Second Law of Gender Bending/Playing With
Basic Trope: In fiction, people who change genders for any length of time tend to prefer their new gender.
- Straight: He becomes a she, and she decides her life is better now.
- Exaggerated: He becomes a she, and immediately swears off her old life.
- Justified: He was transsexual even before he became a she.
- Inverted: He becomes a she, and hates every second of it. She changes back at the first opportunity.
- Subverted: He becomes a she, and enjoys it. However, in the end, she still chooses to change back.
- Alternatively, he becomes a she, and doesn't like it, even though her life has changed for the better so much that she probably should.
- Double Subverted: He turns into a she, but decides to change back... only to re-gender bend himself after spending a few days back in his old life.
- Parodied: He becomes a she, and swears she hates her new life... but she's protesting just a wee bit too loudly.
- She creates a male clone of herself so she can live both lives.
- Deconstructed: He becomes a she, and discovers she likes her new life... but feels like she is killing her male self by changing. Alternately, she likes her new life at first, but then encounters obstacles like the glass ceiling, the alienation of all her friends who liked her better as a man, unwanted attention from the public and the scientific community, and another unpleasant thing she hadn't considered. In the end she decides it's not worth it and changes back.
- She sabotages all attempts to turn her back.
- Reconstructed: He becomes a she, and discovers she likes her new life. She agonizes about how this means she is giving up on her old, male life, only to come to terms with it by talking through it with her parents and friends.
- Zig Zagged: He becomes a she, and spends a few years switching back and forth, keeping up a double life. His/Her closest friends are fully aware of his/her situation. In the end, s/he finds love and picks an appropriate form... or finds a gender bending boy/girlfriend.
- Averted: He turns into a she and simply does not like it. This may or may not depend on his opinion of women.
- Alternatively, He does not turn into a she at all, even though events in the story suggest that he should.
- Enforced: "We intentionally picked tropes to play up his masculinity and freudian issues in order to make his eventual decision to stay transgendered more powerful."
- Lampshaded: "Let me guess. Now I'm supposed to go spend 3–4 days playing dressup and gossiping about boys, then decide I don't want to revert to my boring hairy self. Whatever, I'm going to go hang out in the locker rooms."
- Invoked: Her new friends are aware of her new situation, and intentionally encourage her to explore her new gender.
- Defied: "Ah hell no, I'm not trying on that dress, those things are addictive!"
- Discussed: "He's a girl now, huh? Ten bucks says he doesn't want to change back."
- Conversed: "Why is it that any character in Whateley who is turned into a girl for more than five minutes wants to stay that way?"
- Played For Laughs: She creates a male clone of herself so she can live both lives.
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