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First Law of Gender Bending: Difference between revisions
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So you've got the plot all finished, the [[McGuffin]] is located, and all of the loose ends are nicely tied. Time to finally reverse that pesky [[Gender Bender]] you've been laboring under since the beginning of this story arc. Piece of Cake. This is fiction, after all. Aren't [[Green Rock|green rocks]], [[Applied Phlebotinum]], and [[A Wizard Did It|magic]] all abound? All you need do is hunt down [[Those Two Guys]] with the [[Transformation Ray]], jump into that magic spring, or run down to [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday]] for one of their [[Gender Bender]] specials. How hard can it be?
Oh,
Sorry, sister. Looks like you're out of luck.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Ranma ½
** Once Ranma acquires his gender-changing [[Curse]], no attempt at curing it works, at least not permanently. Further, many fans have observed that he seems to attract water (which triggers the change) as easily as fiancées and rivals. However, attempts by other characters at making Ranma permanently female ''also'' fail, so this may be less the Law than [[Status Quo Is God]], a common trope in author [[Rumiko Takahashi]]'s works.
** 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.
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* ''[[Shade the Changing Man]]'' had to take over the body of a drowning woman in order to stay alive himself. Overnight, it reverted to female form and could not be changed back until he found the person responsible for the woman's death. Even after solving that mystery, his female features would re-emerge from time to time until he abandoned the body to fight death on it's own terrain.
* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' pseudo-crossover fic ''[[Xendra]]'', this trope hits Xander with a ''vengeance''. First he's transformed into [[Xena: Warrior Princess]] on That Halloween. Then a spell performed to ''find'' the Halloween Xena lookalike briefly turns him into a teenaged Xena. Then Drusilla uses a stored spell to turn him into teen!Xena ''again''. While that's undone a few months later, Amy and Willow -- trying to learn how to store a spell in a crystal as Drusilla had used -- find their only success is with yet another instance of the spell to turn him into Xena, which leads to multiple transformations (which Willow or Amy can undo afterward). It eventually reaches a point where any time the Scoobies need an untraceable female or an extra near-slayer-level fighter, Xander's gender gets toggled. And after {{spoiler|Faith, under the influence of mind-altering magic, rapes a semiconscious Xander in both forms, Xander has to go to therapy as Xendra}} twice a week. Eventually the magical principle called the Law of Precedent (the more a particular magic has been performed, the easier it becomes to perform) takes over, and it seems that ''any'' sufficiently strong magic in Xander's vicinity will turn him into Xendra.
** Initially averted with Andrew, who was turned into a teenaged [[Star Wars|Princess Leia]], and wanted desperately to be turned ''back'' into a girl because the experience led him to acknowledge that he's [[transgender]]. However, he gets permanently transformed as part of undoing Xander's initial stint as Xendra.
** After getting caught in one of Xander's transformations, Wesley Windham-Price finds that ''he'' too is affected by the Law of Precedent and is prone to turning into "Leslie Linda Price". And when he gets involved with Tara Maclay -- a lesbian who is frightened by his male aspect -- he chooses to spend all his time with her as a woman. At the end of the story he chooses to be a woman full time, and lets his male identity "die".
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Goodbye Charlie]]'': a male chauvinist lady killer is killed by his latest conquest's husband, and returns as Debbie Reynolds.
* ''[[Switch (film)|Switch]]'': a male chauvinist lady killer is killed by his ex-lovers and returns as Ellen Barkin.
== [[Literature]] ==
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* Played straight and justified with a {{spoiler|female-to-male}} [[Gender Bender]] in S.L. Viehl's ''Dream Called Time'': While {{spoiler|Duncan}} seemed to be [[If It's You It's Okay|more-or-less okay]] with the idea of the [[Gay Option]], {{spoiler|Cherijo}} did ''not'' want to look like {{spoiler|[[Opposite Gender Clone|her]] [[Abusive Parents|utterly]] [[Wife Husbandry|horrible]] [[Complete Monster|father]]}}, and switched back {{spoiler|to female}} as soon as an opportunity arose.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* This is the premise behind the ''[[Toku]]'' series ''[[Seishoujo Senshi Saint Valkyrie]]'', as well as the webcomic that it appears to copy, ''[[Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki]]''. (See ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120415071425/http://www.sgvy.com/blog/2007_04_01_archive.html this SGVY blog post]'' for a discussion and video.)
* ''[[La Lola]]'' is a telenovela that originated in Argentina, and has been adapted in many other markets. Most of them deal with this trope:
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* In the ''[[Wingin It]]'' episode "I, Carlie", Angel-in-Training (AIT) Denise agrees that Carl, now Carlie, has learned her lesson, and agrees to turn her back into Carl, but finds she can't. The AIT handbook explains that he cannot go back to being a boy until he truly understands girls.
* ''[[Goodbye Charlie]]'', a sitcom adaptation of the movie of the same name (which was itself based on a play) starring Suzanne Somers as 'Charlie'.
* Subverted in ''[[Degrassi]]'' when Adam, an FtM [[
* Averted in ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' -Max spends a few episodes as Maxine, but returns to normal eventually.
== [[Theater]] ==
* The movie and television versions of ''[[Goodbye Charlie]]'' were both based on the 1959-1960 play of the same name. With ''Lauren Bacall'' as Charlie.
== [[Video Games]] ==
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*** Considering that {{spoiler|Spar}}'s two other combination forms are an onion with feet (I kid you not) and a plant-like dragon he may be a she to begin with.
* In ''[[Fable II]]'', there is only one gender reassignment potion in the entire world, and it's permanent and irreversible.
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]] 2'', [[Smug Snake|Edwin Odesserion]] ends up as a woman after using a scroll he thought would turn him into a lich. While he does manage to turn back in a guy later in the game, in the epilogue an encounter with
** Becoming a woman is a possible effect of a scroll mishap in D&D 3.0, so s/he may have found an actual lich-turning scroll and just messed up during the casting. Also, a possible effect of wild magic. For that matter, in canon Elminster was indeed given a spell that does this (though it's not clear whether caster-only or not)…
* Averted in MUDs, where one of the standard status effects is a Gender Bender (which really doesn't do anything in-game except change your pronoun), which affects both genders equally and wears off in a few minutes. Usually.
* ''[[Might and Magic|Might & Magic 2]]'' has two magical fountains that change a party member's gender, one of them male-to-female and the other the opposite; the male-to-female one only hints as to what it does (it is labeled "eraweb selam") and also warns that should a party member use it, it will be completely irreversible. {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|This is not true]] - to reverse the process, you simply have to find and use the other fountain.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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** Lord Sykos shows up and goes on a gender-changing spree across town, happily encouraged by his first victim "Aimee". At the end of the story arc he turns all his victims back to normal ''except'' Aimee who decides she prefers being Sykos' [[Perky Female Minion]] to her former existence. As we don't get to see much of "his" life before the transformation we're given no real motivation for this decision.
{{quote|'''Aimee:''' "Seriously, Anne, don't ruin this for me."}}
{{quote|Where am I? Why do I have tacos? ...And why am I a girl?}}
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', while not as casual or frequent about it as ''[[The Wotch]]'', certainly pays the Law its dues. According to the rules governing the comic's main sex-changing phlebotinum, only male-to-female sex changes can be made permanent (via [[Mister Seahorse|pregnancy]]); female-to-male sex changes, even of someone trapped by pregnancy (for whom it's only even possible afterwards), cannot exceed a 30 day time limit. The second time a boy - the ''main character'' - is turned into a girl the device breaks, leaving "her" stuck for the full thirty days, and the attempt to get around this leaves him with an [[Opposite Gender Clone]] ''and'' the permanent ability to change sex at will, something the rules of magic eventually ''force'' him to do on a regular basis.
** Also, much later, a "seyunolu" ([[Half-Human Hybrid|chimera]]) member of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]], Vlad, is hit with a [[Transformation Ray]] and is turned female, but more importantly to him/her, ''human''. "She" has no desire to change back, and since [[Bizarre Alien Biology]] overrides the time limit (and, implicitly, gender identity), Vladia, as she is now called, is treated as a woman from then on.
** Moving on from Elliot being a ''double'' victim of this, we get to Tedd. Who probably wouldn't know this was a law: the 'circumstances' usually equate to
* ''[[Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki]]''. (See also ''Seishoujo Senshi Saint Valkyrie'', above.) goes the gender-based superpowers route.
* ''[http://www.abstractgender.com Abstract Gender]'' - The guy who has no problems gender changing can change back and forth at will, the guy who hates it is stuck permanently.
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* When [[Lovable Sex Maniac|Blair]] runs amok with the [[Greek Mythology|Tiresias]] [[Artifact of Doom|Orb]] in ''[[Eerie Cuties]]'', the only major male character affected is outside getting an unconscious boy some fresh air when the orb is destroyed, unleashing a [[World-Healing Wave]] on everyone ''inside'' the school. He's eventually changed back, but not before spending about two-fifths of the strip's run with his fate in the air, and only by inadvertently transferring it to another important boy, who likewise spends several chapters with his fate uncertain.
* In the webcomic ''Ballerina Mafia'', a character's friends give him an [[Easy Sex Change]] in his sleep as an April Fool's day prank. He decides to just start living life as a girl now, and was more annoyed than anything by it at first; ultimately, when she's given the chance to change back with no strings attached, she declines.
== Web Original ==
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