Third Law of Gender Bending/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: In fiction, people who change genders tend to take on stereotypes of their new gender.

  • Straight: He becomes a she, and she immediately starts wearing a dress.
    • She becomes a he, and he immediately signs up for the football team.
  • Exaggerated: He becomes a she, and immediately turns into a Yamato Nadeshiko.
  • Justified: The gender-bending magic includes a compulsion to act feminine.
    • He is deliberately following gender stereotypes in an effort not to stick out like a sore thumb. (How successful these attempts are may vary wildly.)
    • She is taking advantage of her new status as a male and finally being taken seriously in her society, thus doing things that she wouldn't be able to get away with if she were still a woman.
  • Inverted: He becomes a she, and immediately starts watching football wearing boxer shorts and scratching herself... which she didn't do when she was a he.
    • She becomes a he, and becomes interested in very girly things such as fashion designing, which he had no interest in when he was a she.
  • Subverted: He becomes a she, and retains mostly gender-neutral clothing. She does, however, wear a bra for support.
    • She becomes a he, and nothing happens to her other than gaining a Y chromosome.
  • Double Subverted: He turns into a she, and refuses to change his dress in any way. However, it is later shown that in private, she is dressing up in frilly clothing / moonlighting at the local strip club / dating someone.
    • She becomes a he, and acts the same way she used to so that her friends won't feel alienated from her. Underground, he's actually the macho man superhero who fights crime in the name of all things masculine.
  • Parodied: He becomes a she, and immediately starts acting like a Yamato Nadeshiko. Badly.
  • Deconstructed: He becomes a she, and subconsciously takes on some classical feminine traits. However, it is shown that he genuinely had no sexist thoughts, and just feels comfortable expressing those traits now.
    • He becomes a she and begins acting in stereotypically feminine ways, then realizes what is happening and is horrified by her apparent lack of free will. She tries being completely asexual for a while, but her feelings of powerlessness eventually drive her to suicide.
  • Reconstructed: He becomes a she, and takes upon newly appropriate gender stereotypes. However, upon changing back, he gains a new respect for the other gender, as well as a new understanding of his own gender stereotypes, and starts to subvert them. Oh, and he never forgets to put the toilet seat down again.
  • Zig Zagged: He constantly switches between genders, instantly switching from a macho man to a girly girl. Every. Single. Time.
  • Averted: He turns into a she, and doesn't act any different in her new body.
  • Enforced: "Well, Viewers are Morons, so it's probably better to just make her, you know, act like a girl."
  • Lampshaded: "Aw crap, I'm a girl now. Quick, someone point me to the nearest dress and copy of Cosmo."
  • Invoked: He becomes a she, and actively tries to learn more about the female condition.
  • Defied: "Aw man, I'm going to have to learn how to wear heels and everything, right? You know what? Screw that. I'm gonna be a tomboy."
    • "So now that I'm a guy I have to not shower, work in construction and do nothing at home but watch baseball games all week? Yeah, like that'll ever happen."
  • Discussed: "He's a girl now, huh? That means he has to learn how to cook, right? Hey, stop hitting me!"
  • Conversed: "Ok, have these writers ever heard of the term 'tomboy'? Why in the world does every gender bent kid turn into little miss cheerleader?"
  • Exploited: She is turned into a He so that He will be easy to distract when the Big Bad's plan comes into operation.

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