Looking for stories whose main characters hit my 'genderfluid' button

[alias_sqbr]

I have recently found myself bouncing off of stories about characters who have a single, set gender. Which is unfortunate, since that covers 99.99% of stories, even the few about non-binary characters.

So! Rec me stories with at least one mainish character whose gender is blurry or shifting, especially if they actively enjoy presenting in multiple ways and describing themselves as different genders. General queerness and deliberate trans inclusion is a plus, but the character themself doesn't have to be being written as non-binary on purpose. I specifically like stories where gender roles are in general treated as things people can take on and personify temporarily at will, regardless of their underlying gender, especially when the edges of those roles shift and blur.

It's fine if you're not 100% sure if your rec is quite what I want. I'm still figuring out what I want, so more recs are always good, even if only to help me figure out what I don't want.

Content note: I talk about certain real gender identities "not working for me" which might feel jarring if it's your actual real life identity. I just mean in the context of fictional characters who hit this one specific gender button for me. Even other genderfluid people may feel differently!

Included:

• Actual genderfluid characters, probably? I have encountered so few /o\
  
• Characters who aren't explicitly non binary, but do explicitly describe themselves as "a man" and "a woman" without drawing a neat line between the two states/perspectives. This includes people with combined memories of past lives/other characters but only when those memories and identities are inextricably blurred.
  
• Player characters in games with a player defined gender/pronouns who the narrative treats much the same regardless of that choice. This lets me create a genderfluid amalgalm in my head.
  

Not included:

• People who divide their gender identity into distinct, internally static parts, eg a man with a female drag persona, someone with multiple distinct personalities or alters (whether realistic DID or an alien in their head, etc).
  
• People with a static non-binary (or non-binary adjacent) gender, including "meh" or "a mix of male and female"
  
• People who are forced to change physical sex or crossdress etc and maybe enjoy some aspects of both genders/bodies/presentations, but any gender blurriness is more unhappy self-doubt than fun self discovery, and ultimately they have one "real" body/gender they prefer strongly.
  
• Player characters with a player defined gender/pronouns who the narrative does treat notably differently, eg most/all of the love interests are straight
  
• Player characters who are so vague and without personality they don't feel like an actual character
  
• Any significant gender or gender role essentialism within the narrative, even if not applied to this particular character eg Stardew Valley, where the player character is treated the same regardless of gender, but every other relationship and character is incredibly heteronormative. This includes other sorts of gender-ish roles like alpha/omega, seme/uke etc or even femme/butch (it's different but it can still hit the bad button for me if described a certain way). The moment all people are defined as Being Inherently One Role Forever I am out.
  

That said, the first two can be good as extra gender variety in the background.

Other dislikes:

• "Sympathetic" characters who have caused anyone sexual consent related distress, unless it's in an alternate universe to the main story, like an avoidable bad end in a visual novel. I did not enjoy the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  
• Most text-only interactive fiction, especially if I have to keep track of a mental map.
  
• Zombies, underage sex, full incest
  

Gonna put the examples under a cut just so people don't get too overwhelmed with information to reply! I got a bit rambly, since I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is I'm after.

Examples I have and have not enjoyed

Some examples I have enjoyed:
Double Trouble from Shera is not a major character but is fantastic, and the general queerness of the narrative is a major plus. They are an explicitly non-binary shapeshifter and clearly get a kick out of playing lots of different roles, including leaning into various gendered dynamics and tropes.

Shi Qingxuan from Heaven Official's Blessing is a secondary character, and while I love the novel it's Quite Problematic on trans and other grounds. But there's a lot of Shi Qingxuan-centric fic which I happily read. He is a cis man who has been forced to cross-dress as a girl for much of his life for Contrived Plot Reasons, but now gets a kick out of playing with male and female bodies and presentations, and tries to get all his male magic-using friends to "be a woman" with him for fun.

The Dragon Age series of games. There's some straight love interests but the series overall is very deliberately queer. The protagonist has to be exactly one of male or female, but this doesn't affect much, and there's space to roleplay them as a well defined character. Unfortunately character appearance tends to be very binary gendered.

The dating sim Hustle Cat, which has an all bi cast and a fleshed out, androgynous protagonist with the player's choice of he/she/they pronouns.

Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to (Life with an Ordinary Guy who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout) The protagonist is a business man who, depressed about his failure to get a girlfriend, wishes he was a hot girl everyone is attracted to. A goddess makes his wish come true and sends him on a quest in a fantasy world with his male best friend. He identifies as both a woman and a man at various points despite remaining in the same body, and has complicatedly ambivalent feelings about his new body. Later we meet a girl who chose to become a hot man who again calls herself both a man and a girl in various contexts. The authors cheerfully admit all this ambiguity is primarily for kink purposes, and it's not exactly peak queer representation, but there's a good natured empathy and general willingness to play around with gender and sexuality that means I still enjoy the story.

SOME stories about people who have to cross-dress for Reasons and get into the role, like Twelfth Night, but not others. My Vow To my Liege is about a woman who cross-dresses as a man in a historical setting and feels unhappy and unsettled both ways, which sort of worked for me, though she does usually go back to being more gender conforming by the end.

Utena? Sort of? I really like how characters move around and between gender related roles in a complicated way. Utena is both a Prince and a Princess at various times in various ways, but also not fully defined by either role.

Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy 14 are pretty heteronormative otherwise, but I really enjoyed being able to play an androgynous character who wore a variety of outfits combining gendered markers in different ways.

Individual scenes in various stories about actors or spies etc where gender roles are seen as roles that people take on and enjoy/benefit from personifying in the moment but are not defined by.

The rest of the anime/manga is pretty heternormative but I loved the character of Najimi Osana from Komi Can't Communicate, who switches gender presentations and identities on a whim and refuses to be pinned down to any one gender or clarify their asab.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin is a complicated one, being set on a planet where everyone is agendered most of the time then switches to a random cis gender during sexual heats. It's not quite what I want, with how gender is so connected to physical form, but was certainly an interesting read!

EDIT: Baldur's Gate 3 is super fun! The NPCs are all binary gendered asides from one drag queen but writing in general doesn't lean too much on gendered or heteronormative tropes. And the player character has a lot of fun options for androgyny, including the option for "they/them" pronouns. You can change a lot of their presentation, including pronouns, during gameplay.

Not quite what I want:
Steven Universe. I like the show a lot, but the various non binary characters all have fairly static genders. Some characters do switch genders between fusions, but the different fusions are very distinct from each other, and everyone's genders seem very static otherwise.

Non-Dragon Age Bioware games. Too heteronormative.

Slight character/writing-wise but I enjoyed the game overall and the ungendered/player choice gendered protagonist did help: Verdant Skies, Garden Paws, Starbound, Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles.

Too "static, if ambiguous, gender identity" for this particular button but still enjoyable: Undertale/Deltarune

Most romances I've read involving explicitly non-binary characters, even if they seemed kinda genderfluid on paper. I'm not sure why. So, rec em if you got em, I guess, and I'll poke it and see how I feel. Example: Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian, which hit a very weird button for me.

Orlando, both the novel by Virginia Woolf and the movie with Tilda Swinton. Again I'm not sure why since it absolutely fits the requirements on paper.

Thinking about why drag personas don't hit the right button for me, even when they blur around the edges into the character being non-binary-ish, I think it's that one gender role is a fun persona to play with, but the other is the neutral or unappealing default. I want characters for whom male AND female roles are fun personas to play around with, and neither is more 'real' or enjoyable than the other.

EDIT: Settings with strict gender roles are fine as long as the narrative doesn't support them.

I am thinking of checking out:
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
Rune Factory
Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons
Boyfriend Dungeon
Fallen Hero: Rebirth
Royal Alchemist or Royal Order EDIT: Played Royal Alchemist, it was a bit too binary and also boring.
Blooming Panic
Andromeda 6
GENDERWRECKED
Mnemonic Devices

Recs from the comments:
She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
books tagged 'genderfluid' on Librarything, a lot of it is non fiction but it did at least remind me of a few more examples of fiction that did and didn't work for me, which I've added.
Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
Some Untamed fanfic
The Check Please fic "Don't Need to Compromise" by Khashana
Pyre
Cybsersix
The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers: A Psalm for the wild built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy
Peking Opera Blues
Jessie and James from Pokemon
Coffee Prince (I loved this but she felt more agender than genderfluid to me)
The Magnus Chase series
Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Starless by Jacqueline Carey

Comments

[shadaras]

You might find Shelley Parker-Chan's novel She Who Became the Sun interesting on this front? The primary protagonist is a girl who takes on her brother's identity so that she can join a monastery after all her family dies, but she continues thinking of herself with she/her pronouns and the division between her private and public gender feelings gets more complicated the longer the novel goes on. The secondary protagonist is probably not really your thing, as he's a eunuch (not by choice). There might be too much societally-enforced gender role stuff going on because the setting is fantasy historical China, but for me the narrative did a good job queering and complicating that via the perspectives and lives of the primary characters.

[alias_sqbr]

Ooh interesting, thank you, I'll check it out! Fantasy Ancient China is fine, societal sexism doesn't bother me as long as the narrative doesn't agree with it. If anything, the fact that even fairly conventionally minded modern authors disagree with the sexism in old fashioned settings can make them more enjoyable: stories with such settings are more likely to portray gender roles as arbitrary and socially imposed, versus contemporary settings where a lot of authors don't think to question modern gender roles.

[skygiants]

REAL caveat rec since I have not read these books since I was a teen and I remember them as Fun but not, per se, Good!! and also to really get the full impact of the genderqueerness you have to read NINE (nine!) whole books (although that is still probably not that much longer and perhaps even shorter than all of Heaven Official's Blessing, lol) but Robin Hobb's linked set of Farseer/Liveship Trader books has a major character (secondary protagonist) who presents as male in the first couple books/uses male pronouns, female for the middle set, and male again in the third. These were written in the nineties and my memory/impression is that people were sometimes Confused by this character's gender once they picked up on this but the character when asked would only say it was none of anybody's business.

[alias_sqbr]

Ohhh I think I heard about that character, they have white hair right? Named...the Fool or something similar? Everything else I've heard about that series makes me think it's not for me but that character does sound cool.

EDIT: Also your comment reminded me how much I loved Najima from Komi Can't Communicate, who similarly refuses to be pinned down. More data!

[winterbird]

The only thing I'd say re: the Fool is that he really isn't actually in a lot of the first couple of trilogies as anything more than an ensemble character (he becomes very significant later), and while there is gender fluidity and fuckery, it's from the lens of a very cishet author who firmly affixes him as 'him' in the first trilogy, 'her' in the second, and then 'him' again - I haven't read the last trilogy so this may have *majorly* changed - but you have to slog through hundreds of thousands of words to get to a part where he's more than a 'oh he's here for the first time in 10 chapters for 10 lines of dialogue aaaaand he's gone again' etc.

I love Robin Hobb, she's one of my favourite fantasy writers (if not my favourite) but the world is very sort of heteronormative, mononormative, with homophobia built into the world and a strong idea of how 'proper women should act' (though often by depicting strong women who don't act that way).

I love the Fool, he's a great character, but I wouldn't really rec this series even though he alone does kind of fit the criteria? There's almost no fluidity *within* each trilogy, if that makes sense? (Though he is also canonically polyamorous, and reads as *very* asexual, so I do like his just...general queerness, but he's shown to be very in love with a cishet guy who like...rejects him in a pretty ugly way before they reconcile (and that *is* the main character, so we also get an insight into his homophobic inner POV through and after that rejection :/ which is not pleasant)

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah I saw someone rant about that once (maybe you!) which is one reason why it stuck in my head as "cool character, not a book series for me".

[winterbird]

I do really love the series but it's very 'written in the 90s but an older cishet woman' writer and sometimes it just really shows salkjfdsafsd

(But back in the day it was like the most queer published content I'd really gotten my hands on until I found m/m romance etc. so it worked. I definitely think there might be more good stuff about the Fool specifically on AO3? But I've never looked for it).

[ember_keelty]

Player characters in games with a player defined gender/pronouns who the narrative treats much the same regardless of that choice. This lets me create a genderfluid amalgalm in my head.

I just played Pyre, and not only does it do this, but it lets you change your gender in the settings menu at any time, so you can switch around the gendered terms other characters refer to you with over the course of a single playthrough.

[ember_keelty]

On reflection, since it's you, I should probably warn that there's a strong element of in-universe ableism that I'm not quite sure you'll be satisfied with the handling of? The whole system set up by the saints/ascended-mortal gods to determine "worthiness" is fundamentally ableist even aside from how it's been corrupted by the current regime, and even the characters who are really critical of a lot of what's going on hesitate to speak ill of the saints' initial intent. It's not something the game just glosses over, because the player character is physically disabled (in a non-specified way that might or not be permanent depending on what you choose for their backstory) and that's pretty important to the plot. But since this is something I know you're particularly sensitive to, I figure I should probably mention it.

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you! I've pondered playing Pyre in the past since it sounds really interesting, but how hard is it? Anything that requires fast reflexes? If I installed simple cheats to help with things like money and experience points etc would that be enough to brute force my way through? The problem with cheats is they don't help with stuff like timing based platforming etc so I can never be sure if they'll be enough.

[(Anonymous)]

1. There is an easy mode that I found pretty accessible.
2. Cheats like those would probably help at least a bit.
3. Most interestingly, and unique to this game, you do not have to be good at it at all to progress the story. Regardless of whether you win or lose any given match, the story will continue, and something interesting will happen. You won't be able to get the most "ideal" story outcomes without winning at least some of the time, but even the story's worst possible ending is not terrible, and its best ending is not perfect.

[alias_sqbr]

Ooh, ok, that all sounds very promising then. Thank you!

EDIT: Just went to add it to my wish list on Steam and it's 75% off :D

[ember_keelty]

1. There is an easy mode that I found pretty accessible.
2. Cheats like those would probably help at least a bit.
3. Most interestingly, and unique to this game, you do not have to be good at it at all to progress the story. Regardless of whether you win or lose any given match, the story will continue, and something interesting will happen. You won't be able to get the most "ideal" story outcomes without winning at least some of the time, but even the story's worst possible ending is not terrible, and its best ending is not perfect.

(Sorry for accidentally anon posting!)

[alias_sqbr]

Just in case you didn't see my reply:

Ooh, ok, that all sounds very promising then. Thank you!

Just went to add it to my wish list on Steam and it's 75% off :D

[wychwood]

I don't know if it would be good for your purposes, or if you know the fandom, but I just read a Check Please! fic where one of the characters is gender-fluid in a shifting kind of way, so I thought I'd mention it! Don't Need to Compromise by Khashana - it's the second in a series, so you might want to read the whole thing, but the gender stuff doesn't kick in until this part.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm certainly open to fic recs, but I've never read Check Please, would it work without canon knowledge?

[fred_mouse]

I went to check, and I'm about a quarter through, and nothing I've seen requires canon knowledge and I am Invested. Thanks wychwood!

[wychwood]

Great! I was trying to decide, and I think probably the story gives you enough of the background itself ("these characters were best friends but then had a bad falling out" etc), but it's hard for me to tell because a) I've been a hockey fan for ten years and b) I've read the canon and a lot of fic, so I do just have a lot of background knowledge automatically.

Glad you're enjoying it, fred_mouse :D

[lea_hazel]

This is making me think, though the thinking doesn't have results, yet. I might come back to this post later if I ever come up with anything.

[alias_sqbr]

Inspiring thoughts is always good regardless :) Also, before I forget, I only just started The Royal Alchemist but it seems like very much your sort of thing so far.

[hebethen]

One of the main characters in Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is very wibbly, and the setting/narrative recognizes wibbliness in general (though not every character does). It's an alt-historical novella that's quite wry and light in tone despite there being heavy and sad things in the background/plot.

FWIW She Who Became the Sun definitely also came to mind for me; it's a pretty intense book but good.

[alias_sqbr]

Ooh, I've been pondering that one! Though ironically, one of the things which got me thinking harder about seeking out genderfluid protagonists was how hard I bounced off Black Water Sister, since it's such a great book and the best explanation I could divine from my fuzzy but intense emotional reaction was that it's too much about Being A Woman (which is a perfectly reasonable topic to explore that I have enjoyed at other times, but apparently right now is Not For Me)

[stultiloquentia]

If Untamed fanfic is of any interest, here are a couple AUs that don't require any background knowledge:

See all this and more for just ten dollars a month! by ScarlettStorm
In the first installment, Wei Ying hasn't figured out he's genderfluid yet. In the second, she starts to have some big gender feelings, and ends up using both sets of pronouns. The whole thing is very fluffy and feel-good.

to dwell inside a body by typefortydeductions
Another long series about Wei Ying and Lan Zhan developing their relationship. Happy endings here, too, but the tone is much more intense.

all that and more by Euphorion
Wei Ying deals with the demise of his compulsory heterosexuality in the dumbest possible way. Fortunately he has very patient friends.

[alias_sqbr]

I had actually thought about mentioning how much I've enjoyed how some Untamed/MDZS fic plays with gender, so thank you for more recs :D

[militarypenguin]

I recommend the show Cybsersix. The main character has a male-identifying persona as a school teacher (named Adrian), and a female-identifying one as a crime fighter (named Cybserix). Neither identity cancels the other out, and I really dig the fact that their (I'm using they/them pronouns here to refer to their character as a whole, rather than their specific Adrian and Cybersix personas who would have gendered pronouns) non-action based persona is a masculine-presenting one, while their action-oriented one is a feminine-presenting one. The show gives no reason for why do this, they simply do, and I love that.

There's also a comic it's based on, but having not read it, I can't say if it's as open to genderfluid readings of the character.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I hear about this show every now and then and going OOH WOW. I really should watch it one day.

[fred_mouse]

The Monk and Robot series (Becky Chambers) has two novellas (A Psalm for the wild built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy) that might be suitable.

ETA: there are booked tagged with genderqueer over at librarything, which might be a place to go poke at?

[alias_sqbr]

Oh hey, those are both really useful, thanks!

[fred_mouse]

*\o/*

[oyceter]

It's been a long time since I've seen it, so many caveats, but possibly Peking Opera Blues? Brigitte Lin is a rebel who usually dresses in a way that is masculine presenting but is often treated as male or female depending on the circumstances iirc.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh that looks really promising, thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

The Magnus Chase series (Norse gods spinoff from Percy Jackson) has a canon genderfluid character in the main cast!

[numinousdread]

I don't have a good sense of your taste overall, but you might like Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, which involves a shapeshifting character who changes his embodiment and presentation for fun. (He's always referred to with he/him, interestingly.) He is definitely having fun with it and doesn't spend a lot of time experiencing angst. I thought it was very joyful (without being saccharine) and funny and clever.

There is a lot of explicit sex, though, an aspect which some people may enjoy and some people may dislike. The MC has an intense lesbian affair and a lot of gay sex with men (including a trans guy). I thought it was cool how the story approached gender and sexuality as entangled experiences.

I really enjoyed it (though to be clear I'm not very genderfluid). YMMV though.

[alias_sqbr]

That sounds really interesting and I hadn't heard of it, thank you!

[numinousdread]

Glad I could point you towards it. :)

[idleflower]

If you haven't, you might want to look into the book Starless, which played with gender in a way that pleased me, though explaining it does require spoilers.

The protagonist is burdened with a destiny at birth and raised to be the assassin-bodyguard-soulmate of a princess. For which reason he was raised as a boy and not originally told he might ever have been anything else, so the protagonist (and the reader) have no idea for quite a while. There IS angst upon figuring this out, especially because many of the cultures presented DO have strong gender roles, but he eventually comes to a point of being able to enjoy multiple presentations (and there are other characters who break out of roles or come from cultures with very different roles or more than two genders as well).

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you, I hadn't heard of that, though I have enjoyed a different book by Jacqueline Carey. It sounds interesting, I'll add it to the pile :)