Gender Bender - in Fiction

In Fiction

In fiction, the term gender bender may refer not only to characters modeled after real-life gender benders, but also to characters who undergo changes in their physical sex – magically or otherwise – throughout the story. A work of art which challenges gender roles or features gender bending or transgender characters may itself be referred to as a "gender bender."

• In Orlando: A Biography, an influential novel by Virginia Woolf published in 1928, the protagonist passes through several lifetimes of varying gender.
• A historical and well-studied example of "gender bending" in English narrative is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
• The manga and anime series Ranma ½, features a main character who regularly switches from male to female due to a magic curse.
• In the "Soul Eater manga" many of the main characters go into a magical book with each chapter being one of the seven deadly sins. In "Lust" each person is "gender bended" to test their temptation of the opposite sex.
• In the novel The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin, characters have neutral sex for most of their lives, but take on either male or female characteristics when in heat.
• In Neil Gaiman's comic, The Sandman, the character Desire is gender-fluid. He can become male, female, both, or neither, depending on the situation.
• Early examples of cross-dressing in films include A Florida Enchantment (1914) directed by and starring Sidney Drew and Mabel's Blunder (1914) directed by and starring Mabel Normand.
• The X-files episode Gender Bender, features a series of identical, sexually-oriented murders, where the killer appears to be both male and female, changing gender after experience of intercourse.
• The film Zerophilia is a romantic comedy about a young man who discovers he has a genetic condition that causes him to change gender when he's aroused.
• In "Adventure Time", The episode "Fionna and Cake", has male character Jake the Dog as a female cat, referred to as Cake The Cat. Finn the Human is a girl named Fionna (Fionna the Human).