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Oh give me a clone, of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to an X
And when we're alone, just me and my clone
We'll both think of nothing but sex
- Randall Garrett

While clones and most other sorts of sci-fi duplicates are identical to the original character and, by definition, the same sex, exceptions do exist. The idea dates at least from Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein, where the opposite sex clones become sexual partners of the original; nowadays the trope is more used as a quick way of producing a Distaff Counterpart rather than for titillation. Merely being of the opposite sex of his or her original greatly increases the chance of the clone surviving the denouement and showing up in a future story.

Biologically, this is somewhat plausible for male-to-female cloning, because a male has an X-chromosome that can be doubled to produce a female clone, as in Asimov's poem and Heinlein's novel. (Two X-chromosomes are not even strictly necessary! ...Unless you don't want the clone to have Turner syndrome.) For female-to-male cloning, the Y chromosome would have to either come from another subject, and thus one would not have a pure clone, or be formed from one of the X-chromosomes, which would require absurd amounts of genetic engineering and amount to simple fiat anyway.

Alternately, if clones are grown in People Jars, drenching one in opposite-gender hormones at the right stages of development could impose a prenatal sex change without need for genetic manipulation.

See Cloning Blues. Compare Distaff Counterpart, Half Identical Twins and Screw Yourself.


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