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genderswapping in fiction?


MichelleGarvey

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What are peoples' views on genderswap fiction?

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 frilly girly-girl in the entire universe.

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 Tip" but by the
next book she's wearing everything you'd think of as women's fashions
and is very girly and an expert on Princess-ing.

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I read the first two Bone Doll books by Lynn Flewelling and, iirc, the main character held on to most of her more masculine traits and habits she developed as a boy and resented a lot of the girly stuff people expected of her after the change. I don't know how this progressed in the third installment, but unless it jumped far ahead in time I imagine she'd still be mostly the same.

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Is "The Left Hand of Darkness" relevant in this thread? Not the same as gender swapping as the people on the planet are hermaphroditic most of the year, but I think some of the same themes are prevalent.



EDIT: I think it is more accurate to say they are sexless rather than hermaphroditic in the book.


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Is "The Left Hand of Darkness" relevant in this thread? Not the same as gender swapping as the people on the planet are hermaphroditic most of the year, but I think some of the same themes are prevalent.

EDIT: I think it is more accurate to say they are sexless rather than hermaphroditic in the book.

That's the book that I thought of immediately. It's completely fascinating and wonderful, IMO.

What was particularly interesting was how each person on Winter was capable of becoming male or female based on how they interacted with another.

I adore this book! :love:

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What are peoples' views on genderswap fiction?

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 frilly girly-girl in the entire universe.

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 Tip" but by the

next book she's wearing everything you'd think of as women's fashions

and is very girly and an expert on Princess-ing.

I guess I can understand some of your frustration, but I also think you are somewhat reading back a modern sensibility into a children's story written more than a century ago. Ozma of Oz, the third book in Baum's series, was published in 1907.

Baum does always present Ozma as being a wise and effective ruler, which in and of itself was going against gender stereotypes in those days. One could even argue that the concept of someone with the physical appearance of a beautiful and frilly fourteen year old girl being the wise ruler of a nation is actually a fairly strong feminist statement for its time. And isn't the depiction of a woman as an effective monarch more important for gender equality than her liking to wear traditionally feminine clothing?

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Go buy Elminster: The Making of a Mage by Ed Greenwood. It is a politically-charged story set against a rich backdrop of mythology and folklore in which the titular protagonist must orchestrate a mass peasants' uprising against politically corrupt tyrants. And it involves gender-swapping Elminster.


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