Gender bender stories that don't exist

I am a big fan of gender bender media. I love storylines in which a man transforms into a woman or vice versa and tries to navigate their life in an unfamiliar body. However, you can only read and watch so many of them before you get completely bored. Gender bender media tends to be highly formulaic. How often have I seen the epitome of masculinity (or at least someone who wishes to be) get transformed into a cute girl and feel like their life is over? There are differences between a body swap and a simple sex change, and sometimes the character will find that everyone remembers them as their new sex, but there are really only so many variations of these tropes. Usually, the character hates the transformation and spend the rest of the story to find a solution. Sometimes a character grows to like their new body in the process, usually with the help of some romantic interest. It can be fun to see someone adjust to the change right away, though it's very often for sexual reasons rather than social ones...

You know, keeping the gender bender genre fresh is hard. I describe a lot of situations above, but there really aren't many stories that stray away from the tropes. I don't think that has to be the case, however. Here are four possible gender bender stories that would be unlike anything that has ever come before.

There are enough of these, alright?

The Great Undoing

Let's get the most tragic option out of the way first. I once read a short story about a woman who had just gotten breast implants. She was looking in the mirror, appreciating how her breasts had increased in a cup size or two, something she has wanted for years. Around this time, however, some completely unrelated character wished that everyone's breasts would become flat – don't ask me why. The woman, in great distress, watches the breasts she had paid thousands of dollars for just fade away into nothingness.

Let's bring this idea to a more impactful scale. Imagine a transgender character, let's call her Alice, who has been going through the various sexual reassignment surgeries and treatments to shape her body as she would prefer it. This is where the magical plot device hits her, however, and her body changes... into that of a boy. I suppose the reason I titled this hypothetical trope "The Great Undoing" is clear, as what I just described is the set-up of what would be a very saddening story.

Usually, gender bender stories have a high dose of fan service. I suppose I do not need to tell you that this concept is a harsh subversion of the genre in that sense, combining a magical sex change with the real world in what may be a horrifying manner. I think there are a lot of directions such a story could take, though honestly, I wouldn't want to run into one often. 

Non-Binary Swapping

To go into a much more cheerful direction, my next trope allows a person to freely change their sex on a regular basis. Imagine a non-binary person, be they agender, fluid, or some less well-defined gender. Let's call them Bill. Perhaps our protagonist is a 17-year old, having grown up as a boy all their life, but has never been comfortable in this role. Bill often feels more comfortable hanging out with the girls of their class than the other boys. Bill saw a definition of the word "agender" on the internet one year prior, and it has been tumbling in their head eversince (though they really don't care too much about labels anyway).

Now give Bill a magic ring that changes their sex whenever they put it on. What will they do with this power? Is it better being a boy or a girl? Does it vary? I believe fiction can explore a huge number of variables if it wanted to. What if a crossdresser got access to such a tool? I'd pay good money to see a storyline in which Haruhi Fujioka could physically turn into a guy. The only piece of media in which this happens that I can think of is El Goonish Shive, but with the number of variables that can be put in this equation, I would want to see more.

Solid-State Fluidity

Perhaps the opposite of "Non-Binary Swapping" is "Solid-State Fluidity" (I'm having a lot of fun making up these names, as you may have noticed). Imagine a genderfluid person, perhaps someone whose gender identity on any given day is basically determined by a coin toss. Let's call him Alex. Alex hasn't been very able to present himself as he likes to, as his environment doesn't really allow him this. As a result, he experiences frequent dysphoria, basically at the drop of a dime.

Then, one day, Alex gets cursed by some ancient Egyptian thingamajig, and not only does his body change to the opposite sex, but everyone in her life suddenly remembers her always being like that. At first, Alex is ecstatic to finally be a "real boy" and for everyone to treat him as one. But the next day, she suddenly feels less happy about her situation.

Getting a non-binary character stuck in a different body is at least as fascinating as allowing them to switch freely, if not even moreso. It would definitely put a refreshing twist on the classic gender swap story.

Real Gender Swap

You know, I've always been bother by terms like "gender bender" and "gender swap". It's a pet peeve, I suppose, but the misuse of "gender" is not making anyone better. What if we could do a real gender swap?

Here we have Jennifer, a cheerleader and, honestly, kinda a bully. One of her victims lays a curse on Jennifer: one that will let her experience a gender swap. However, the next morning, Jennifer doesn't look any different from usual. Did it not work? It did work, but simply not how you expected it, as the curse effectively turned Jennifer into a trans man. Jennifer suddenly feels uncomfortable looking in mirrors, starts to feel uncomfortable with her breasts, her whole presentation. This could get fairly dark as well, of course, as Jennifer may end up in somekind of negativity spiral. But maybe the classmates he once bullied will accept Jennifer for who he is?

And in the end... maybe Jennifer has been transgender all along?