History Main / FirstLawOfGenderBending

An important but not always stated aspect of gender bending is that becoming a woman is seen as an inherent demotion, punishment, or loss of status, which can be seen even in a lot of feminist works, and watching someone suffer is usually more entertaining than watching them prosper. A typical example is the HandsomeLech having to be on the receiving end of the MaleGaze. In contrast, female-to-male gender benders are not only less common, but are typically resolved quickly and easily, ultimately reinforcing the woman's original femininity because WomenAreWiser. Since MostWritersAreMale, each character is likely to look much more attractive as female than male, giving another incentive against restoring matters. And if they don't change their mannerisms, a girl behaving like a boy will usually be more popular than a boy behaving like a girl.

This trope may also reflect the fact that, historically, [[{{UsefulNotes/Transgender}} trans]] women seeking treatment were more common than trans men seeking treatment, so trans women had comparatively more visibility.

* Very common on ''Website/{{Literotica}}'' when a sex change is involved.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2616176/1/Dragon-Lady-of-Macross Dragon Lady of Macross]]'': [[Anime/RanmaOneHalf Ranma Saotome]] elects to play this trope even straighter than the source material did. Due to the requirement of scalding water, Ranma comes to the decision that it would be much easier to just live as a female instead of trying to go back to being a male.

** Once Ranma acquires his [[SexShifter gender-changing]] {{curse}}, no attempt at curing it works, at least not permanently. However, multiple situations where Ranma could be [[ShapeshifterModeLock rendered permanently female]] are ''also'' undone, so the Law is still overruled by StatusQuoIsGod.

* Inversion: The Sailor Starlights from ''Anime/SailorMoon'' spend significantly more screen time in male identities, to various degrees, with the handwaving that this makes their act of posing as pop idol singers looking for a (female) lost love more convincing. They may or may not have abandoned their male identities in the finale when they left Earth for their home planet. Of course, the show is [[{{shojo}} aimed at girls]]... This is, however, only present in the Italian dub of the anime; in the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] and original Japanese voiceover, they're just cross-dressing women and much less prominent characters.

* Inversion: The Sailor Starlights from ''Anime/SailorMoon'' they spend significantly more screen time in male identities, to various degrees, with the handwaving that this makes their act of posing as pop idol singers looking for a (female) lost love more convincing. They may or may not have abandoned their male identities in the finale when they left Earth for their home planet. Of course, the show is [[{{shojo}} aimed at girls]]... This is, however, only present in the Italian dub of the anime; in the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] and original Japanese voiceover, they're just cross-dressing women and much less prominent characters.

** Also, the Legion are a fairly benign version of TheVirus; the victims, who seem to have been mostly male, keep most of their personality, but become unquestioningly loyal literal {{Green Skinned Space Babe}}s. In the main setting, this is as temporary as anything else (although like Keiri, they put some effort into retention), but in most of the galaxy, it's irreversible. (Note that Legion TFs are only irreversible outside of Webcomic/MSFHigh because of the lack of transformation magic in Mahou Galaxy. Tends to be all over the place in the Forum RP, as well.)

* Played straight for a while with Arcee in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRobotsInDisguise.'' Originally the male-coded victim of a forceful, traumatic sex change, it's made abundantly clear how thoroughly life ruining this was, yet the possibility of reversing the procedure never comes up. It's soft retconned near the end of the series' run and hard retconned in the final issue into a consensual sex change.

* ''Slightly'' downplayed in the ''Manga/{{NEEDLESS}}'' manga. Cruz Schild disguises as a student to hide in the all-female St. Rose Academy: he never gets out of the disguise again for the rest of the series, [[spoiler:and is eventually fully turned into a girl when Blade briefly acquires godlike powers]].

* ''Slightly'' downplayed in the ''Manga/Needless'' manga. Cruz Schild disguises as a student to hide in the all-female St. Rose Academy: he never gets out of the disguise again for the rest of the series, [[spoiler:and is eventually fully turned into a girl when Blade briefly acquires godlike powers]].

* ''Slightly'' downplayed in ''Manga/Needless''. Cruz Schild disguises as a student to hide in the all-female St. Rose Academy: he never gets out of the disguise again for the rest of the series, [[spoiler:and is eventually fully turned into a girl when Blade briefly acquires godlike powers]].

* ''Manga/BokuGirl'' tends to tip the scales in favor of Mizuki's female form, with him spending more time and seemingly getting more fulfilment than he did as a male. [[spoiler:He ultimately decides to stick with the change by the end. There is strong evidence that Mizuki was a transgender girl even before the change, albeit far very closeted because of their father's influence.]]

** The "rules" of Ranma's curse are biased in favor of the Law. "Cold" water will turn Ranma into a girl, but pretty much any temperature below body temperature will suffice. Turning back into a boy requires genuinely ''hot'' water. Simply warm water won't do it, so she is usually limited to two options: taking a hot bath or obtaining a kettle of just-boiled water, which Akane seems to supply quite often. Ranma will generally attract [[ARottenTimeToRevert whichever temperature water is the most troublesome at the moment]], and since Ranma was born male, this usually translates to cold water and this Law.

* ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'' begins with the evil spirit Shirogane turning Matsuri female just before [[BroughtDownToNormal having most of his power sealed away]]. Reversing this becomes a SeriesGoal whose requirements change several times: First they need to convince Shirogane to reform and change Matsuri back. Then Suzu needs to master her own power to restore Shirogane's. Finally, for the series latter half, it turns out Suzu doesn't just more training, but the consent of her past life's EnemyWithout. [[spoiler:Ultimately, Shirogane's power is restored after about a half year in-series... by which point Matsuri realizes [[SecondLawOfGenderBending they've gotten attached to their life as a girl]], and so elect to stay that way for ''at least'' the rest of high school (another two-and-a-half years).]]

* ''Manga/BokuGirl'' tends to tip the scales in favor of Mizuki's female form, with him spending more time and seemingly getting more fulfilment than he did as a male. [[spoiler:He ultimately decides to stick with the change by the end. Similarly to ''Kashimashi'' there is strong evidence that Mizuki was a transgender girl even before the change, albeit far more closeted because of their father's influence.]]
* ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'' begins with the evil spirit Shirogane turning Matsuri female just before [[BroughtDownToNormal having most of his power sealed away]]. The only one who can turn Matsuri back is Shirogane himself, and only if his powers are restored. Obviously, Matsuri doesn't want to empower a monster that tried to eat his friend Suzu, especially when [[ItOnlyWorksOnce he can't seal his power away a second time]]. Personally, Matsuri would rather just exorcise Shirogane and accept that he won't change back. Suzu objects, and together they embark on the rather difficult task of reforming Shirogane so he'll willing make Matsuri male and not harm humans any more. Later on, Suzu discovers she could potentially restore him under her own power, but it's far beyond anything she can do now. [[spoiler:Shirogane ends up befriending Suzu relatively quickly, but loses his power [[DePower permanently]] [[YankTheDogsChain right before he may have changed Matsuri back]]. After that, their best bet is for Suzu to learn to RePower Shirogane, with no idea if or when she'll be able to.]]

** The ''Literature/RiverOfDancingGods'' series has the hero temporarily genderbent a few times as a result of various magical shenanigans, but at the climax of ''Literature/SongsOfTheDancingGods'' he winds up permanently stuck in a female body after his own body is destroyed in a HeroicSacrifice.

* In the ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime Wheel of Time]]'' series, the Dark One intentionally gives the formerly male Balthamel a beautiful female body as Aran'gar. Getting a body for reincarnation is difficult in the Randland universe, so Aran'gar's choices were either to remain stuck with a woman's body, or die. Again. Being a DepravedBisexual, Balthamal / Aran'gar was more startled than upset by her change.

* In ''Anime/BirdyTheMighty'', Tsutomu is accidentally killed and has to share Birdy's body, although it can change appearance between the two of them. The [[AlternateContinuity Decode remake]] takes it a step farther, when at the end of the first series he gets his own body back, it is destroyed almost immediately.

* Male-to-female gender-affirming surgery is easier to perform, and more closely matches the target sex, than female-to-male gender-affirming surgery. From a tissue-manipulation perspective, it's simply easier to make a convincing vagina out of a penis than the other way around. Inverted by the hormonal side of gender-affirming: While male-to-female hormone replacement results in a softening of the skin, the development of breasts, fat redistribution resulting in a more feminine figure, thinner body hair and sometimes a change in emotional outlook, most of these can be reversed with female-to-male hormones. (Well, except for the breasts. They usually require surgery to remove. Female-to-male hormonal replacement, on the other hand, includes many permanent changes such as beard growth, baldness, development of the adam's apple and deepened voice; similar to the permanent changes a male experiences in puberty. Male-to-female hormonal replacement cannot reverse any of the aforementioned effects.

* Defied in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU.'' A pair of identical twin boys were born and one was injured during circumcision, making his penis unrecoverable. His parents sought guidance from a doctor who was convinced of this trope (well, convinced that gender-identity was entirely socially-determined) told them the best thing to do was to raise the boy as their "daughter," performed a sex change procedure, and started "her" on a hormone regimen at a young age in order to prove it. "She" eventually found out the truth after being raised as female for fourteen years and ''immediately'' declared that he'd always known it felt wrong and transitioned (back) to male. Strangely enough, this episode was RippedFromTheHeadlines.

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' when Adam, a UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} man already living as a male when introduced, detransitions once before reverting to his male persona within the episode and burning his last remaining girl clothes.

* ''ComicBook/Gambit1999'': During a TimeTravel mission in the 19th century, Gambit's shapeshifting ally Courier took a female form to investigate villain Mister Sinister. Sinister caught him and disrupted Courier's powers, reducing him to a blob. Gambit's intervention persuaded Sinister to restore him, but as Sinister hadn't realised Courier was male, he was restored to the ''female'' form he'd been using. Courier retained his shapeshifting powers, but his default form was physically female. Even after returning to modern times, none of their allies seemed able to undo the effects of Sinister's relatively primitive machinery.
* Mister Sinister himself became subject to the First Law later. After trying to bodyswap with Professor Xavier unsuccessfully, the only available body was a female clone of himself. "Miss" Sinister has since had a fling with Wolverine's son ComicBook/{{Daken}}, and is [[AttractiveBentGender disturbingly attractive]] considering her origin. However, this character doesn't share Mister Sinister's memories, so it's debatable whether she is "really" him.
* ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' demonstrates that while The First Law is powerful, it can't withstand the power of StatusQuoIsGod. Near the end of John Byrne's run, the body of Walter Langkowski (aka Sasquatch) was destroyed. Under new writer Bill Mantlo, his spirit eventually ended up merging with the body of the shapeshifter Snowbird, who died while in the form of a white-furred Sasquatch. Walter soon discovered that Sasquatch's new "human" form was, like Snowbird, female, and she lived for several years as ''Wanda'' Langkowski. Wanda's sex change was only one of several major changes to the Byrne-era status quo, most of which were reverted when he was off the book, and Sasquatch regained both his manhood and his original orange fur.

** Through a series of [[ContrivedCoincidence convoluted nonsense]] and personal incompetence, Agent Diogenes ended up exposed to 113 multiple times and as a result their physical sex is currently completely unknown. This has unfortunately resulted in several other staff members [[EveryoneWantsTheHermaphrodite becoming attracted to them]], and many more attempting to figure out what's going on in Diogenes's pants. When someone thought to just ask, Diogenes simply remained silent, and seems to have always identified as nonbinary and asexual regardless. Any offers to reverse the situation have been rejected, meaning even if someone could figure it out, Diogenes doesn't want to change back.