question for those who read genderswap fiction

[Leah Betts]

I'm interested in writing a genderswap story where Robbie, Chip and Ernie of the sixties sitcom "My Three Sons" get transformed into girls, probably just before the family moves to California from Bryant Park - "Wow, California! Sun, sand, bikini girls - wait, we're not going to wear bikinis!"

When i raised the issue elsewhere, I got a lecture about how it's "transphobic" for them to be girls after their transformation just because they now have vaginas.

"My Three Sons" is set in the sixties and forcing this modern attitude/belief in the setting would be ahistorical, anachronistic and take away the main driving force for the plot.

What should i do?

[Dino]

Just do whatever you want! The minute you let in the people who throw "ic's" at you, you won't be able to do anything.
it probably wouldn't be the sort of thing I'd like to read, but don't let that stop you!

[MacNimon]

I'm with Dino here. Write what YOU want to write. And be proud of it! Don't write what you think other people want to read, because your heart won't be in it. Tell the story YOU want, not what they want, because quite simply then it won't be your story at all, will it? What other people think of it is their problem, not yours. You've got to remember that sometimes people will go out of their way to be offended, or to offend.

[Dirk Gently]

What these guys said. So long as you don't hurt anyone else I don't see any reason not to do what you want.

It's not my sort of thing but I don't see any reason for you to write it.

[Leah Betts]

One quite interesting fantasy series that has a genderswap as a major plot point was L. Frank Baum's original Oz series.

Book #2 involves a young boy who gets involved in a quest to find a missing princess who was kidnapped as a baby by a witch. It turns out that the guilty witch is none other than the adoptive mother of the boy. Glinda interrogates the witch and forces her to divulge what she did with the princess. The witch reveals that she transformed the princess.

"Into what?"

"a boy"

So the book ends with the protagonist being told that he must return to his true form, the aforementioned princess. By book #3, she's the most bouncy, bubbly, frilly pink girly-girl in the entire universe.
So she's a girl who used to be a boy who used to be a girl. Fun.

[Mike Saville]

I'll not answer from one who reads genderswap stories (other than in a very adult context), but I do know a fair few people in various stages of transition, and what I will say is eveything you write will upset at least one of them, little or none of it will upset all of them, some will complain you don't understand transgenderism at all and others will say they are reading their soul in your magical words.

So, as the others say, write what you want, write it well, and enjoy doing so.

[Leah Betts]

have you noticed that in most boy-to-girl genderswaps, the author has the new girl become extremely feminine - the character never stops to say "you may want me to wear lipstick and dresses and perfume, but i don't!". That's what pisses me off about the "Oz" genderswap - Baum has the restored princess say "I'm still the same old Pip" but by the next book she wearing everything you'd think of as women's fashions and is very girly and an expert on Princess-ing

[Mike Saville]

It was written at a time when gender roles were a lot more hardwired in the public consciousness though. There was a binary system, and very rare crossdressers in the UK and US. It looks off to the modern eye, because we have male, female, MtF, FtM, genderqueer, genderfluid and more.

In the adult fiction of course the person being swapped is almost always submissive and either wants to be or wants to be forced to be a glam overly sexualised caricature of a woman. Dunno how far we're allowed to discuss it on this particular thread, but feel free to PM me or start one in the temple.

[Leah Betts]

I wrote a tale where a "thinks he's God's gift to women" teenage boy gets turned by a magic medallion into a 32 month old baby girl and finds himself at the mercy of his mother and sister. To add the cherry to the cake, the medallion has made it so his brown, short, Blade McKiller hair is now blond and down to his shoulders.