Why do all the yuri novels seem to be gender-bender?

FireflyFanatic

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Aren’t there any good yuri novels where the protagonist isn’t originally a guy? It’s kind of annoying that whenever I see the girls love tag I also see the gender bender tag. Yeah, a gender bender can be good, but aren’t there any good stories where it’s just an actual girl who legitimately loves another girl?
 

mrsimple

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You could exclude that tag, if ya wanna find something without that content. :blob_whistle_two:

Huh, okay, I suppose Genre's cannot be excluded from the deal. Well, we can still deal with the tags, so here:
Series Finder.jpg


Just put in the excluded section Male to Female. That should take care of the problem. :blob_hide:
 
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FireflyFanatic

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True, but I’m simply surprised at how many of them there are and that it’s somehow all that shows up if you are casually scrolling through. It seems that the pure yuri stories aren’t getting any attention, especially compared to the gender bender yuri.
 

Myrane66

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True, but I’m simply surprised at how many of them there are and that it’s somehow all that shows up if you are casually scrolling through. It seems that the pure yuri stories aren’t getting any attention, especially compared to the gender bender yuri.
I think most of the yuri readers here are male, so they want to self insert them as a female though. Another reason being that the translated yuri genderbends over at novelupdates has a surprisingly small amount, compared to straight genderbend novels which is fairly a large amount. So they want fill up the niche genre (making a yuri genderbend) seeing as it's not so popular.
 

Khiricastares

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I honestly don't know. I think what Myrane said makes sense. I just write gender-bender stuff and I also love yuri so it just seems natural to me.
 

gogo7966

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You could exclude that tag, if ya wanna find something without that content. :blob_whistle_two:

Huh, okay, I suppose Genre's cannot be excluded from the deal. Well, we can still deal with the tags, so here:
View attachment 1125

Just put in the excluded section Male to Female. That should take care of the problem. :blob_hide:
You can exclude genre's, you just need to click on them twice.
 

drakensji

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Aren’t there any good yuri novels where the protagonist isn’t originally a guy? It’s kind of annoying that whenever I see the girls love tag I also see the gender bender tag. Yeah, a gender bender can be good, but aren’t there any good stories where it’s just an actual girl who legitimately loves another girl?
I think the reason is that most of the authors here are male, so they feel more comfortable using genderbend for the main character, as it makes it easier to use a male pov to the situation.
 

Kotohood

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I think it's because as a male it's inherently hard to write a female protagonist. That's why it's easier to just make it a man in a females body.

Vice versa I guess. Hard for females to write a male protagonist.
 

mrsimple

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I think the reason is that most of the authors here are male, so they feel more comfortable using genderbend for the main character, as it makes it easier to use a male pov to the situation.
That's something I originally had thought too, and I had wanted to write something that didn't focus on that sort of thing, but that is irrelevant to this topic. There are more than just exceptions to what ya suggested out there. Some write that as a means of wish-fulfillment, others just wanna get off to the idea, and then there those who are the complete opposite: they're not comfortable with the concept, but write to understand the situation. That last one is kinda weird to me because it's like fantasizing about something and translating it into reason, but there are authors who have admitted this is why they wrote their genderbent story. :blob_unsure:

As for me, most of my stories are MtF, but I have FtM. My issue is that FtM wasn't as popular as MtF GB material from where I came from, so I didn't focus much on that. Here though, I kind of like the fact that FtM gets more of a spotlight (especially when it becomes BL. :blob_aww:)
 

Moonpearl

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Yeah, this bothers me as well... I'm stubbornly filtering gender bender out right now, although it doesn't leave me with a lot of options. Hopefully I'll be able to add to the yuri soon.

Here are some good yuri novels/oneshots without gender bender:
Erislethe: Valley of the Dragon Queen
How To Seduce Your Stepmother
10th Year Anniversary
Spring Dream (18+)
The Perfect Day

And, although they're not on Scribble Hub (apart from three of the ones mentioned above), the Yuri Garden just finished running its annual writing contest for short stories. None of the entries were gender bender, so you can eat your heart out if you want. They were all pretty good this year.
You can find the list of entries here: https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/the-yuri-garden.28548/page-134#post-5118579

You can also check out the Scribble Hub section of the Yuri Garden's Recommendation Directory's Translated Novels section. It hasn't been updated in a little while, but it lists which novels are gender bender and which aren't. You can find it here: https://forum.novelupdates.com/blogs/yuri-garden-western-webnovels.2025/
 

FireflyFanatic

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Honestly, I do enjoy reading certain gender bender stories, but as a yuri fan I find that they lack something to be true yuri. It’s not that they aren’t “good enough” to be yuri, but that by adding the genderbending element to it, you change it into a completely different kind of story. A traditional malexfemale story can’t be judged the same was as yuri or yaoi, and I find that genderbent yuri and yaoi are similarly displaced from traditional yuri or yaoi. Does this make sense to anyone?
 

Moonpearl

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Honestly, I do enjoy reading certain gender bender stories, but as a yuri fan I find that they lack something to be true yuri. It’s not that they aren’t “good enough” to be yuri, but that by adding the genderbending element to it, you change it into a completely different kind of story. A traditional malexfemale story can’t be judged the same was as yuri or yaoi, and I find that genderbent yuri and yaoi are similarly displaced from traditional yuri or yaoi. Does this make sense to anyone?

Yeah, that makes sense. Even the rare good ones I come across don't feel the same as real yuri to me. It always feels like gender bender is the true genre, and yuri is just a subplot to it.

I just have an aversion to gender bender yuri/yaoi altogether, though. I've read so many where it's clear that the author is just using the gender bender to self-insert into their gay sex fantasies while maintaining the "right" to insult gay people that I just don't trust them anymore.
Honestly, if a story begins by trying to justify why the main character is a lesbian, when lesbians are obviously real and do not need extra justification... I take it as a sign that the story doesn't contain any common sense at all and leave. Maybe that's harsh, but my experience tells me that I'm not wrong.



Also, since so many people mentioned struggling to write women or understand how yuri works as a possible reason for this phenomena... If you need any help with a yuri story, whether it's asking basic or seemingly silly questions, or if you just want feedback on your story overall, you can go to the Yuri Writing Help Room. It's right here: https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/the-yuri-writing-help-room-18.754/
 

Moonpearl

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You say while having Bowsette x Peach as your avatar. Just teasing!

I don't really treat Bowsette as Bowser turned into a woman, though - just an alternative world's female version of Bowser. Also, men don't tend to use Bowsette as a self-insert.

Edit: I also forgot the most important part - everyone canonically knows Bowsette is genderbent Bowser, so there's no creepy deception.
 
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FireflyFanatic

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It IS off putting when a genderbent protagonist will say “I don’t like/understand gay things” and then proceed to kiss someone of the same (current) gender. Since anyone willing to kiss them is obviously fine with it. (Unless they knew them before, that is. Then it’s a whole other type of story.)
 

Moonpearl

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It IS off putting when a genderbent protagonist will say “I don’t like/understand gay things” and then proceed to kiss someone of the same (current) gender. Since anyone willing to kiss them is obviously fine with it. (Unless they knew them before, that is. Then it’s a whole other type of story.)

I once had the displeasure of reading a story where the man called lesbians wrong and disgusting, even thinking of his love interests that way for liking him, but he pretended to be a sweet girl to their faces and dated them anyway.
 

Sabruness

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I think the reason is that most of the authors here are male, so they feel more comfortable using genderbend for the main character, as it makes it easier to use a male pov to the situation.
I guess that makes me a bit of an oddity. I'm a male who writes yuri without using genderbend as a crutch. I do write 'strong or OP female protag' a lot so, i guess, it kinda wouldnt feel "right" to have the protag be MtF.
I do tend to insert my interests into my novels but i dont self-insert when i write.

I once had the displeasure of reading a story where the man called lesbians wrong and disgusting, even thinking of his love interests that way for liking him, but he pretended to be a sweet girl to their faces and dated them anyway.
Wow, that's pretty shitty.
 

FireflyFanatic

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I once had the displeasure of reading a story where the man called lesbians wrong and disgusting, even thinking of his love interests that way for liking him, but he pretended to be a sweet girl to their faces and dated them anyway.
Ugh. That’s... quite the displeasure.
 
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