Wholesome Crossdresser: Difference between revisions

The opposite of [[Creepy Crossdresser]]. May overlap with [[Disguised in Drag]] or its [[Distaff Counterpart]], [[Sweet Polly Oliver]]. (If the character wears crossdressing disguises more often than seems ''strictly'' necessary, this trope may apply.) Wholesome Crossdressers tend to ''enjoy'' dressing, even if only reluctantly, secretly, or subconsciously.

 

 

{{examples}}

* The very girly Aoi Futaba from ''[[You're Under Arrest]]'' (who dresses as such after some self-discovery involving extensive undercover work) is virtually indistinguishable from the other female characters; post- [[Art Evolution]] his only barely male noticeable trait is being taller than other policewomen.

** While Aoi's actual taste in partners doesn't come up much, one episode does have him seemingly worried a recent male E-friend will find out he's not actually a woman. Most fans simply assume [[Unfortunate Implications|this simply because of the common okama stereotypes]].

* A running joke in ''[[Koko wa Greenwood]]'' (aka ''This Is Greenwood'') is Shun being mistaken for a girl. His younger little brother is likewise androgynous enough to be distracting.

* Hibiki-sensei in ''[[I My Me! Strawberry Eggs|I! My! Me! Strawberry Eggs]]'', who crossdresses in order to get a job from a man-hating boss. His [[Mentor]] is also a transvestite whose failed marriage to the boss caused her man-hating.

*** The child versions of Canada, Romano, and the US wore similar outfits. It's a [[Historical In-Joke]].

** As of [[Hetalia Bloodbath 2010]], we've also had Hong Kong in a maid dress, and China in a qipao.

* While Nanami's gender in ''[[Sukisho]]'' is never explicitly discussed, his clothing are mostly [[Ambiguous Gender|ambigious regarding gender]], and the non gender specific pronouns of Japanese are of no help either, everyone treats him like the [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] he always acts like. His winter coat, pink bunny slippers, and the outfit he wears in the kitchen at home, places him firmly into crossdresser land.

* Seiji of ''[[Midori no Hibi]]'' is forced to crossdress in an attempt to catch a molester on a train. Naturally, some acquaintances from school see him, and decide that he's hot.

* A number of transvestites appeared in "Jupiter Jazz", an episode of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]''. One of them even returned for [[The Movie]].

* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga, there's an automail engineer named Mr. Garfiel. Though initially he doesn't wear female clothes, only makeup, he puts on some lacy, poofy shirts later on. He also acts overly feminine, even compared with the manga's normal female cast. He also [[Ambiguously Gay|frequently flirts with Ed and other male characters]].

** More accurate examples, gender-wise, would be Chizuru and Makoto. Makoto makes a cute girl when he dresses up, even though he thinks he looks bad due to his freckles and glasses (which [[Meganekko|isn't a bad thing]]). Chizuru is a girl who sometimes crossdresses as a boy, and she looks like androgynous.

* Oscar from ''[[Rose of Versailles]]'' is another example of the girl-raised-as-a-boy plot device.

* Lord Fanny in [[Grant Morrison]]'s ''[[The Invisibles]]'', who was raised as a girl by her grandmother, a witch, because men could not become witches.

 

* Both Mitsuuru Takahashi and Shugo Kino in [[Pretty Cure Heavy Metal]] are this, with the only exception being when they're attending Isuten Junior High. Outside of school, Shugo takes the [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses]] trope to whole new levels, such as her swimsuit including short shorts and her Cure Hendrix costume including hot pants. Mitsuuru himself was forced to crossdress by his own parents, seeing that they were spending so much money on their firstborn Yuki alone, making it impractical, if not impossible, to buy new clothes for a second child, even if said second child was a boy. Despite being enrolled in MacArthur Grade School for the Arts as a boy, he had to wear his sister's old uniform. This continued for so long that by the time he was able to wear a boy's uniform for once when he attended Isuten Junior High, he was pretty much used to crossdressing and by that point was willing.

** It's revealed in ''[[Pretty Cure All Stars/Fanfic Recs|Pretty Cure All Stars 3D: Live and Loaded! How About That!]]'' that he looked so convincing as a girl (despite everyone knowing he's a boy) that he got a girl's role in every play his class held, including Sakura Kinomoto from ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' (referred to as "Cardcaptors" in the fic), a play mentioned in episode 29 of PCHM. This streak continued into his junior high years, and his most memorable performance was as [[Suzumiya Haruhi]] (in that play, Shugo portrayed Kyon).

* At one point in the third chapter of ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi no Seitenkan|The Melancholy of Haruki Suzumiya]]'', Haruki has Mitsuru wear a maid outfit for a photo shoot.

* In one ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' fanfic, Shinji raids Asuka's clothes to try out crossdressing in an effort to gain acceptance from his father who raised a girl instead of him. Of course, Asuka throws a fit when she finds out as she thinks Shinji and Kaworu (who happened to be on-scene) are doing [[Ho Yay|perverted things]] (they aren't, the fic is entirely SFW); once she calms down, she offers to correct Shinji's appearance.

 

== Film ==

* In the ''[[Evil Genius Trilogy]]'' Cadel crossdresses several times as a disguise, starting in his disguise class at the Axis institute and continuing whenever he needs to escape some kind of surveillance. He has a whole alternate identity for his female persona - Ariel Schaarp.

* Yuki Ajiadou from [[CLAMP]]'s light novel series ''CLAMP School Paranormal Investigators'' is a boy who dreams of becoming a famous actress. To that end, {{spoiler|he wears the girls' school uniform}}.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' examples:

** In S4E15 ("Chick Like Me"), Cory plans on dressing as a girl to school in order to find out how life is different for female students and male students. He turns out to have too masculine of a walk, so Shawn tries teaching him how to act female, getting it "surprisingly on the nose" according to Topanga. When he shows Cory how to walk like a woman and gets it perfectly, Cory and Topanga decide that Shawn should be the one to dress like a woman for the day. He turns out to be a ''babe''. He also has a preferred "female" name (Veronica) and admits to having thought about doing this ''a lot'' before Cory ever decided to write the article.

* British soap ''[[Hollyoaks]]'' features Kris, a bisexual cross-dressing man.

* Dave in ''[[Degrassi]]'' wore a long frilly skirt to prove a point when [[Transgender|Adam]] made him uncomfortable.

* The original premise of 80s sitcom ''[[Bosom Buddies (TV series)|Bosom Buddies]]'' was [[Disguised in Drag]], but the boys carry on with the charade over the course of the series longer than seems strictly necessary.

 

== Music ==

* Brian Molko, the singer for the band [[Placebo]]. [http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f185/66301d1246963190-brian-molko-brian_molko_01.jpg Easily ] [http://th00.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2010/305/4/e/placebo_brian_molko_189_by_mychael_helmz-d31yemd.jpg passes ] [https://web.archive.org/web/20070315035306/http://fpexer118.com.sapo.pt/Placebo/Images/brian3.jpg as a ] [http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6la9mqh1c1qc1uf1o1_400.jpg woman.] The protagonist of their song "Nancy Boy" also qualifies.

* Mana from [[Malice Mizer]] is very convincing as a female, and reportedly does this full time.

 

== Mythology ==

* Lan Caihe of the [[Chinese Mythology|Eight Immortals]] may or may not be one. [[Depending on the Writer|It depends on who you ask.]]

* According to some versions of the Minotaur's story, [[Classical Mythology|Theseus]] decides to switch two of the seven female victims with two very effeminate but brave boys disguised as girls. Said boys would have later fred the prisoners while Theseus was dealing with the Minotaur.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** In the West are the Tya, a "third gender" of women who adopt male social roles in order to work as sailors. This is mainly because the waters of the West are overseen by hag-like spirits known as storm mothers, who will try to sink any boat that's crewed by any woman prettier than themselves. Which is pretty much every mortal woman in Creation, and most of the dead ones.

** The city of Chiaroscuro is overseen by the Delzahn, who are pretty firm on gender roles - men defend and supply the household, women run it but don't do much on the outside. However, it allows men and women the option of becoming Dereth - they basically can dress and act like the other gender, as long as they wear a gray sash at all times [[Unsettling Gender Reveal|in order to avoid confusion]].

 

== Theater ==

* [[William Shakespeare]]'s comedies employ this trope rather often, partly owing to the nature of Elizabethan theatre in general. Women weren't allowed on stage by law, so female roles were played by male actors. Thus, when a female character is a Wholesome Crossdresser, as in ''[[Twelfth Night]]'', she would have been played by a [[Recursive Crossdressing|man playing a woman dressed as a man]]. The trope is taken even further in ''[[As You Like It]]'', where Rosalind would have been a man playing a girl disguised as a boy pretending to be a girl.

* Middleton and Dekker's 1610 comedy ''The Roaring Girl'' features one of these as a protagonist; unlike the cross-dressing heroines of Shakespeare's plays, though, she isn't disguised, and everyone in the play knows her real sex—she just likes dressing like a man. (The real person she is based on was slightly less wholesome.)

* Fancourt forced to chaperone as the titular ''Charlie's Aunt.''

 

== Video Games ==

* Mike in ''[[StarTropics]]'' crossdresses ([[Gender Bender|or maybe magically changes gender]]) to enter an all-female village.

* In ''[[Kunio-Kun|Ike Ike! Nekketsu Hockey Bu]]'', the Nekketsu Hockey Team can wear the uniforms of defeated rivals. Among them are an all-girl school team who wear white blouses and red plaid skirts.

 

== Visual Novels ==

** If you follow Ryouta's path in the full version, he [[Justified Trope|has a job at a transvestite cafe]] so he can support his ailing mother.

** Of course, for the school festival, the heroine's class decides to be a maid cafe, so everybirdie in class dresses up as maids—you only see the others in the full version, though.

 

== Web Comics ==

* It appears in ''[[Double K]]'' that nearly 90% of Kamina's plans involve [https://web.archive.org/web/20120629211315/http://doublek.thewebcomic.com/comics/1358248/chapter-1-03/ putting] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120507004922/http://doublek.thewebcomic.com/comics/1373038/chapter-3-064/ Simon] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120505130712/http://doublek.thewebcomic.com/comics/1373039/chapter-3-071/ in drag].

* In ''[[Welcome to Room 305]]'' there's {{spoiler|Yoon Sung}}, who likes to dress up as a woman at night. {{spoiler|Subverted when it's revealed that it's actually his twin sister}}.

 

== Web Original ==

** Benzaie has made crossdressing a running joke on his show for sketches about his more girly interests.

* Par for the course in any story on [[Literotica]] that's in the Transsexuals/Crossdressers section and doesn't contain either [[Gender Bender|magic]] or [[Bondage Is Bad|bondage]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* Unusually for a children's show (especially a Disney one), [[The Weekenders]] twice implies that Carver is a cross dresser when his friends catch him in possession of girls' clothing.

* [[All Grown Up!]] has Phil dressed as his twin sister Lil. He seems to develop a crush on [[Ho Yay|another boy]].

 

== Real Life ==