchanged?
    • So you're saying that in an attempt to bring normality to their situation, a person would act upon their idea of the way females/males act. Like in that Ranma 1 2 episode where Ranma gets amnesia and (in the stress of the situation seeing as he was a she at the time) acted in an over girly way, as that was his perception of a normal female.
    • A lot depends on specific circumstances and the attitude of the person. If the character has moved on to "acceptance" of her new condition (e.g. "Wow, I'm really going to be spending the rest of my life as a woman"), she might try to live just like a "normal" woman, to avoid drawing attention to herself. Which might then be counter-productive, depending on her preconceived notions of what a "normal" woman does.
      • Anyone with a pair of eyes can see that testosterone and oestrogen effect the brain in vastly different ways. Its proven fact that testosterone increases rage, aggression, competitiveness, sex drive and yes even sexual orientation ( scans of straight and transgendered brains have shown a link between the amount of sex hormone the brain recieves in the womb and how a person acts. ) This is why the removal of testosterone (i.e the removal of the testicles) has been shown to radically lower sex drive and violent attitudes in men. Oestrogen does increase the maternal instinct (it spikes during the hight of a period) as well as the co-op spirit that makes girls stick together and boys statistically more likely to commit suicide alone. Men and Women also have vastly different gender roles in society even today - a few examples would be the fact that women can bascially wear any clothes they want to but men can't wear dresses or make-up, women get hate for sleeping around or giving birth after a certain age, men are meant to never cry and women are meant to show their emotions etc. There is absolutely no question that if you swapped gender for any reasonable length of time; not only would you have to take on the mannerisms of the opposite sex, but nature would force you to take on the mannerisms of the opposite sex purely because of the different hormones that are now being created between your legs.
        • While I can certainly see how certain chemicals within your system would affect your behaviors, I'm calling bullshit on the belief that generally accepted arbitrary gender roles would be something that you'd have to take on. Your body giving you a predisposition toward an action is one thing. Doing something just because people born like you are expected to do things a certain way, usually because of some baseless presumption about how that entire group is supposed to act, is your choice. Hell, even certain things your body gives you a predisposition towards(such as the urge to procreate) can be ignored. Whether or not it'd be in your best interest to do things contrary to what other people or your hormones are telling you to, however, is an entirely different matter.
• What bugs me is that when the trope involves the suddenly same-gendered love interest deciding that they love the person, no matter their gender, it's ALWAYS "Girl Loves Boy-Turned-Girl". What? Men can't decide they still love their girlfriend even though she's his boyfriend now? The only exceptions I can recall are instances where the girlfriend gets a gender-flip as well.
  • Ugh, seconding the bugging here. The problem is that Girl-On-Girl Is Hot, but straight males seem unwilling to accept guy on guy. Though I did see one example of a man loving a genderbent girl--it was a one-off joke in Hopscotch by Kevin J. Anderson.
  • Of course, it just seems that guys are turned into girls more often than girls are turned into guys independently (at least from what this troper noticed), so yeah...
  • Author Appeal.
• The Trope itself JustBugsMe, Genders aren't meant to be treated this way! It's just a Berserk Button of mine...
  • Is what bugs you that the title should use the term "sex" rather than "gender", that it's unrealistic, or something else? If it's the first, I agree, but many people don't like to use the word "sex" in conversation, many people don't know the difference between gender and sex or believe that evolving language has turned them to mean the same thing, and "Sex Change Without The Use Of Realisting Time Frames Or Surgeries" isn't as catchy. If it's the second, it's non-realistic fiction. If the third, please elaborate.
    • Hello, I believe I was the OP here. Just to elaborate, it IS actually the third/another reason, "sex vs gender" always seemed overly picky to me and I'm not concerned about the realism, it's because I find it gross and horrifying, to put it bluntly genders are not meant to be bent! Also, some might says it's trivial but it also screws with how I categorise genders. Finally, I take issue with some of the reactions to this trope, mostly how everyone seems to find it interesting or sexy or whatever, and some of the issues it raises itself (Like Loss of Identity, which is a good part of why I find the trope disturbing as well as gross, and the whole "If your lover was genderbent, would you still love them?" nonsense, that's something nobody should ever have to deal with, and something we REALLY shouldn't think about...). Wow, sorry about the Wall of Text, but thanks for you reply and I hope that clears things up enough.
      • Loss of identity? If your identity only goes as far as your physical being, then you're a shallow person. Your body is important, but your mind has far more meaning.
        • Well, you're right about that actually. What I was thinking of more was when they have the victim takes on typical gender roles and stuff, not sure how often that happens because of my cursory understanding of the stuff that generally partakes in it but it would seem to be common.
• Why has this become so popular among fans?! I try to search for good Hetalia artwork, and 99% of the time I get pics of complete strangers making out, and it takes me a full 5 seconds to realize they are actually the same characters with a different gender! Is it too much to ask for something with consistency from fans who like these shows?!! I don't get it!
  • Well, Rule 63 is... not an explanation, but at least an exploration of what you're talking about.
  • Hetalia specific answer: The popularity started after the creator did the genderbender versions
• Why not undergo sex change treatment to go back to their sex? Most Gender Bender's would qualify as Transsexual.
  • Yeah, whenever somebody, say, said Ranma was transgendered, I always was impressed, and then disappointed when they said that Ranma was mtf because he becomes a girl. The tone of "girl thinks just like a guy, identifies as one" is far more similar to actual transgenderism.
  • There are a lot of real-life transsexuals who don't necessarily have or want surgery and/or hormonal treatment. Some who do end up regretting it. There are an awful lot of variables in this area.
    • I happen to be friends with man who has gender dysphoria and is completely put off by the thought of a sex change due to fact that it takes years, costs at least £20,000 for a decent one, wouldn't be a true woman below the cosmetic (he wouldn't be able to get pregnant for example) and the widespread Transphobia/lack of education that non-transpeople hold for the transgendered. Trust me, being fully one gender is preferable to being half of one - even if it wasn't by choice.
      • Especially since there are probably quite a few non-breeding women who would take issue with the invalidation of their gender on the basis of their lack of offspring. And a number of quite happy, well-adjusted, transitioned trans people who don't consider themselves "half" anything. Not to mention the people who do identify as agender/bigender/genderqueer who don't want to be entirely one or the other. Or the people who would prefer half right to all wrong.
      • This troper is unquestionably straight and male, yet quite often fantasizes about having a female body, being quite sure he would prefer it to his male body (and being just as sure about preferring his male body to having a faux-female flesh-sculpture for a body, by the way), and sees no conflict of identity in this since he is steadfast in his belief that everything people believe about gender identity is completely wrong and no more than people, culture, and society being sexist. (To clarify, this troper's concept of self, his sense of identity, is not attached or dependent on the sex of his body. If he'd been given a choice, he'd have chosen to be female, but for reasons that have nothing to do with a conflict of identity.)
        • "Faux-female flesh-sculpture"? Way to be civil and sensitive with a pothole like that.
          • It's true though...
            • In your opinion, which I find too offputting to be put on a public page like this.
    • That troper is right, though. Even if you have the mind of a woman, you have the body of a man. Even with surgery you don't have the body of a woman, just the body of a man shaped to look like the body of a woman. It really is just a "Faux-female flesh-sculpture" in the end. But I'm just making in observation here. If people still want it, I won't say they're wrong or stupid.
      • Define "the body of a man" and "the body of a woman".
        • A Male body and a Female body, respectively. Hey, you knew it was coming...
  • First, a sex-change back would be expensive and time-consuming. Second, it's not uncommon for involuntary changing between male and female forms to be involved, rendering the operation invalid. Third, there's often magic involved and magic can't simply be undone by science. Fourth, otherwise it's another person's body so they don't have the right to mess with it. Fifth, and this is stronger for school-based ones, the impact that revealing oneself changing by operation would have on their social life would be bad; bonus points if they are considered cute by someone. Sixth, they technically don't exist so how could they get a legal operation done?
  • Do a non-op/non-hormonal transition.
• I don't have anything against the concept - I think it's a very interesting premise. What bugs me is the fan reaction, mostly the RP types who say they play as women to "break the stereotype that all women are whores!" This feels incredibly arrogant, akin to saying "Men are better women then women".
  • There's such a stereotype?
  • I feel I should mention, I beleive they are reffering to the stereotype that "all men who roleplay as women roleplay as whores", not that "all women are whores". Of which the former is widely beleived, and the latter I've never heard of until you put it there.
  • The problem is that these guys have formed this stereotype by themselves, and therefore have an inaccurate representation of the opposite sex, and their stereotypes. I'd like to mention that I myself often pick a female character in a fictional setting, out of sheer curiosity of what it would be like to be a woman. I'll admit, I don't like being a guy much, mostly from the associated stereotypes (I'm Asexual, but everyone knows A Man Is Not a Virgin). I think what the OP was complaining of is another misrepresentation of subculture, a la people fascinated with Seke/Ume relationships that have next to no existence in real life.
• I generally kind of enjoy this trope, and not for its necessarily "kinky" purposes, but just seeing how different characters would react to the sudden change is pretty entertaining. What I don't quite understand though, is why is it that whenever a man gets turned into a woman, it's always a woman with large breasts! I have yet to hear of a dude that gender-flips and turns out to be flat chested. Really, even with a rather small bust, one could still achieve an Attractive Bent Gender, although the explanation might be that the newly-genderbent male would not be able to "check the equipment" and thus miss out on Fan Service for the males in the audience, who as we all know prefer big breasts.
  • Large breasts are theoretically less comfortable for someone who was until not long ago a man, since a flat chest is presumably the state they were in before. Larger breasts also give something for the non-bent male cast to stare at to show how perverted they all are.
  • It depends on the purpose of the change I would think. If they were simply transformed into a female form (just _____ person as a girl) then the Most Common Superpower/Pettanko meter should be set to random (maybe implied from their male body design). If the intention is "sexual" than they will undergo a generalized ideal female form (which is usually on the latter side of the alphabet). Not all men like the same things but they tend to agree on a few features.