i hope she finds joy and love in being a girl and doesn't want to turn back

I like supernatural gender benders like this, where the character's biological sex is actually switched. I also really like yuri. So this story has the potential to make me really happy. I just hope everybody, who claim to have seen where this story is going, are right and it is true yuri. Because if the gender bending turns out just to be a way for yuuri overcome Kyouko's issues with men i'll be sad.

No one else gonna say how funny it is that Yuuri gonna become yuri? XD

I am willing to bet cash money that this is literally how the concept came into being.

Of course, some caution is warranted because there's no shortage of gender-bending fiction that bends gender only in the most cynical terms, but it would be nice if the good people here would at least try to meet the few works from this category that get uploaded here with a more open mind.

If we can imagine that the the body of such character is transformed through magic, especially without knowing any details on how it works, why should we go for the most conservative and least fun interpretation when it comes to the same character's psychology? Maybe the character's male identity isn't that rock solid if his highest order of concern is not recovering his original body but reconnecting with a childhood friend. (Boys usually don't want to exist as girls for any external reason, never mind just to be around another girl.) Maybe the transformation process altered the character's brain as well to the point that it rewired or at least destabilized whatever certainty about being a boy they had originally.

If gender-bending fiction is great for anything, even when it's not particularly smart, it's exposing both the creator's and the audience's biases and anxieties about sex/gender. I think this shows in what I responded to in the previous paragraphs, the assumption that this protagonist is a manly male boy in some immutable and essential way, unless stated extremely specifically otherwise.

last edited at Dec 29, 2025 3:02AM

yuuri

To add a little to Doctor_Hoot's message: as someone that is going through real-life, non-magic, medical transition, that too changes your thoughts and personality. It turns out we're all just a bunch of chemical reactions, and so of course when you affect those reactions it also affects your... self.

Honestly it's sometimes a little scary to think of how much I mentally changed just because of a few accumulated grams of estrogens; I've been feeling a little more sensitive and emotional over things in a strange "this isn't like me" way, and I've also been a lot more confident in my woman-ness despite not that much having actually changed.

Transition isn't the only thing that might change "core" parts of your every day mental experience: anxiolytics, antidepressants, stimulants, etc are all drugs that affect your thoughts, feelings, and sometimes identity. So I really don't understand why people are struggling so much with the idea that a character's psyche (incl. identity) might be altered when going through anime-magic transition.

To add my cent to this discussion (I can't add two cents; I'm not that mentally wealthy): I've seen a few gender-bent stories where a male is transformed physically into a female, but the internal monologue of the character still presents as male. In English translations I can only assume we've lost some masculine pronouns (this is an assumption since I don't know Japanese and cannot confirm), but more specifically, this is shown in the artwork: internal thoughts will be associated with a rendering of the character as they were in their male form. To me, this ... kind of communicates that the character sees themself as a male, and if that is their identity, that is what they are, regardless of what they look like.

Though, I suppose one could also read it as... the way a character is introduced is meant to be a sort of identifier that will carry through the narrative; where that identifier appears, the story is communicating to the audience "this is that character". If that identifier ever changes, it could be confusing. For a gender-bent narrative especially, it could reinforce the trope that the character is gender-bent; if a male-to-female bent character ever switches their internal identity to female .... then ... they're not a gender-bent character anymore; they're ...... just a female .... who didn't start out that way. The story would stop being a "gender-bent" story and transition (hah) into a different type of story.

Is it still yuri if a male-to-female gender-bent character identifies as male? Is it still yuri if the artwork is female-female but the narrative relies on the identities of the characters being male-female? Are all labels ultimately arbitrary, malleable, and confusing when overanalyzed?!

Is it still yuri if a male-to-female gender-bent character identifies as male? Is it still yuri if the artwork is female-female but the narrative relies on the identities of the characters being male-female? Are all labels ultimately arbitrary, malleable, and confusing when overanalyzed?!

---

Okay for like your last question I don't think so??? Like if the gender-bent character identifies as a man/male then that means their...well a man/male no? And yuri isn't between a man and a woman its between two women/females. It is super confusing though, thus why I often stay away from gender bender 'yuri' cause well....not ALL of the time, but sometimes its more of "look! Its a dude in a girl body! That makes it yuri even though the gender-bent guy sees himself as a dude!" (Its not yuri though). I'm honestly just hoping this one isn't like that

Oo...this isn't gonna be yuri bait is it? Cause...I know I shouldn't judge off of one page but....page 60 is given massive "now that you don't hate all men now! We can have a het romance teehee!!!" Its just.....hmmmmm

To add a little to Doctor_Hoot's message: as someone that is going through real-life, non-magic, medical transition, that too changes your thoughts and personality. It turns out we're all just a bunch of chemical reactions, and so of course when you affect those reactions it also affects your... self.

Honestly it's sometimes a little scary to think of how much I mentally changed just because of a few accumulated grams of estrogens; I've been feeling a little more sensitive and emotional over things in a strange "this isn't like me" way, and I've also been a lot more confident in my woman-ness despite not that much having actually changed.

Transition isn't the only thing that might change "core" parts of your every day mental experience: anxiolytics, antidepressants, stimulants, etc are all drugs that affect your thoughts, feelings, and sometimes identity. So I really don't understand why people are struggling so much with the idea that a character's psyche (incl. identity) might be altered when going through anime-magic transition.

I appreciate your thoughts! I think the struggle is because of cissexist assumptions, which the simplified explanations of the trans experience(s) to cis people end up reinforcing too. Such as that gender is what's in your brain and "biological" sex is what's in your pants, which might be better than nothing as a very basic introduction, but when taken as the end-all-be-all it can drive people to strange conclusions. (Not just cis people, trans people are not immune to this either.)

And thanks for bringing up that stuff about real life transition. I didn't want to get too personal about it, but I can also attest that transition (medical, social, etc.) can have deep effects on the psyche and the way you perceive both yourself and the world. Though it shouldn't be surprising that the uninitiated don't know this, if most of them don't know that while HRT and surgeries have some limitations, they do in fact work. Gender-bending fiction depicts the same basic process, just accelerated and without the same set of limitations.

Is it still yuri if a male-to-female gender-bent character identifies as male? Is it still yuri if the artwork is female-female but the narrative relies on the identities of the characters being male-female? Are all labels ultimately arbitrary, malleable, and confusing when overanalyzed?!

Okay for like your last question I don't think so??? Like if the gender-bent character identifies as a man/male then that means their...well a man/male no? And yuri isn't between a man and a woman its between two women/females. It is super confusing though, thus why I often stay away from gender bender 'yuri' cause well....not ALL of the time, but sometimes its more of "look! Its a dude in a girl body! That makes it yuri even though the gender-bent guy sees himself as a dude!" (Its not yuri though). I'm honestly just hoping this one isn't like that

This is one of those strange conclusions that I was referring to. You guys are taking the concept of "this is a male mind piloting a female body" completely at face value. Though I get that to some extent this is because some gender-bending fiction also goes with this and leaves it completely unexamined.

What I've been trying to bring attention to is the contradiction between a character asserting a male identity while also not being all that upset with female embodiment, with looking like a girl and being treated like one. You're listening to Yuuri saying "I'm a boy", which would make sense normally, but this is gender-bending fiction and you're ignoring everything else, how Yuuri behaves and the way his environment treats him. You know, the actual fun part. A character's self-identification as a certain gender is important information, but it's not complete on its own here, especially when it seems to be the very first time the character is forced to confront questions about their gender.

And here I feel like I need to touch on some theory to clarify that this is not me appealing to gendered stereotypes, but the opposite. What if neither gender or "biological" sex are natural and fixed properties people are born with, but instead artificial and maintained through social processes? If you know of the social constructionist theory of sex, skip this paragraph and the next, but for everyone else, I'll try to summarize. We are all sexed by a sexist society, sorted into male or female whether we want to or not. First after birth, and then through our whole lives, every time we interact with other people. This is basically a social caste system (see: the patriarchy), but we are told by the system's ideology that it's natural and inevitable, and that our sex too, the box we were sorted into at birth, is natural and inescapable. "Gender identity" is then the feelings we have about this process, and it informs "gender expression", what we do to influence how we are sexed. (Of course, none of this precludes an innate component of "gender identity", something that explains why individuals are predisposed to certain feelings about how they wish to be sexed and what sexual characteristics they wish to embody.)

So, sexual characteristics are natural, but sex, the two boxes we're sorted into, is not. The boxes are based on observations of a natural phenomenon, but they are still artificial and enforced with a purpose. Your destiny is determined at birth: boys must grow into men, girl must grow into women, nothing else is allowed.

With that out of the way, let's consider how trans experiences differ from cis ones. For example, not all trans girls/women know that they're girls from early childhood, and while many can pinpoint their sexed anatomy and the effects of male puberty as the source of their discomfort, what we call gender dysphoria can have other components too, such as a discomfort with being viewed as male and expected/forced to act accordingly (i.e. being sexed as male).

Yuuri says he's a boy in his narration. But what else is happening in this story? One typical feature of boys (including trans boys) is that they don't tend to like being treated as girls (i.e., sexed as female), but Yuuri doesn't seem distressed when he's treated like a girl. Boys also tend to be uncomfortable with developing female sexual characteristics and losing male ones. Yuuri doesn't just look like a girl when clothed but he also no longer has his male genitals, which is one of the scariest things that can happen to a boy, but he seems fine. He's mostly worried about lying to Kyouko, and that guilt can be more about whether he deserves this second chance rather than a strong attachment to his manhood.

Yuuri also comes across as pretty sensitive to Kyouko's feelings, and never blames her for her issues with boys. You could say that he's disrespecting her boundaries by approaching her in this female persona, and maybe that's true in a way. But on the other hand, he's on the hook for all the potential risks that come with being treated as a girl (i.e., sexed as female), just like Kyouko is.

There is a lot of gender-bending fiction that is totally uninterested in not just social commentary but even depicting these social processes with any realism. But some are more thoughtful or at least bad in interesting ways, and to me this work passes that bar. For example, I like that when they were small children, Kyouko was the one who physically protected Yuuri, and Yuuri didn't get to be Kyouko's hero until he got turned into a girl. I'm not sure where this theme will go but it seems important.

I think discussing (and of course, writing) the protagonists of MTF gender-bending fiction as (deep down, essentially, immutably, forever) male by default is kind of lazy. And I suspect that the whole category of MTF gender-bender fiction is not set up to ever depict its protagonists as credibly cis, since the way an actual cis boy would react to being forced to live as a girl could get very dark or depressing. I'll admit that to me, watching a boy having to suddenly learn to navigate the world as a girl can be interesting even without a clearly intentional trans subtext. Not everybody thinks this is fun, and that's fine. As for the endgame of this series, if Yuuri seems down with living as a girl, and the world around them treats them as a lesbian couple, I don't feel inclined to view them as a straight one.

Maybe my bias here is that Yuuri doesn't seem to react to the prospect of living as a girl all that differently from how the high school aged me might have in a similar situation. At the time, I also thought I was just a boy with some quirks, and even if I had gone through a non-magical experience that's an equivalent of his, I probably wouldn't have made it from "this is surprisingly okay" to "I'm definitely a trans girl" within just a week. Especially without being assured that it's okay to be one.

last edited at Jan 1, 2026 2:31PM

To add my cent to this discussion (I can't add two cents; I'm not that mentally wealthy): I've seen a few gender-bent stories where a male is transformed physically into a female, but the internal monologue of the character still presents as male. In English translations I can only assume we've lost some masculine pronouns (this is an assumption since I don't know Japanese and cannot confirm), but more specifically, this is shown in the artwork: internal thoughts will be associated with a rendering of the character as they were in their male form. To me, this ... kind of communicates that the character sees themself as a male, and if that is their identity, that is what they are, regardless of what they look like.

Though, I suppose one could also read it as... the way a character is introduced is meant to be a sort of identifier that will carry through the narrative; where that identifier appears, the story is communicating to the audience "this is that character". If that identifier ever changes, it could be confusing. For a gender-bent narrative especially, it could reinforce the trope that the character is gender-bent; if a male-to-female bent character ever switches their internal identity to female .... then ... they're not a gender-bent character anymore; they're ...... just a female .... who didn't start out that way. The story would stop being a "gender-bent" story and transition (hah) into a different type of story.

Is it still yuri if a male-to-female gender-bent character identifies as male? Is it still yuri if the artwork is female-female but the narrative relies on the identities of the characters being male-female? Are all labels ultimately arbitrary, malleable, and confusing when overanalyzed?!

Hiya. Sorry if this gets a bit rambly. There definitely are a lot of stories where the genderbent character just remains the man they were on the inside, but there definitely are a lot where even with the use of masculine pronouns, their gender identity can't really be placed into one definitive category.(I think this is the case for this series as well. During the translation I made sure to mark all uses of pronouns with the ♂♀ symbols. If they aren't present it's because Japanese simply does not rely on pronouns as much as English does and there actually just wasn't any pronoun used.) It's also important to note that a character's own internal perception may not be 100% accurate either since one's own perception can take a long time to adjust(For example, for me and I'm sure many other trans women it took a long time for me to adjust to perceiving and accepting myself as female even if sometimes I slip up purely out of habit)

Also, as you said, it is very common for characters to continue to use the pronouns they initially used in the beginning of the story simply because it's a genderbender story and that needs to be indicated. A really good manga "Ore ga Watashi ni naru made" (Until I♂ become myself♀) that focuses on the main characters self-perception after her transformation still has her use both masculine and feminine pronouns despite the fact that it's been clearly stated she completely rejects the idea of being male to the point that it's a serious cause of trauma for her. It would be pretty short-sighted to label a character exclusively as male simply because of their own pronoun usage even though their behaviour indicates otherwise(E.g. wants to remain as a girl, rejects the idea of returning, prefers the experiences they are now able to go through, etc.) As others in the thread have said, looking at gender as a definitive binary is pretty unproductive. It could very well be a case of a character not taking the time to ask themselves the right questions.

For this very story the title is actually contradictory, "I'm♂ a Girl in Love" has the main character use a masculine pronoun to identify herself as a girl, so how she perceives herself is murky at best. I'd go further into detail but I don't want to spoil the series I set out to translate so I'll leave it at that for now, but I hope people can look at it with an open mind regardless.

Aaahh Doctor_Hoot just beat me to explaining some of the things I was trying to right as I was writing them

Serious question here. Can anyone think of any traits typically associated with one gender that you have never seen someone of the opposite gender exhibit? For instance are there no men that are interested in clothes and fashion.

Nothing ground breaking so far....

I'm just surprised they avoided the bra-wearing cliché, but just five minutes later manga-rain strikes once again in exchange.

... who's going to bet on this ending at the shrine, with "him" just about to pray to return to his old body, only to change his mind last minute? I kinda want to advocate for the manga to just continue and after 6 months or something having a "didn't I forget something? Oh well can't be that important" scene instead.

For instance are there no men that are interested in clothes and fashion.

Trains. There's literally no woman interested in trains.
(this is a joke. There obviously are. At least two.)

Serious question here. Can anyone think of any traits typically associated with one gender that you have never seen someone of the opposite gender exhibit? For instance are there no men that are interested in clothes and fashion.

I feel like rejecting the premise a little. There's no feminine essence that cis or trans women/men embody, so there aren't gonna be any traits that only women/men can have.

re: the general thrust of conversation - from the way this manga is going, there's obviously gonna be a slow realization that Yuuri either wanted to be a girl all along, or just is okay being a girl. For a good exploration of people just kinda going along with a new gender, embracing it or fighting it, I highly recommend Sisters of Dorley (though check out its list of trigger warnings first).

Seeing Yuuri get her egg broken in real time was entertaining, I hope its addressed directly instead of dancing around the idea that she was already a girl in the first place.

Serious question here. Can anyone think of any traits typically associated with one gender that you have never seen someone of the opposite gender exhibit? For instance are there no men that are interested in clothes and fashion.

I feel like rejecting the premise a little. There's no feminine essence that cis or trans women/men embody, so there aren't gonna be any traits that only women/men can have.

"Women are made, not born". Aside from gender identity itself, there is nothing that makes a woman a woman or a man a man. Yes, there are things that are more common for someone from one gender to like compared to the other, but it's very general and you'd easily find an exemption to the rule.
There are plenty of men, yes, even straight men, who like clothes and fashion.

Serious question here. Can anyone think of any traits typically associated with one gender that you have never seen someone of the opposite gender exhibit? For instance are there no men that are interested in clothes and fashion.

I feel like rejecting the premise a little. There's no feminine essence that cis or trans women/men embody, so there aren't gonna be any traits that only women/men can have.

That was kind of the point I was trying to make. The story seems to be suggesting that liking clothes and fashion was "girly" and because Yuuri is now a girl she needs to take interest in it. My point that is wrong. I known guys into fashion and I've known plenty of women that weren't. I also thought it was a little uncool that Kyouko assumed that because they're both girls it was okay just come into the dressing room with Yuuri without asking.

EDIT: My explanation is a bit convoluted there. The bottom line is, no trait is exclusively one gender or the other. But the point of asking that question is to get people to reach that conclusion themselves. I guess it's my philosophy minor coming out LOL.

last edited at Jan 25, 2026 2:04PM

I also thought it was a little uncool that Kyouko assumed that because they're both girls it was okay just come into the dressing room with Yuuri without asking.

I have to say, this is a trope I picked up on a lot in yuri work. Where the LI (generally naively) bullies her way into the changing room with the MC (who's usually aware of their crush at that point), especially in HS aged stories. I'm curious if this lack of boundaries is fully fictional, or is something kinda common in Japan. I never dealt with that kind of thing in HS, but instead in college, but I was a college athlete and just assumed the lack of boundaries was more an athlete thing.

I also thought it was a little uncool that Kyouko assumed that because they're both girls it was okay just come into the dressing room with Yuuri without asking.

I have to say, this is a trope I picked up on a lot in yuri work. Where the LI (generally naively) bullies her way into the changing room with the MC (who's usually aware of their crush at that point), especially in HS aged stories. I'm curious if this lack of boundaries is fully fictional, or is something kinda common in Japan. I never dealt with that kind of thing in HS, but instead in college, but I was a college athlete and just assumed the lack of boundaries was more an athlete thing.

I've seen it before too. And it always bothers me a little. I brought it up this time because it kind of fit with my anti gender stereotypes post. I wonder if that trope also is used in the boys love genre as well.

EDIT: As a guy I can say It's an issue I've never had.

last edited at Jan 25, 2026 2:21PM

My impression with gender bending fiction (especially the "pop culture" type) is that those almost always try to heighten everything the author can think of they can associate with either gender. So this changing room thing I'd take as a further exaggeration of how these manga always love to portray girls as way more clingy and touchy than boys.

I kinda get the urge: what's the point of writing gender bender when the protagonist afterwards goes "hey what the hell, I can actually continue as before!?" - because not like they ever care internally that they switched gender, particularly, it's got to be external stuff. But at the same time, yeah. It leads to all those weird situations - oh yeah sure you absolutely have to wear a skirt now that you are a girl, it's the law, there couldn't possibly be another option; ab-solute-ly definitely it's your first time now being allowed to enjoy fancy sweets in a trendy café, you couldn't possibly have done so as boy ...

I try to read these as just genre convention. Not so much anything beyond ^^#

My impression with gender bending fiction (especially the "pop culture" type) is that those almost always try to heighten everything the author can think of they can associate with either gender. So this changing room thing I'd take as a further exaggeration of how these manga always love to portray girls as way more clingy and touchy than boys.

I kinda get the urge: what's the point of writing gender bender when the protagonist afterwards goes "hey what the hell, I can actually continue as before!?" - because not like they ever care internally that they switched gender, particularly, it's got to be external stuff. But at the same time, yeah. It leads to all those weird situations - oh yeah sure you absolutely have to wear a skirt now that you are a girl, it's the law, there couldn't possibly be another option; ab-solute-ly definitely it's your first time now being allowed to enjoy fancy sweets in a trendy café, you couldn't possibly have done so as boy ...

I try to read these as just genre convention. Not so much anything beyond ^^#

I get you. It makes sense. I don't get the whole "only girs eat sweets" thing at all though. I mean really where did that even come from?

Already bringing her home by chapter 4! We moving fast out here!

I get you. It makes sense. I don't get the whole "only girs eat sweets" thing at all though. I mean really where did that even come from?

Probably the few random studies done that compared women and men taste buds and noticing how women have a sensitive taste buds for sweets and other flavors compared to men, probably like 10-20% difference (Though it depends on the human in question since women and men taste buds are often mostly similarly except for humans that can be classified as supertasters[More women often compared to men apparently]). Once again exceptions/outliers exists since men can have stronger and better taste buds compared to women but based on the general average by the studies apparently. Not sure how much race or their ethnic group also play into the factor though, since sometimes people just tend to overreact (free-spirit personality) to tasting food despite having similar taste buds.

Kind of like how while white men are often taller (In general on average, outlier and exceptions exist obviously) when compared to other ethnic groups but often experience quicker balding or more smelly sweat compared to other ethnic groups. Different genes and biological built I guess.

last edited at Jan 25, 2026 7:10PM