History Main / HistoricalGenderFlip

** The mobile and arcade versions of ''Fate/Grand Order'' are basically {{Alternate Timeline}}s, with one of the differences at first glance being that Jacques de Mornay is a male Saber in Arcade and a female Foreigner in Mobile. However, Foreigner Jacques was a man in life, who changed genders post-mortem due to the influence of his patron Outer God, which would point to them actually being different classes of the same Heroic Spirit... if it weren't for the fact Foreigner Jacques asserts she wasn't strong enough to become a Heroic Spirit by herself, and dismisses the idea of her Saber counterpart's existence. What's actually going on with them is currently unknown.

As exemplified by most of the examples on this page alone, in published works this trope is almost AlwaysFemale, likely due to the vast number of prominent male historical figures. Male examples do exist but they're exceeding rare.

-->'''Rikku''': "At this point, I am convinced that there's some kind of malicious entity that is intentionally reaching back in time and genderbending historical figures for it's own amusement."

** Mantle's Happy Huntresses are obviously gender-flips of the Merry Men: Robyn Hill is Robin Hood, Joanna Greenleaf is Little John, Fiona Thyme is Friar Tuck and [[{{Transgender}} May Marigold]] is Maid Marian.

** ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', having a huge cast compared to most other entries in the franchise, has naturally added many more examples, such as Minamoto-no-Raikou and her descendant Ushiwakamaru. As early as the first event, the developers had already begun to parody the trope with [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Artemis]], who originally pretends to be a gender-flipped Orion, and the cast buys it before the ''real'' Orion, whom she's trapped as a stuffed animal, starts to speak up. In fact, gender-flipping historical figures has gotten so common that the franchise has begun to try to be clever about it. UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi is a woman, but she actually comes from an AlternateTimeline while the "main" Nasuverse's Miyamoto Musashi is explicitly referred to as male. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci appears as a woman, but is confirmed to have been male in life; his obsession with aesthetics and the Golden Rule (Beauty) skill altered his appearance and gender into that of the Mona Lisa (not that da Vinci seems to mind). And the original Katsushika Hokusai takes the form of a tiny octopus that floats near his daughter Oui (the "Servant Hokusai" is ''both of them'', since Oui produced some of her own art under her father's name). Xu Fu is a woman and comments that some bureaucrats hated her seemingly for being a woman given the important task of discovering immortality for the emperor and thus wrote her as being a man just to spite her (her own androgynous looks combined with her clothing doesn't hurt either). Van Gogh claims to be a female Creator/VincentVanGogh, but it is noted that the real one was male, with lots of evidence to counter her claim; [[spoiler:she is eventually revealed to be an artificial mashup of Van Gogh's memories and the body and soul of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Clytie]], created by an EldritchAbomination after the real Van Gogh refused to serve its plans to the point of killing himself.]] Meanwhile, Kiichi Hougen appears to be another genderbent servant, but it turns out that Hougen has [[VoluntaryShapeshifting the ability to shapeshift into different genders]] (in which their gender is listed as unknown instead). Lostbelt 6 introduces GenderFlip and Fairy versions of Lancelot, Gawain, and Tristan that serve Morgab le Fay. [[spoiler:However, they are revealed by Pan-History Tristan to actually be Fairies that have stolen the identities of the real knights]].

** ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', having a huge cast compared to most other entries in the franchise, has naturally added many more examples, such as Minamoto-no-Raikou and her descendant Ushiwakamaru. As early as the first event, the developers had already begun to parody the trope with [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Artemis]], who originally pretends to be a gender-flipped Orion, and the cast buys it before the ''real'' Orion, whom she's trapped as a stuffed animal, starts to speak up. In fact, gender-flipping historical figures has gotten so common that the franchise has begun to try to be clever about it. UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi is a woman, but she actually comes from an AlternateTimeline while the "main" Nasuverse's Miyamoto Musashi is explicitly referred to as male. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci appears as a woman, but is confirmed to have been male in life; his obsession with aesthetics and the Golden Rule (Beauty) skill altered his appearance and gender into that of the Mona Lisa (not that da Vinci seems to mind). And the original Katsushika Hokusai takes the form of a tiny octopus that floats near his daughter Oui (the "Servant Hokusai" is ''both of them'', since Oui produced some of her own art under her father's name). Xu Fu is a woman and comments that some bureaucrats hated her seemingly for being a woman given the important task of discovering immortality for the emperor and thus wrote her as being a man just to spite her (her own androgynous looks combined with her clothing doesn't hurt either). Van Gogh claims to be a female Creator/VincentVanGogh, but it is noted that the real one was male, with lots of evidence to counter her claim; [[spoiler:she is eventually revealed to be an artificial mashup of Van Gogh's memories and the body and soul of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Clytie]], created by an EldritchAbomination after the real Van Gogh refused to serve its plans to the point of killing himself.]] Meanwhile, Kiichi Hougen appears to be another genderbent servant, but it turns out that Hougen has [[VoluntaryShapeshifting the ability to shapeshift into different genders]] (in which their gender is listed as unknown instead).

* ''Once and Future'' by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori [=McCarthy=] is a SpaceOpera in which refugee Ari Helix discovers she's the 42nd reincarnation of King Arthur, and Merlin is utterly bewildered because Arthur has never reincarnated as female before. As it turns out, this is plot relevant: [[spoiler:The first step in breaking the cycle is Ari talking Morgana into a HeelFaceTurn by empathizing with her over Uther's rape of her mother. The first Arthurs were utterly dismissive of her claims or else [[DeliberateValuesDissonance didn't care]], but she took the chance with Ari because she believed that another woman might listen to her.]]

* ''Once and Future'' by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori [=McCarthy=] is a SpaceOpera in which refugee Ari Helix discovers she's the 42nd reincarnation of King Arthur, and Merlin is utterly bewildered because Arthur has never reincarnated as female before. As it turns out, this is plot relevant: [[spoiler:The first step in breaking the cycle is Ari talking Morgana into a HeelFaceTurn by empathizing with her over Uther's rape of her mother. The first Arthurs were utterly dismissive of her claims or else [[DeliberateValuesDissonance didn't care]], leading Morgana to dismiss them as a lost cause, but she took the chance with Ari because she believed that another woman might listen to her.]]

* ''Once and Future'' by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori [=McCarthy=] is a SpaceOpera in which refugee Ari Helix discovers she's the reincarnation of King Arthur, and Merlin is utterly bewildered because Arthur has never reincarnated as female before.

* ''Anime/SengokuOtome'' is set in an AlternateUniverse JidaiGeki where all the notable figures exist but [[OneGenderRace there are no men]].

* ''Franchise/FateSeries'':
** In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' and ''LightNovel/FateZero'', the female Saber's ([[ItWasHisSled now very well known]]) true identity is a gender-flipped Myth/KingArthur, commonly known as Artoria Pendragon. It should be noted that she is quite insistent [[SheIsTheKing on being called "king,"]] and spent most of her life doing everything she could to ignore or hide her female gender. Due to sexism, she didn't have much choice. A relatively small core of her inner circle knew the truth, including Merlin, Lancelot, Gawain, Guinevere, and her older foster brother Kay. Certainly puts a different spin on Lancelot and Guinevere's affair, doesn't it?
** In ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', Assassin of Black is gender-flipped UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper (though justified as Jack's true identity is unknown, and while Assassin of Black killed prostitutes, she doesn't know for certain if she was Jack due to her vague memories) and Saber of Red is a gender-flipped [[Myth/KingArthur Mordred]] (created through a bizarre set of circumstances involving sorcery who, like her "father," insists on not being treated as female). Non-historically, it also has a gender-flipped [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} Frankenstein's Monster]], because Victor Frankenstein always intended to make a [[AdamAndEvePlot pair]] (instead of being blackmailed by The Creature to make a mate) but just made "Eve" first and was turned off after seeing how she turned out with her wanting him to finish the job. Amusingly, it also features a subversion with Astolfo, who several characters in-universe originally mistake for being female due to both [[DudeLooksLikeALady looks]] and [[{{Keet}} personality]], but he's still a guy, as Jeanne finds out first-hand [[UnsettlingGenderReveal when he comes out of the shower naked with his privates exposed]].
** ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'' changes genders without flipping the male/female binary. [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Enkidu]] gets changed from being male to having NoBiologicalSex and an androgynous appearance (depending on the translation, they're given "he" or "they" pronouns). There's also another iteration of Jack the Ripper, this one a personification of Jack's legend; they have no fixed gender, and are able to take the form of anyone or anything that's been identified as Jack, including Assassin of Black.
** ''VideoGame/FateEXTRA'' features a gender-flipped version of [[spoiler:UsefulNotes/{{Nero}}]] as the playable Saber. It also has a female [[spoiler:UsefulNotes/FrancisDrake]] as the PirateGirl Rider, originally implied to be Queen Elizabeth in disguise, though later games have dropped that interpretation. ''VideoGame/FateExtellaTheUmbralStar'', the spin-off, added a female version of UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun ([[spoiler:who was more notably an alien superweapon]]).
** ''Koha-Ace'' features a genderflipped UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga and [[UsefulNotes/TheShinsengumi Okita Souji]]. The rest of the cast retain their historical genders until the introduction of [[UsefulNotes/UesugiKenshin Nagao Kagetora]]. Since it's a gag series, it isn't treated particularly seriously, but Nobunaga has actually been fleshed out a bit more in later, more serious works, where she crushed all dissent through force and ruled openly as a woman.
** ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', having a huge cast compared to most other entries in the franchise, has naturally added many more examples, such as Minamoto-no-Raikou and her descendant Ushiwakamaru. As early as the first event, the developers had already begun to parody the trope with [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Artemis]], who originally pretends to be a gender-flipped Orion, and the cast buys it before the ''real'' Orion, whom she's trapped as a stuffed animal, starts to speak up. In fact, gender-flipping historical figures has gotten so common that the franchise has begun to try to be clever about it. UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi is a woman, but she actually comes from an AlternateTimeline while the "main" Nasuverse's Miyamoto Musashi is explicitly referred to as male. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci appears as a woman, but is confirmed to have been male in life; his obsession with aesthetics and the Golden Rule (Beauty) skill altered his appearance and gender into that of the Mona Lisa (not that da Vinci seems to mind). And the original Katsushika Hokusai takes the form of a tiny octopus that floats near his daughter Oui (the "Servant Hokusai" is ''both of them'', since Oui produced some of her own art under her father's name). Xu Fu is a woman and comments that some bureaucrats hated her seemingly for being a woman given the important task of discovering immortality for the emperor and thus wrote her as being a man just to spite her (her own androgynous looks combined with her clothing doesn't hurt either). Van Gogh claims to be a female Creator/VincentVanGogh, but it is noted that the real one was male, with lots of evidence to counter her claim; [[spoiler:she is eventually revealed to be an artificial mashup of Van Gogh's memories and the body and soul of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Clytie]], created by an EldritchAbomination after the real Van Gogh refused to serve its plans to the point of killing himself.]] Meanwhile, Kiichi Hougen appears to be another genderbent servant, but it turns out that Hougen has [[VoluntaryShapeshifting the ability to shapeshift into different genders]] (in which their gender is listed as unknown instead).
** While she was alluded to and had a voiced cameo prior to her official [[UnseenNoMore reveal]], ''Fate/Grand Order Arcade'' introduces Merlin Prototype, who is a gender-flip of both her male counterpart Merlin from the main game, and also of the mythological figure Merlin who himself was an [[CompositeCharacter amalgamation of different historical and mythological figures]]; in [[Anime/FatePrototype her native universe]], Arthur and Mordred are male, and she's the one who got gender-flipped.
** The practice in ''Fate/Grand Order'' is {{Justified|Trope}} (and mocked) in the parody manga ''Webcomic/LearningWithMangaFGO'', where the implied reason for the genderflips among the original Servants' ranks is due to the protagonist being a lesbian with a "no boys" policy. This is the origin of the Myth/PaulBunyan servant in the game, who doesn't understand how on earth she became a small girl.
** ''LightNovel/FateRequiem'': Erice Utsumi ponders on the series' tendency to have men in history and myth actually be women, using Francis Drake as an example, as all of her contemporaries remember her as either male or female. Erice concludes that Drake's actual gender doesn't really matter, compared to the great feats achieved. So far, the Greek mathematician Euclid has been revealed as a woman.

** ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', having a huge cast compared to most other entries in the franchise, has naturally added many more examples, such as Minamoto-no-Raikou and her descendant Ushiwakamaru. As early as the first event, the developers had already begun to parody the trope with [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Artemis]], who originally pretends to be a gender-flipped Orion, and the cast buys it before the ''real'' Orion, whom she's trapped as a stuffed animal, starts to speak up. In fact, gender-flipping historical figures has gotten so common that the franchise has begun to try to be clever about it. UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi is a woman, but she actually comes from an AlternateTimeline while the "main" Nasuverse's Miyamoto Musashi is explicitly referred to as male. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci appears as a woman, but is confirmed to have been male in life; his obsession with aesthetics and the Golden Rule (Beauty) skill altered his appearance and gender into that of the Mona Lisa (not that da Vinci seems to mind). And the original Katsushika Hokusai takes the form of a tiny octopus that floats near his daughter Oui (the "Servant Hokusai" is ''both of them'', since Oui produced some of her own art under her father's name). Xu Fu is a woman and comments that some bureaucrats hated her seemingly for being a woman given the important task of discovering immortality for the emperor and thus wrote her as being a man just to spite her (her own androgynous looks combined with her clothing doesn't hurt either). Van Gogh claims to be a female Creator/VincentVanGogh, but it is noted that the real one was male, with lots of evidence to counter her claim; [[spoiler:she is eventually revealed to be an artificial mashup of Van Gogh's memories and the body and soul of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Clytie]], created by an EldritchAbomination after the real Van Gogh refused to serve its plans to the point of killing himself.]] Meanwhile, Kiichi Hougen appears to be another genderbent servant, but it turns out that Hougen has [[VoluntaryShapeshifting the ability to shapeshift into different genders]], and their gender is listed as unknown.

** ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', having a huge cast compared to most other entries in the franchise, has naturally added many more examples, such as Minamoto-no-Raikou and her descendant Ushiwakamaru. As early as the first event, the developers had already begun to parody the trope with [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Artemis]], who originally pretends to be a gender-flipped Orion, and the cast buys it before the ''real'' Orion, whom she's trapped as a stuffed animal, starts to speak up. In fact, gender-flipping historical figures has gotten so common that the franchise has begun to try to be clever about it. UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi is a woman, but she actually comes from an AlternateTimeline while the "main" Nasuverse's Miyamoto Musashi is explicitly referred to as male. Creator/LeonardoDaVinci appears as a woman, but is confirmed to have been male in life; his obsession with aesthetics and the Golden Rule (Beauty) skill altered his appearance and gender into that of the Mona Lisa (not that da Vinci seems to mind). And the original Katsushika Hokusai takes the form of a tiny octopus that floats near his daughter Oui (the "Servant Hokusai" is ''both of them'', since Oui produced some of her own art under her father's name). Xu Fu is a woman and comments that some bureaucrats hated her seemingly for being a woman given the important task of discovering immortality for the emperor and thus wrote her as being a man just to spite her (her own androgynous looks combined with her clothing doesn't hurt either). Van Gogh claims to be a female Creator/VincentVanGogh, but it is noted that the real one was male, with lots of evidence to counter her claim; [[spoiler:she is eventually revealed to be an artificial mashup of Van Gogh's memories and the body and soul of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Clytie]], created by an EldritchAbomination after the real Van Gogh refused to serve its plans to the point of killing himself.]]

** In the ''Anime/FatePrototype'' universe, Arthur and Mordred are both male, and it's Myth/{{Merlin}} who's female.

** While she was alluded to and had a voiced cameo prior to her official [[UnseenNoMore reveal]], ''Fate/Grand Order Arcade'' introduces Merlin Prototype, who is a gender-flip of both her male counterpart Merlin from the main game, and also of the mythological figure Merlin who himself was an [[CompositeCharacter amalgamation of different historical and mythological figures]].

* ''Series/DrunkHistory'' has Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr being portrayed by females, with no attempt to hide it.

As exemplified by most of the examples on this page alone, in published works this trope is almost AlwaysFemale likely due to the vast number of male historical figures. Male examples do exist but they're exceeding rare.