Non-Sexual uses for Gender Bender

Has it been done? Has there ever been a story where a character undergoes a gender bender situation through magical or scientific means but the situation is played up as drama rather than comedy and without turning pornographic?

I was writing some light erotica (no intention of it leaving my hard drive) featuring two characters I had created, two people already in a relationship end up switching gender's purely by accident which allows them to see how the "other side" lived and understand each other on a deeper level. Sure they have sex (erotica after all) but I was wondering how it would read if I removed the sexual component completely?

Is the Gender Bender trope useless without going down that path and playing up the situation as comedy or fetish fuel? Or would it be deemed unrealistic for a young boy to wake up as a girl and his first instinct instinct is not to go, "honk honk"? I assume age plays a part too, hormonal teenagers would probably find it hard to leave their rooms on the first day.

In short, how would you incorporate the Gender Bender trope in a story, treat it as drama (or a chance for character growth) and NOT draw attention to the sexual/fetish factor?

It happened in a novel entitled Elminster: The Making of a Mage. Elminster was an iconic character from the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign setting. He was changed into a woman as a disguise to hide from assassins, and also to better learn magic (women being more inherently sensitive to magic, because reasons.)

I don't recall any sexual hijinks going on as a result of this transformation. "Elmara" was described as "a rather slim-hipped and bony woman." The illustrations showed her retaining Elminster's aquiline nose, so while she wasn't exactly ugly, she was no raving beauty either.

edited 22nd Nov '15 5:42:54 PM by pwiegle

For a while now I've had this story floating in my head where a guy is turned into a girl. Yes, it would have more sex scenes than normal ("This could work really well on HBO," I thought) which I could remove if I really wanted to, but the main point would be to talk about gender dynamics, sexism, double-standards, and the difference between gender identity vs biological sex.

So yes, it can be done. I just haven't seen it done yet.

edited 22nd Nov '15 5:58:19 PM by AwSamWeston

There are plenty of them.

Most of which are condescending and terrible attempts to portray how the other half lives and should probably have been stopped by an alert editor.

There are plenty of reasons to use it ... but most humans are pretty sexual beings, so if their Gender Bender is going to last more than a few hours, having the character explore 'the other side' is not surprising to me.

Isn't this, like, the whole gimmick behind Ranma ½?

Other then that, Misfile comes to mind as a 100% non sexual gender bend,

I've yet to see a genre bender story done right. That isn't just an escapist fantasy or a wangst fest with super flat characters giving exposition.

Think about it we never see how they were before the chang ever. I mean sure we get a page or some panels at most but without gender bender most of it's protagonists are...boring.

How many of them would you care if they had never gender bendered in the first place? If you are not fan of the genre... not many.

edited 22nd Nov '15 10:46:05 PM by RPGLegend

Sweet Polly Oliver is a thing, though? No actual sex change, just a 'change' of gender.

I'm also fairly sure it's nonsexual.

I've been thinking about dramatic uses for gender-bending because transgender people have a LOT of firsthand experience with it. Transwomen discover a WHOLE lot of shit that women go through on a daily basis, while transmen find out that they're taken more seriously after they transition just for being men.

On a lesser scale, I play with gender issues in my current script a LOT. A group of friends want to cosplay from Mad Max: Fury Road for a convention, but they don't have enough female friends to play the Five Wives, so they gender-flip it into the Five Husbands while the girls find cosplays from other shows.

I poke a lot of fun at how the guys discover the massive inconvenience of wearing Stripperiffic outfits—they need bags all the time since they don't have pockets, they're boiling in the South California daytime and freezing at night, and at one point they try to make a pit stop at a store and realize they're nowhere NEAR dressed enough to go inside. Luckily, the shopkeeper's used to cosplayers and lets them in anyway.

More seriously, the hot Asian bisexual guy gets followed around by a guy and doesn't realize what it means because he's just not used to looking out for stalkers. His female cousin and female friend get creepster vibes after noticing the guy's constantly talking to him and getting up in his space, and he only stops when Asian Guy's boyfriend very pointedly acts couple-y with him. There's a huge difference between creepster-dude and the average Mad Max fans, who are enthusiastic but respectful. (And yes, they're respectful PRECISELY because they take the movie's "We Are Not Things" Arc Words to heart. Creepster-dude didn't watch the movie and he only knows that Asian Guy is wandering around in a couple yards of fabric.)

He later gets verbally harassed and then outright felt up by a girl, whom he eventually punches because the warnings from him and his companions weren't working. Once the convention guard arrives, she whines how THAT REALLY HURT and he shouldn't have hit her since she's a girl. The convention guard points out that she had plenty of time to quit without getting punched in the several minutes he took to get over, and just because she's a girl doesn't mean she can feel people up. Especially not in front of their significant others.

The guys have fun apart from those incidents, but they're also incredibly relieved to change into normal clothes every night. They're also constantly wondering "Holy shit, is this what girls go through?" to a very emphatic "YES" from their female companions. Said guys are already decent people who are just fine with the women in their lives, and I REALLY want to emphasize that they're not strawman misogynists or even well-intended but old-fashioned guys. A lot of men know the big issues women face, like gender discrimination and objectification from the media, but they don't comprehend the everyday things that women have to think about.

edited 25th Nov '15 8:49:40 PM by Sharysa

So, you're basically my literary soul mate, then Epic. I'd figure it would be a lot easier approaching transgender topics from a fantasy angle given that you write about fairies and gods and such.

I've been thinking about writing a story based on Loki's transformation into a mare. Of course, it wouldn't exactly be Loki and I'd have to make several changes, but the core story would be intact.

I imagine another issue would be fashion, which is heavily gendered. A male wearing female clothes for the first time would be quite an experience.

It's also possible to play around with misandrism. For example, a female-turned-male could realize that crying or otherwise showing softness is met with derision ("Man up already!"). When hshe tries to talk to other females, hshe gets treated like a sexual predator ("You creep!"), even more so when attempting to approach children.

With any culture that has gender-specific expectations, seeing a friend get turned into the opposite gender will be confusing at minimum.

Play around with different cultures that have their own ideas of gender and sexuality. Bonus points if they're fantasy and/or non-human cultures.

@Aw Sam Weston

But how do you make sure it doesn't come off as preachy?

@Night

Basically what I was thinking above and yeah. My experience with GB is either sex comedy or groan worthy PSA on the problems women face.

@Blue Ninja 0

Sure, the first hours will definitely be spent in a state of shock/surprise and followed up... testing the new equipment. Can't avoid it but should be one and done really.

@dragonkingofthestars

Ranma 1/2 is interesting, even though it is very much a comedy, switching genders is treated as different disguises by Ranma him/her self and sometimes a cheat to escape fights. The sexual humor is your generic Japanese humor, nothing specific to GB though.

@RPG Legend 7

Same here, this is why the topic exists. Good point you bring up about how you never know the characters before the change. In that case your story would have to be about a lot more than GB which is true in my case. The GB event would be one of many "adventures" and happen after you are used to the characters in their default state. Hence they can discuss whether they are better or worse off after the change.

@hellomoto

Sweet Polly Oliver is a bit different though, by itself it's commentary on how a woman can give it just as good as the men. It's a disguise trope and don't think it has a Spear counterpart.

@Sharysa

Okay what you described is basically the ideal Gender Bender story where it comes off as funny but makes you think too. It's learning a lesson but doesn't come off as preachy or pedantic. I feel sorry for everyone involved and thought countries like America would be better about all this.

@nekomoon14

Wouldn't tackling Transgenderism thorough the Gender Bender trope seem like making light of a serious thing though? There are no magic potions in real life and the procedure is a physically & psychologically exhausting process that can easily take up to a year.

I think the movie Predestination did GB pretty well.

@goto124

Good point. Female to Male is always rare and could actually be eye opening for many who think guys have it 100% easy always for everything when in fact it's more like 60%. Males face a unique brand of sexism where we are expected to be emotionless brutes and expendable too. Shy girls are cute and lovable but Shy guys are weird and creepy... or Mario enemies.... : )

Yes and no. What some people forget is that, assuming one still is the same person (as in, the mind somehow stays the same), a man getting gender-bent does not become a woman but a trans man, and a woman getting gender-bent does not become a man but a trans woman; that is, assuming that their gender identities were that clear-cut as some people could be both and it's only those people who'd change from a man to a woman and vice versa (and even then, just "sort of").

In the same vein, you could have someone getting gender-bent and feeling better with their new body but having all the people around them refer to them with what the sex of their past body was rather than what is (with a flimsy justification like "because it's not your real body"); that is one element I believe to be experienced by trans people, that after coming out most people around them do not seem to care about the discrepancy between their gender and their sex.

But going back to the main topic, I believe that, depending on the means with which the gender-bending had been done, it might be a fine way to explore the meaning of identity as it is. Because a large parts of our identities are based on our body and it being male or female, and on how others perceive us in that regard. Thus, the "Am I even really the same person?" question just waiting to be asked. Of course, to see a story like that might be rare since this particular device does tend to be used for erotica quite often, but oh well.

And in much the same vein, it can be used for character development in stories if the character is overly reliant on what other people think of them and thus can't do something they actually have the ability to do and really should do. Because it's hard to find anything more capable of taking them out of that sort of thing than a total change in how people perceive them based on something as insignificant (so to say) as the body they have; mostly because that does show that the people around the character judge them based on their own vanity rather than any virtues and vices the character might have.

The Marvelous Land of Oz has the protagonist discover he was Princess Ozma all along, having been transformed into a boy as a disguise (Return to Oz eliminated this plot twist in favour of making the Dorothy the protagonist again, sadly).

For the original poster, I would recommend the web-comic Dragon Doctors. It does feature sexualized use of the Gender Bender trope, but it spends a great deal of time on the emotional, physical and even societal impacts of changing a person's biological sex (sometimes permanently). Not to mention it is used in pretty non-sexual ways, such as disguises, plot devices, etc. So...if you read it and filter out the sexuality-based parts, you can actually find something that would really help you.

edited 26th Nov '15 9:51:14 AM by Swordofknowledge

@Kazeto

Great point and some things I had not even considered. Of course any gender bent individual would become a trans person since their mind or self identity would still be the same even if they are in a different body. The kids from Animorphs don't think of themselves as the animals they turn into but rather human minds inside the body of an animal for instance.

Which basically means for a person with Trans leanings, a gender bent scenario could be a real eye opener and allow them to realize their true self. The story that I mentioned in the OP is actually a high school superhero adventure where a bunch of kids get powers based on various mythological entities like spirits and gods.

I thought about having one kid receive the power of "Shakti" the female personification of power and femininity in Hindu Mythology. So this young boy would obviously be written as having trans leanings and when he transforms into his super form, he switches genders which at first would be confusing (why would a female power/god choose a male vessel?) before he has a revelation, he is much happier as a female than a male regardless of powers or no. This in turn would fuel his desire to become a full fledged female either through some gender bending magic or actual surgery. This I think would be a very cool way of exploring gender identity while hopefully coming off as a literal trans empowerment story.

@Bisected8

Wow! That is a huge missed opportunity. Though I think there would have been mass protests or perhaps even theaters burned down had they dared to film the original story as it was. Which is really depressing. Conversely I suppose the studio felt Dorothy was a much more bankable option for a risky sequel rather than an untested original character.

@Swordofknowledge

Thanks for the reference!

A bit late to reply, what with it having been a week, but I'll say that I do like the idea for the story that you presented, SmokingBun.

Well, for as long as the whole situation with transgenderness (and yes, I know it's not supposed to be a word, but since "transgender" is a noun that makes adding "-ness" to it a valid way to make an adjective) is played delicately enough. And by that I don't mean that it should not be spoken about or any such rubbish, but rather that there are people who write a story that appears to be about transgenderness but ultimately has the character jumping the so-called gender barrier and so quickly and with such ridiculous things that I just had to say it.

For, and I presume you are already aware of that one but some people don't and thus I say it, when someone discovering their transgenderness immediately gets some inexplicable urges to reach for Tertiary Sexual Characteristics that would mark them as being of the opposite sex, rather than becoming more comfortable through realisation that they simply do feel more comfortable or through others' perception marking them as being someone of their gender, it goes straight into "you fail" and then past it and into "please just stop".

Because really, Tertiary Sexual Characteristics are the one thing that can be done by anyone regardless of their gender, for as long as they want, and a desire to get into that does not mark one a transgender. The same about things that are associated with a certain sex by people but aren't really required or anything, like wearing skirts or high heels: once, I did (try to) read a story in which a character had realised they were transgender and that "magically" (no magic actually involved, just that some wizard must have teleported the chain of thoughts that lead to it out of the world because it was so inexplicable) gave them the desire to wear high heels and the ability to do it like an expert after one day, and that was described as "becoming free"; suffice to say I did my best to forget what this story actually was, save for remembering why I did it, because things like that are really cringe-worthy.

Although one might be "tempted to try, given that with their now changed sex nobody would make fun of them", but that is not some strong inexplicable urge but rather merely idle curiosity, something that some authors sadly do fail to notice. So yeah. And sorry if I was ranting, I just saw too many people trying to write things they had no idea about and being so heavy with their writing they might as well have used a tungsten anvil to write, so I'd rather rant a bit if that might make some people not do that (not referring to you right now, just in general).

Also, getting back to the story idea, I think that any character who got to know what surgery can and can not do, would opt to try to look for magic to do it. Because as far as human medicine and medical practice had progressed, the sex change surgeries alongside hormonal therapies right now offer no more than a facsimile, and though I have no doubt that some people would find it enough, given the possibility of getting more with some kind of magic when it's already been shown to them that magic can do it, anyone in their situation would be more likely to go with the magic option. Even if that might lead to a bureaucratic clusterfrack because with no proof of any surgery or such to change their sex it might kind of lead to problems with proving they are who they are ... unless the magic is subtle and basically makes them the female version of themselves, you know, rewriting genes as if just one chromosome was different, in which case it'd probably end up with a DNA test to prove that yes, the possibility exist, and alongside the claim and a lack of body the bureaucrats really wouldn't be able to do anything but accept it.

Bureaucracy! Yea, a bureaucracy/other governmental system that doesn't take gender-change into account would cause quite a few problems.

I imagine lots of issues of gender would require a close look at the settings and cultures the story takes place in, and see how these cultures interact with gender. Would John losing his male bits and gaining female bits lead to the government assuming sie is an imposter, and refuse John hir house/job/inheritance/etc? This would probably not work in a world where fingerprinting would solve this problem right away (heh, that's one way transexual people can prove they're the same person!). Needs better ideas.

Another possibility: a married but childless person gets sex-changed, good luck getting babies now. Since a female-male marriage would now be female-female or male-male, making reproduction impossible. Again, a less-than-modern world where adoption or reproductive technologies aren't choices would work best. Nevermind the bureaucractic problems again.

I just thought something up: instead of using a spell to change someone's gender, use another spell to change someone's gender identity. A cis male suddenly gets strong urges to become feminine/female, reaching out for 'female' indicators such as skirts and high heels. Should this spell change sexual orientation? How well would this work anyway?

When I write Gender Bender erotica, I focus on a few things when I'm not focusing on sex. The main one being clothes. Women clothing is tighter than men's, so it can be uncomfortable the first time. Panties are tighter than briefs, and the fabric rubbing is a reminder they aren't a man anymore with every step. I also reckon bras are u comfortable if you're not used to them.

Women also tend to get checked out more than men, so that's another thing to focus on.

On "everyday things," a lot of guys don't know how to take care of their hair if it's not straight and in a "normal" (a few inches long) haircut. Partly because they don't have to, and partly because of Western societal norms that say "keeping up with your appearance too much is girly."

A lot of guys who want to grow their hair out get completely thrown off by 1) if their hair starts curling up because it's long enough to do so, but they don't know how to take care of textured hair, 2) reaching the awkward "mullet" stage and panicking because they don't realize they have to trim more of the middle so the sides catch up, and 3) getting frustrated by how longer hair tangles if you look at it wrong, but they don't want to braid/bun it because it might look too "girly."

I get the feeling that if a gender-bent dude gets magically transformed into a woman and the transformation extends to suddenly growing long, flowing hair, the first time they shower is going to be fucking HELL.

Not the actual shower (long hair gets heavy when it's wet, which is unpleasant but bearable). WAITING FOR IT TO DRY, THOUGH. That shit takes a full night for me and sometimes part of the morning, thanks to having hip-length hair that's also very thick.

edited 5th Dec '15 11:51:02 AM by Sharysa

To be fair, though, there are women who don't know how to take care of their hair (above the basic level) too. Or don't know how to apply make-up that is anything more than the littlest amount of it. I would know, I'm an example here.

Though to be fair, my backstory justifies that (yay, backstory) as I didn't like to have long hair as a kid (oh, my parents tried, but after one incident involving scissors and ending with a completely ridiculous hairstyle, they gave up) and by the time I decided I'm okay with it I didn't really have anyone to teach me about it for real, and my hair is—colour aside—a fine example of "Potter hair", in that if I don't keep it short it's getting mutinous on me and it's almost impossible to do anything with them (and half the time, I have a real-life Ahoge, every time in a different place; it just raises on its own as it dries, because why not). And I'd tried quite a lot of things, and though getting my hair braided might have been the solution, I never had much success with actually braiding my hair on the back of my head.

I guess I could do something with my hair if I did use some of the heavy-duty stuff, but eh, no reason to damage my hair just because I fancy having long hair when I'm fine with short hair. And alternatively I could ask someone for a more in-depth explanation ... except most of my friends are men, and I doubt beard care tips would help much there, and the few women I know I guess I don't feel that comfortable with asking something like that. But the point I was trying to make is, though it could be unusual, sure, it's not a definite out even if someone got gender bent and didn't know how to take care of their hair or apply make-up; well, for as long as what they had and what they could do meant that they look good enough for themselves and feel comfortable with it.

That being said, a gender bender scenario from a male to a female does not necessarily have to include flowing long hair. I mean, sure, if it's a completely different body then it could happen and it's all fine, but if it's supposed to be a female version of themselves then I think it would be more appropriate if their hair was the same as it was or just a bit longer. And in the same vein, you could have a female to male scenario ending with a male body with flowing long hair, and show the following ... probably hilarity of the audience and confusion of the character.

And on the topic of clothes, I have to say that though I do agree that women's clothing tends to be more form-fitting, one can still get something looser if they are willing to spend some time looking (although that does lead us to the universally-known horror of men being forced to go shopping), and in the end it's not like anyone would forbid a male gender-bent into a female from just getting male clothing that fits well enough and going with it; I do that with jeans, because pockets (though it has to be noted I did not get changed into a woman), and it's also the reason why it's nigh-impossible to see me wearing a skirt as trying to get a skirt with pockets is an exercise in masochism here and one might as well just sew a skirt from scratch (I don't think I'm good enough for that, I can patch clothing and make adjustments but that seems to be it).

Also, on the topic of being form-fitting, if a man with a currently female body was somehow willing to put on a dress, as far as tightness goes it's not much different from wearing pants with a belt.

The same as above goes with underwear, of course ... though here going for the "wear men's clothing" option might be seen as somewhat out of place. But really, properly fitting underwear does not actually feel tight, even should it happen to be tight. In the same vein, I have yet to get a bra that actually fits me properly that would feel uncomfortable ... although I do guess I have it easy since I'm not one of those people who have to carry the end of the alphabet. And yeah, I do acknowledge that it might be difficult for a man who got gender-bent and is female at the time but has no knowledge or close to no knowledge of how the bra sizes actually go and how to go about fitting one properly, to choose one that does fit; especially since with the whole "men are independent" thing it's likely enough that the poor guy wouldn't ask any of the ladies working there for help (which ... kind of confuses me, but then again many things people do tend to confuse me), or would just go to a discount store to get their first bra which I guess is even worse.


And now that bit:

Basically, by killing the person you are using it on and replacing them with something else.

Gender identity is rooted in how the brain and the mind of a given person happens to work. So changing gender identity pretty much means that you make an opposite-gender clone of the same person in the same kind of body and replace them. You may think it wouldn't work that way but it truly does, as due to one's gender identity being so tightly linked to our sense of self, it's impossible to just "change" someone's gender without actually killing them as a person. You might get something similar or even the same out of it, sure, and the copied experiences of your clone might make them nigh-indistinguishable from the original, but it's not the same person; not anymore.

Also, high heels aren't necessarily indicators of femininity. They are something many women wear, yes, but please do not link them to one's gender, that's ... inappropriate. To be honest, none of the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics are actually linked to one's gender, but high heels are probably the worst offender there as actually being able to walk with them requires getting used to that and it's a matter of personal preference rather than gender. So linking that to being a woman is like linking being a lumberjack to being a man; sorry if I sound rude but way off there.

In my mind, high heels would be an example of someone 'grasping at straws' to present as 'female'. You're very much right, in fact. Along the story, the gender-flipped person could realize high heels are a horrible way of appearing 'female', for the reasons mentioned above.

If the gender-bent, male-turned-female person was invited to a formal event in a fairly conservative country, which implicitly calls for very feminine-coded clothing in females attending the event, what could happen? The person would likely try to think of ways to avoid attending, but what if it's impossible to avoid?

The male-turned-female might be horrified at all the fanservicey 'female' clothes that have no pockets - or at best, useless pockets that are either fake, or would bulge out unsightly if anything was placed in them, because the clothes would be very tight-fitting.

The best bet would be a rather modest set of clothes that's still feminine (collared blouses, long skirts with safety shorts, etc).

edited 5th Dec '15 11:33:37 PM by hellomoto

Oh my god, the lack of pockets! I hate finding nice clothes that have no pockets, fake pockets, or really useless tiny pockets! It's hard enough finding adult clothes that fit my five-foot-tall frame, but finding stuff that's not LOL SEXY/TRENDY is even harder. I'm starting to think about just making my own clothes because I hate shopping so much. Plus my style is "basics, plus some medieval and retro leanings," so I wouldn't be making really complicated stuff.

Unfortunately, since if I have such a hard time finding women's clothes that fit, I definitely won't be able to just buy men's clothes.

edited 6th Dec '15 10:29:15 PM by Sharysa