History Main / ReincarnatedAsTheOppositeSex

* ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': There have been male and female incarnations of the Avatar. Aang, the male protagonist of [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the first series]], is reincarnated from Avatar Kyoshi, a female Earthender. He later reincarnates into a girl named Korra in the sequel ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''.

[[caption-width-right:300:Yukari Kobayakawa reflects on his past life as the courtesan Yuumurasaki]]

* In ''Anime/GenesisOfAquarion'', Sirius believes himself to be the reincarnation of Apollonius, but late in the series, it's revealed Sirius is really [[spoiler:a reincarnation of Celiane, Apollonius' lover whose soul was reborn in two halves. Her other reincarnation is Sirius' younger sister, Silvia.]]

* In the manga ''Reincarne'', three samurai named Meguru, Asahi, and Kotaro are reincarnated in modern times as high school students and reunite for the first time in their current lives, albeit with the caveat that the latter two have reincarnated as girls. While Meguru and Asahi still remember their previous selves (Asahi in particular loves acting all girly but is still pretty masculine at heart), Kotaro does not, and the series focuses on trying to reawaken her memories.

* In ''ComicBook/Camelot3000'' by Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland, Myth/KingArthur is awakened from his sleep during an alien invasion. A number of Arthur's knights have been reincarnated, sometimes into distinctly different bodies (e.g., black, Asian, [[{{Mutants}} hideous mutant]]). Sir Tristan, quite a womanizer in his former life, is reincarnated as a young woman. The appearance of Isolde (also reincarnated, but still female) complicates the matter further, although they end up in a surprisingly sweet lesbian relationship.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'': At the conclusion of the "Season Of Mists" arc, Dream offers his long-dead lover Nada several options for how to spend her afterlife. She chooses to be reborn in a mortal body; when Morpheus goes to a hospital in the waking world to say goodbye, we see she's now a male infant.
* In the comic book ''ComicBook/TheUltraverse'''s Mantra from Malibu Publishing, the main character is a warrior employed by a wizard. He's continually reborn by having the wizard transplant his soul into a new male host whenever he died. At the start of the series, the wizard is betrayed and has only enough strength to move his most loyal warrior's soul one more time. He tells the warrior that this time it will be different. The warrior awakes to find himself in the body of a single mother. The series deals with him coping with this and having to learn magic to cope with his lack of martial abilities.

* ''ComicStrip/NonSequitur'' had a character in the 90's-early 2000's named Homer whose strips chronicled his [[BeenThereShapedHistory multiple reincarnations at various major historical periods]]. On at least two of those occasions, he was incarnated as a girl named Honor.

* In the ''Film/TheMatrix'' fanfic ''Bringing Me To Life'', two male characters, Apoc and David, are reincarnated as female.

* The fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12650047/47/Strandpiel Strandpiel]]'' by Creator/AAPessimal has a sub-plot (one of many) in which the idea of reincarnation on the Discworld is discussed. Apparently every discarnate soul has a number and a lottery is drawn every so often. ("It Could Be You!") A young Witch has discovered one of her discarnate Spirit Guides will be unavailable for a few decades as her Number has just come up. Interestingly, the job vacancy is in her own family and will be a male child. Bekki and her father, wizard Ponder Stibbons, discuss the implications of this and speculate if the child will then also qualify as his own great-aunt, and what actually happens when a soul, last female, returns in a male body. They agree it probably won't be an issue as these things tend to self-adjust. See link for details.

* In ''Film/AllOfMe'', Creator/LilyTomlin plays a dying millionairess who arranges to have her soul transferred into the body of a younger woman. The procedure goes wrong and her soul is instead transferred into the left side of her recently fired lawyer, played by Creator/SteveMartin. For most of the movie, the two souls struggle to control the one body, but at one point, the lawyer is knocked out, leaving the millionairess to control his body on her own.

* In ''Film/DeadAgain'', starring Creator/KennethBranagh and Creator/EmmaThompson, they play a German pianist and his wife in their past life (in the 1940s) and a private detective and an artist (in present day, which was the 1990s), respectively. Turns out [[spoiler:in their modern reincarnation, the pianist's wife reincarnated as the detective, while the pianist became the female artist.]]

* This is the big plot twist of the Japanese horror movie ''Film/Reincarnation2005'': [[spoiler:The female protagonist discovers she's the reincarnation of the crazed professor who killed all the people in a hotel, including his own children, and then committed suicide to prove his theory about reincarnation.]]
* The plot of ''Film/Switch1991'' ([[MemeticMutation Jimmy Smits!]]) revolves around a womanizing jerk who gets murdered by several of the women he exploited and is given a chance by God to return to life to redeem himself by earning genuine love. The Devil, to make things interesting and pose a real challenge, suggests sending him back as a woman.
* In the late-1990s horror film ''Film/TaleOfTheMummy'', the titular mummy's lover in a past life was an Egyptian princess. [[spoiler: As part of a RedHerring, the audience is led to believe that the female archeologist is her reincarnation, but hers is actually the male detective played by Jason Scott Lee]].

* ''Literature/ADogsPurpose'' is about several lives of the soul of one dog that is continually reincarnated, most of the time as male dogs but one as a female German Shepherd called Ellie who becomes a search and rescue police dog and another as a female Poodle Mix named Molly.
* In the ''[[Literature/AruShahAndTheEndOfTime Aru Shah]]'' books, [[{{Literature/Mahabharata}} the Pandava brothers]] have been reincarnated in the modern day as girls. Aru's love interest Aiden also turns out to be the reincarnation of [[spoiler:Draupadi, the Pandavas' collective wife.]]

* In Creator/WalterJonWilliams' {{Cyberpunk}} novel ''Literature/{{Hardwired}}'', the rich elite often transfer their consciousness to a younger body to extend their lives. The book introduces one who used to be an elderly man but got himself transferred to a young, female body to live his sexual fantasies of submission and vulnerability. S/He gets what s/he asked for and more when [[spoiler:Sarah, one of the protagonists, seduces and then murders him/her.]]

* In the finale of the Brazilian SoapOpera ''Series/AlmaGemea'', [[spoiler:Serena and Rafael]] die, but their souls go to a spiritual plane that looks like a grotto. Their souls begin to change shape to show some of their previous incarnations, including a pair of African male slaves and a duo of female nuns.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Time Lords are capable of regenerating across gender, which comes up several times throughout the {{Revival}} Series:
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E4TheDoctorsWife "The Doctor's Wife"]], the Doctor recounts an anecdote about his old friend the Corsair, a renegade Time Lord who frequently shifted between male and female forms with each incarnation.
** Famously done, and PlayedForLaughs in the Comic Relief special; [[Recap/DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath "The Curse of Fatal Death"]], with Rowan Atkinson regenerating through several other actors before ending as Joanna Lumley.
** At the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater "Dark Water"]], the Doctor learns that the Master has regenerated into a female incarnation, now going by Missy. She remains in this form until her next (offscreen) regeneration, returning to a male form during the Thirteenth Doctor's era.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent "Hell Bent"]], the General regenerates into a woman after being wounded by the Doctor. Her following dialogue implies that most of her other incarnations were female as well.
** At the end of [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime "Twice Upon a Time"]], the male Twelfth Doctor regenerates into the female Thirteenth Doctor, the first female depiction seen on-screen. She then regenerates back into a male form at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWho2022CENThePowerOfTheDoctor "The Power of the Doctor"]]. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon "Fugitive of the Judoon"]], [[spoiler:she learns that she previously had another female incarnation in the form of the Fugitive Doctor]].
** In the 2018 novelization of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose "Rose"]], Clive shows Rose photos of the Doctor's various incarnations, including ones from well into the Time Lord's future. Two of these are a bald Black woman and an androgynous child in a wheelchair (of note is that the TV version of "Rose" was the debut story for the male Ninth Doctor).

* In the 2011 revised version of ''Theatre/OnAClearDayYouCanSeeForever'', gay David Gamble goes to therapist Dr. Bruckner to stop his smoking habit and, through hypnosis, discloses his past life as 1940s jazz singer Melinda Wells. Bruckner finds himself falling for David's recollections of Melinda, but, as a straight man, [[IncompatibleOrientation is not attracted to the present David, despite them technically being the same person]]. David, who had fallen for Bruckner, is none too happy when he realizes this. [[note]] David is a GenderSwap version of the original protagonist, Daisy Gamble, but Melinda Wells remains female.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': The Dotharl Clan in the Azim Steppe that you encounter for the first time in the expansion ''Stormblood'' are a ProudWarriorRace who believe in reincarnation and therefore both have no fear of death as well as very equal gender roles - everyone is expected to be a warrior - as anyone can reincarnate as the opposite sex, they take the name of who they were believed to be in the past life too so names aren't gendered either. Their leader Sadu mentions she's lived past lives as both men and women before.

** Ji-eum tells Do-yun that not only were they married in her first life, she was the husband, which unnerves him. [[spoiler:It turns out Ji-eum was a woman in that life, but Do-yun was actually her twin sister.]]

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* ''Webcomic/ATaleOfTwoRulers'': It's implied to be uncommon, but the Trigforce bearers ''can'' reincarnate as a different gender than usual.
** [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Gandondorf]] has the clearest PastLifeMemories of the three Triforce bearers. When he [[HiddenDepths reveals himself]] to be an expert on pregnancy and childbirth, it comes from many lifetimes of fatherhood, plus a few of motherhood.
** [[spoiler: Link, in this incarnation, is actually Princess Rinku, Zelda's daughter. This is why Ganondorf hasn't realized the connection yet, and Zelda wants to keep it that way]].

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'': The faith of the Luxon reincarnates its consecutive members without regard for sex or species. Queen Leylas Kryn and her partner Quana are known to have maintained their ReincarnationRomance across multiple gender permutations.

* ''Webcomic/ATaleOfTwoRulers'': [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Gandondorf]] has the clearest PastLifeMemories of the three Triforce bearers. When he [[HiddenDepths reveals himself]] to be an expert on pregnancy and childbirth, it comes from many lifetimes of fatherhood, plus a few of motherhood.

* ''Literature/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'' has a variation. The protagonist was a {{salaryman}} who died and was reincarnated as a slime named Rimuru who then [[TheAssimilator assimilates]] a human woman. As a result, Rimuru's human form looks like a young girl, but it's technically still genderless.

* In ''Because I Reincarnated as a Succubus, I'll Squeeze Out Milk'', a 17-year-old boy is hit by a car and gets reincarnated as a demon of lust because of a misinterpretation of his last words and now must live his new life as a succubus.

* ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': There have been male and female incarnations of the Avatar. Aang, the male protagonist of [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender the first series]], reincarnates into a girl named Korra in the sequel ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''.

* In ''Manga/ChildrenOfTheWhales'', [[spoiler:Chakuro and Kikujin]] are revealed to be in a reincarnation cycle where the former writes records of the world's stories and the latter preserves said records in every lifetime. While [[spoiler:Chakuro]] is a guy in all incarnations, [[spoiler:Kikujin]]'s incarnations can vary in gender (his current one is a little boy, but a flashback to a past life shows him as a grown man and another as a young girl).

* Katia in ''Literature/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' was previously a Japanese schoolboy in her past life, and still retains her memories of it along with the rest of her reincarnated classmates -- all of whom were reborn with the same genders they still had originally. It's implied that the being responsible for the reincarnation was aware of her previous self's crush on his male best friend, which is the reason why she was reborn as a girl. While still acting very boyish when with her friends, Katia has become very feminine in her own right and does learn to identify as a girl after [[DeathOfPersonality a spell causes the final remnants of her original self to be erased]].

* ''Series/GoodbyeCharlie: In this series pilot, Charlie Sorel dies and comes back as a woman.

*** Dax's prior host, Curzon, was a Federation ambassador and {{Casanova}} whom Captain Sisko knew quite well as a younger officer.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': At the conclusion of the "Season Of Mists" arc, Dream offers his long-dead lover Nada several options for how to spend her afterlife. She chooses to be reborn in a mortal body; when Morpheus goes to a hospital in the waking world to say goodbye, we see she's now a male infant.

[[quoteright:300:[[Manga/{{Yukrasim}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yukarism_reincarnate.png]]]]

* ''Yukarism'': Yukari Kobayakawa is a famous author of HistoricalFiction novels about the Edo period in Japan and he's notable for writing as if he really lived in Edo. This is because Yukari remembers his past life as the female courtesan Yuumurasaki from Edo's Yoshiwara district.

[[quoteright:276:[[Manga/{{Yukarism}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/l5ovfzd.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:276:Yukari Kobayakawa reflects on his past life as the courtesan Yuumurasaki]]

[[quoteright:276:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/l5ovfzd.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:276:from ''Yukarism'', Yukari Kobayakawa reflects on his past life as the courtesan Yuumurasaki]]

Bringing PastLifeMemories into play can make things significantly hairier. When regaining a small fragment of memories, having been the opposite sex usually makes things a bit stranger, but won't be a huge deal. A character retaining ''all'' their memories from the beginning effectively overlaps with GenderBender, which the character may [[GenderBenderAngst bemoan]] or [[SecondLawOfGenderBending accept]]. Harsher still is when they've live as one gender ''and then'' gain a full life of memories as another, which is likely to cause [[LossOfIdentity psyche-shaking]] levels of AmnesiacDissonance.

Bringing PastLifeMemories into play can make things significantly hairier. When regaining small fragment of memories, having been the opposite sex usually makes things a bit stranger, but won't be a huge deal. A character retaining ''all'' their memories from the beginning effectively overlaps with GenderBender, which the character may [[GenderBenderAngst bemoan]] or [[SecondLawOfGenderBending accept]]. Harsher still is when they've live as one gender ''and then'' gain a full life of memories as another, which is likely to cause [[LossOfIdentity psyche-shaking]] levels of AmnesiacDissonance.

Bring PastLifeMemories into play can make things significantly hairier. When regaining small fragment of memories, having been the opposite sex usually makes things a bit stranger, but won't be a huge deal. A character retaining ''all'' their memories from the beginning effectively overlaps with GenderBender, which the character may [[GenderBenderAngst bemoan]] or [[SecondLawOfGenderBending accept]]. Harsher still is when they've live as one gender ''and then'' gain a full life of memories as another, which is likely to cause [[LossOfIdentity psyche-shaking]] levels of AmnesiacDissonance.

* ''Webcomic/SeeYouInMyNineteenthLife'':

* ''Literature/RebornToMasterTheBlade'' is a light novel which has an anime adaption, as mentioned in the literature section - it's protagonist was a [[TheGoodKing Hero-King]] in her past life and the show opens with him dying and being gifted with a reincarnation wish for his heroism - to live his next life as someone who can focus on mastering their sword skills for their own sake rather than having to be a hero. He wakes up as the baby daughter of a Holy Knight years in the future.

* ''Literature/RebornToMasterTheBlade'', the [[TheGoodKing Hero-King]] Inglis wishes for reincarnation on his deathbed to the Goddess who watched over his life, as he regrets never truly becoming the best swordsman in the world due to his duties as king. He is reincarnated as the daughter of the Captain of the Knights decades in the future.

* ''Literature/ADogsPurpose'' is about several lives of the soul of one dog that is continually reincarnated, most of the time as male dogs but one as a female German Shepherd called Ellie who becomes a search and rescue police dog.

* ''[[Literature/ADogsPurpose]]'' is about several lives of the soul of one dog that is continually reincarnated, most of the time as male dogs but one as a female German Shepherd called Ellie who becomes a search and rescue police dog.