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alias_sqbrI 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:
Not included:
That said, the first two can be good as extra gender variety in the background.
Other dislikes:
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.
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
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
