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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"What? I'm wearing a skirt, and I have boobs. I'm going to start worrying about my manly image'' now''!"''
|Elliot, ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''}}
''Any [[Gender Bender|gender bent]] character will either embrace or be subject to all of the stereotypes associated with their new gender.''
Like the [[Second Law of Gender Bending|second law]], this trope typically manifests in one of two forms:
* A masquerade wherein the character is forced by circumstances to adopt stereotypically masculine or feminine attire or behavior, sometimes under duress.
* [[The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body]], wherein the character simply cannot resist adopting stereotypical attire or behavior due to irresistible compulsion, latent desires, [[Mind Control]], biological imperatives, or all of the above.
More sophisticated applications of this trope will often try to find common ground somewhere between these two extremes. It may be as simple as characters wanting or needing to be treated "like a normal person" and thus adopting stereotypically "gender appropriate" attire and/or behavior to conform with their perception of the new roles they've been forced to adopt.
Since most [[Gender Bender
This frequently results in a [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] reinforcing stereotypical behavior, and some people may find the notion of underlying biological imperatives enforcing such behavior deeply offensive. May result in [[Becoming the Mask]] or [[Going Native]] depending upon surrounding circumstances. Often precedes the [[Second Law of Gender Bending]] which may stem from this trope, and may result in a [[Shopping Montage]] and/or [[Makeover Montage]] as the new boy or girl (willingly or not) gets "geared up" for life in their new gender.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Played with in ''[[Ranma ½]]'': Ranma's ''actions'' are typically the same regardless of his form, but his ''reactions'' are often stereotypical, especially in responses to "perverted" behavior from the likes of Kuno or Happousai. In those cases his reactions usually differ very little from any of the real girls in the series. Also, whenever Ranma is in "disguise" as a female he typically overdoes it, implying that he's consciously trying to act out stereotypes. When he hits his head in one episode and thinks he was always a girl, he becomes the ''epitome'' of this trope.
* ''[[Tenshi na Konamaiki]]'': For all of her insistence that she's truly a boy Megumi shows little male behaviour besides aggressiveness.
* ''[[Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl]]'': Hazumu was a walking feminine stereotype even before his [[Gender Bender]]. However, she mentions that she prefers male clothing, and occasionally wears them.
* A mild version can be found in ''[[The Day of Revolution]]'': Megumi is not shown wearing any exclusively female clothing outside of her girls' school uniform, but since it is Japan her uniform has to be a stereotypical [[Sailor Fuku]] complete with a ridiculously short skirt. She also has her coach/therapist/BFF Motoko constantly reminding her to act more like a girl. Presumably she only puts up with this because she actually wants to be a girl, she's just riddled with second thoughts and self-doubts whenever she confronts one of the disconcerting aspects of girlhood.
{{quote|'''Motoko''' (looming over a prostrate Megumi): ...sooner or later, you're going to be looking up at someone '''like this'''.}}
* ''[[Sora no Otoshimono]]'': Tomoki will occasionally use a special device to turn himself into Tomoko so (s)he can act out various shoujo tropes.
* In ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'', during a [[Freaky Friday Flip]], we see the protagonist start leaning to the "dark side of gaming" ( {{spoiler|playing [[Dating Sim]]s... [[Serious Business|for girls!]]}}) and behaving more and more feminine (thanks partly to the [[Demonic Possession|Weiss]] that initiated the flip). We also see the girl he switched with start acting more like a boy, although in her case it's largely down to the Masquerade of maintaining his life. {{spoiler|Later on in the story however, she becomes a Bifauxen because she is comfier looking and dressing up as a guy.}}
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Explored and played with in ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20181104183918/https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/1/What-Do-You-Want What Do You Want?]'', a ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic by "Polenicus". Over the course of the story, Ranma and those around him discover that in addition to two ''physical'' genders, he also has female and male mindsets that he can switch between, with corresponding personality and behavior changes, regardless of which body he's in at the time. (It's hinted that this is behind the canon behavior cited above, especially the "Am I Pretty?" incident.) Part of the plot explores his growing acceptance that he can ''choose'' to mentally be a girl without losing his boy aspect, and how that helps and alters his relationships with others. {{spoiler|Ultimately subverted when it's revealed that Ranma was born a ''girl'', raised as a boy with the help of some [[Brainwashed|psychological manipulation]], and ''deliberately'' taken to Jusenkyo for a ritual that would have permanently turned her into a boy in both body and mind -- all to satisfy parents who never wanted a daughter. Only Genma bungled the ritual...}}
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[All of Me]]'', while the heroine is technically sharing a body with the male protagonist, when he falls "asleep" during a court scene, she has to pretend to be him during a cross examination. Her attempts to act male include, but are not limited to, widening her shoulders as much as possible, deepening her voice to ridiculous extents, and even pausing to spit into a non-existent spittoon.
== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Jack Chalker]]'s ''[[River of Dancing Gods]]'' series literally has variation 2 written right into the physical laws of its universe. The one character who resists is desperately unhappy.
* Meanwhile, Chalker's ''[[Well World]]'' series invokes, justifies and otherwise [[Playing with a Trope|plays with]] this trope. A few examples:
** Ruthless businessman/drug dealer Datham Hain is transformed into a female of a species of sentient insects, and is promptly [[Mind Control]]led into being a proper female as defined by that society.
** Wu Julee is a woman who gets inserted into a man's body at the end of the first book, but
** Dr. Gilgram Zinder, once he masters and internalizes the Markovian equations that define and control the universe, spends several centuries being every type and gender of creature that strikes him, including a turn as a high-priced female courtesan. When we meet him (again) at the end of that experience, the only change to his personality is that he seems quite a bit more relaxed.
* Despite being a serial [[Gender Bender]] herself, Hildy Johnson, the protagonist of [[John Varley]]'s ''Steel Beach'' insists that there are still "girl things" and "boy things" when it comes to dress and behavior, because otherwise there would be little point in changing gender in the first place. This serves to underscore that [[Easy Sex Change]] has become so easy in Hildy's world (you can get a sex change in a beauty shop or a tattoo parlor) that some people are willing to change sex just to facilitate a relationship or even just to suit their clothes.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' has Grace's Birthday Party arc, part-masquerade where the various characters deliberately chose stereotypical outfits for each other in keeping with the 'walk a mile in my shoes' theme of the occasion.
** Susan starts acting macho and aggressive immediately after becoming male. It's transient, however: losing an arm-wrestling contest with the still-female Nanase is enough to snap her out of it. Sarah [
*** Tedd does note that the first time gender bending their new genders thoughts are exaggerated, which played a part in everyone's storyline during the event, but the only one whose gender bending mental state was a major plot point was Susan, as it helped her recognize her hangups with men.
** Later, when Eliot develops the power to morph his clothes and appearance along with his gender his female forms tend to end up wearing girly outfits because he apparently just can't help visualizing them that way.
** A better example is Tedd; in fact, Grace has less dresses and skirts in her wardrobe than he does despite most of her first clothes being selected by [[Ordinary High School Student]] Sarah. He even [[The Tease|prides himself on how sexy he looks]] transformed. And [[Feminine Women Can Cook|cooks better while female]], just out of habit. It's in part Tedd's idea of having fun, and in part [//egscomics.com/comic/2017-09-01 Tedd's idea of how to twit his dad]. Amusingly, this in turn earns Tedd "[//egscomics.com/comic/2017-08-07 young lady]" from his fairy grand-godmother, though Tedd is fine with that.
* ''[[The Wotch]]'': Frequent enough that some bloggers have remarked on the [[Unfortunate Implications]].
** Made explicit in the case of the four [[Jerk Jock]]s who got turned into cheerleaders (''[[Cheer|The Wotch, Cheer!]]'') where it's flat-out stated that the four primarily acted like macho jerks to repress their fundamentally kind and gentle (i.e. "feminine") inner natures
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** Ash's mother, however, is doing her utmost to enforce this trope, including twice roping Ash into modeling events. Ash referred to seeking her help picking out a bridesmaid dress as "a deal with the powers of darkness."
** And of course, there's the fact that Ash still engages in illegal street racing. While a small amount is made of the best driver (Drivers, previously) in the area being female, for the most part it's just there.
* The T-Girls of the ''[[Jet Dream (webcomic)|Jet Dream]]'' [[Remix Comic]] follow this for the most part, though being [[Action Girl]]s, they also retain many traditionally "masculine" traits. Because the T-Girls are often [[
* ''[[Spiderwebs]]'' uses variation one: After an ill-considered wish turns the protagonist into a girl she returns home to discover her bedroom redecorated and all of her clothes replaced by a "helpful" pooka.
* ''[[The Good Witch]]'': Playing with the third law is just one of the ways Angel torments her victims. Examples include making sure all of her older brother's transformations include uber-girly clothes, turning one classmate into a cheerleader (complete with outfit) and possibly turning another into an [[Wholesome Crossdresser|enthusiastic transvestite.]] However, the third law is also played straight with Angel herself, who as a former transgendered boy is absolutely thrilled to finally be able to buy the dress she always wanted. Since she can (and does) magically create any clothing she wants at will actually buying the dress appears to have been an act of affirmation on her part.
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* Played with in ''[[I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle]]'': Jean's ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]''-inspired powers means her clothing reverts to the iconic ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'' harem girl outfit whenever she reverts to her base genie form and circumstances always seem to be forcing her to "girlify" her outfit even when she changes it into something else. However, she's also shown experimenting with stereotypical female outfits ([[Sailor Moon]], [[Kim Possible]] and [[X-Men|Rogue]]) in a G-rated [[Man, I Feel Like a Woman]] sequence.
* A major driving point in the furry webcomic ''Beyond the Veil'', in which the attractive, busty young rat girl is in fact the latest body for a deposed intergalactic '''emperor'''. "She" takes to her new body very well, more than happy to have her similarly [[Grand Theft Me|body-riding]] male second-in-command as a lover, with a lot of privileges.
* This Trope is exaggerated in an ''[[Eerie Cuties]]'' arc, where Blair - a [[Perverse Puppet]] possessed by the spirit of a [[Dirty Old Man]] - gets ahold of an artifact that can Gender Bend people and starts using it on ''every'' male student in sight, accidentally doing so to Nina when she [[Taking the Bullet|throws herself in front of the spell]] when it was intended for Ace. (This proved a [[Senseless Sacrifice]], as Blair quickly hits Ace with a second shot.) After being a boy for only a few seconds, Nina starts feeling an urge to play video games.
== [[Web Original]] ==
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** But that magic gizmo is just a way of disguising their conversations. They're not deliberately trying to appear girly, they just don't want anyone to hear what they're really talking about.
** The hiding thing actually [[Fridge Logic|makes a bit of sense]] in hindsight—if you had a group of hormonal teenagers, all of which had deadly superpowers of some kind, you'd probably ask the LGBI ones to keep it quiet, too. (In the backstory, a transgendered student was killed by her boyfriend when he found out, which is what prompted the forming of Poe Cottage and the masquerade.)
** Sort of subverted with Phase, who changes from a boy to a girl's form and proceeds to fight tooth and nail against it (despite his guardians' insistence that he embrace the change). On the other hand, Phase ''does'' still have male genitalia, something he doesn't even try to hide it, and goes out of his way to announce his still-a-male-ness to everyone he meets. It isn't just out of insecurity of acceptance. He really is still male. Not only is Phase more comfortable with masculine genders, the omniscient narrator, when it switches, uses 'he' to refer to Phase, and it is written by Phase's author.
*** It doesn't help that events tend to conspire to force Phase to pretend to be a girl. In ''Ayla and the Grinch'', Phase is ''very'' unhappy with Grace forcing him to hide in a girl's beauty pageant. He doesn't go along with it until he sees that it's a serious attempt to hide him from the police and not another attempt of Grace's to get him to embrace his physical changes.
** Largely subverted with Bladedancer too. She's fully female, and still wants to go back to being a boy. She dresses as close to boyish as she can get away with in what amounts to a [[Super-Hero School]] with prep school clothing rules. On the other hand, she now listens to some of the music her girlfriend Molly likes (in addition to still liking what she listened to as a boy).
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[The Fairly
** Although he already did that first one ''before'' the gender bend, and after said gender bend he still has the urge to read comic books like "Skull Squisher". ...because of the [[Fan Service]]. "Muscular guys in spandex fighting crime, cool!"
* Not actual gender bending, but in ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'', a faulty DNA test has Skipper convinced he's a female. At first he thinks it won't interfere with his job, but then he does things like wait for the others to open the door for him and - horror of horrors! - ask for directions. So he quits the team, [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics|puts on a pink bow]] and moves in with Marlene, who is not amused with his outdated ideas of femininity.
* Sort of a [[Zig-Zagging Trope]] in ''[[Futurama]],'' where fembot!Bender embraces ''his'' idea of what a woman should be---basically, [[My Girl Is a Slut|slutty]]---but Calculon recognizes this as making her "one of the boys." Interestingly, he finds this attractive and falls in love with "her," while Bender becomes more "feminine" and worries that his scam will hurt Calculon.
** In the episode "Neutopia", the guys eagerly act girly and giggly when their genders get flipped by a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]. When the girls-turned-guys force them to make a swimsuit calendar, they enjoy it a lot more than the real girls did when the real guys forced ''them'' to take cheesecake pictures.
* In the Jimmy Neutron Episode Trading Faces, Jimmy and Cindy trade bodies through a freak accident and Jimmy has this start to happen him.
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[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Shapeshifting]]
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