Why so few female-to-male gender benders?

[Moonpearl]

I've been thinking of writing an FtM GB fanfic for Scribble Hub and, when I mentioned it to my GB-expert friend, she warned me that I'll most likely get flamed for it. Apparently since most fetishisers don't like it and some trans men are offended by it, it gets no support overall, but plenty of hatred.
(Fire cannot kill a dragon, though~!)

As for GB BL, though... I have read one like that before. I disliked it for the same reason that I dislike GB yuri without a trans MC: it just feels like a straight person trying to creepily insert themselves into a lesbian/gay fantasy. Also, it tends to run high on deception in relationships.

Most BL fans seem to enjoy the fact that they don't have to worry about the misrepresenttion of women in their romances, so there's no reason for them to go through extra steps to add them back in.

 

[AliceShiki]

I don't think there is a reason for it.

MtF Gender Bender ended up becoming popular because people started writing it, and readers started enjoying.
So, for many people, the default of Gender Bender is MtF.

Then, well, people started writing FtM stuff too, but it didn't gain as much traction, so not as many people caught on to the hype.

You really shouldn't overthink things too much. There usually isn't much reason to why one niche genre is more popular than another. It's often times something that just happened to happen due to chance.

 

[TunTun]

Is not popular because people don't like it.

 

[CadmarLegend]

Is not popular because people don't like it.

Exactly. It needs more exposure to be tested if people like it or not, as well.

 

[ZynGrand]

AS everyone on the internet is undoubtedly a manly male, they dislike their favored genre, Gender Bender, focusing on men instead of cute girls to ogle. Unlike females, most Men do not like to look at other Men, as it is a sign of weakness.

I personally think both are good, because Cute is Justice, and Justice is Blind. I am also blind, both literally and in regards to taste.

 

[TunTun]

Exactly. It needs more exposure to be tested if people like it or not, as well.

Is not an exposure problem. Is a "I don't wanna read that," Problem.

AS everyone on the internet is undoubtedly a manly male, they dislike their favored genre, Gender Bender, focusing on men instead of cute girls to ogle. Unlike females, most Men do not like to look at other Men, as it is a sign of weakness.

I personally think both are good, because Cute is Justice, and Justice is Blind. I am also blind, both literally and in regards to taste.

You are right, and I would like to add that the struggles of men are a bit more dark in nature. So it limits the options of what it can be, without defeating the purpose of the gender switch.

 

[Jet]

Such a hard question, tbh. Been wondering for many years myself, and got nowhere close to understanding, anyway. I remember f2m being way more popular when I first got into reading gb manga back in 07-11. Most titles were f2m crossdressing back then. Such as Hana Kimi (the most popular gb manga still?), Girl got game, Boku ni Natta Watashi, Himitsu no Himegimi Uwasa no Ouji, Uwasa no Midori kun, Mi Ri Hwang and Yu Rang Han's long list of titles, etc.. But Tgstorytime emerged somewhere along the way in 11. And it's never been the same since then, really.

I'm not sure. Maybe women aren't as interested in gb as men are. Can't fantasise much due to birth-giving instincts? Does that carry over to other types of tf? Never noticed, tbh. It makes sense for guys to write m2f and girls f2m. Coz need a point of reference, right? But it's getting hard to tell who's who these days. Some ppl roleplay in irl, not just online. But it seems that are very few female gb writers around. It's hard to find a decent f2m story too. Which adds to the problem if anything. Most go along the same lines of the new man getting overjoyed with being stronger, faster, more functional..in control(?), and that's it, really. The conflict, inner or not is lacking. M2F stories turn out subtle at times. Specked with curious nuances. Are there any f2m stories like that in the first place? I enjoy both in equal measure, but that dissimilarity is glaring.

 

[Kuropon]

I've been thinking of writing an FtM GB fanfic for Scribble Hub and, when I mentioned it to my GB-expert friend, she warned me that I'll most likely get flamed for it. Apparently since most fetishisers don't like it and some trans men are offended by it, it gets no support overall, but plenty of hatred.
(Fire cannot kill a dragon, though~!)

As for GB BL, though... I have read one like that before. I disliked it for the same reason that I dislike GB yuri without a trans MC: it just feels like a straight person trying to creepily insert themselves into a lesbian/gay fantasy. Also, it tends to run high on deception in relationships.

Most BL fans seem to enjoy the fact that they don't have to worry about the misrepresenttion of women in their romances, so there's no reason for them to go through extra steps to add them back in.

Hm, wouldn't be just a male MC with a girl's mind though? Think it could be fine, depends if you do it right, maybe look up at how trans males experience life after the transition and apply it to the story. Can still have all the popular stuff like LitRPG, herems ect.

 

[bafflinghaze]

I'm someone who has written BL with trans male characters (both original and fanfic). I both like and at reading stories about girls dressing up as men because to my trans lens is too strong and I feel sad they don't turn out to be trans.... I feel like these stories are pretty popular, and there is definitely at least one comic as such being promoted on tapas....

Throwing in my guesses on maybe why FTM Gender Bender and FTM BL are not that popular:

• going on how many MTF gender bender is written by and consumed by trans women....maybe less trans men read
• in terms of romance, there is already a lot(lot lot lot) of romance that is cis Girl/Boy and Boy/Boy written for a predominantly female audience. Reading them, do you really have time to read much else? Basically, if you want a main female character with a guy, there are girl/boy romances. If you want to main male character with a male character, there is BL.
  • And since most readers are not trans--and it's not fetishised in the same way? (don't kill me for this)--and so it's not seen as interesting or 'exciting' to have a trans male character or a genderbent girl-inside-a-guy's-body?
• and to be honest.... in BL, there are a lot of "traditional heterosexual-like" relationships, where the bottom is feminised, called "wifey" etc. Nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot of it. Not to mention the popularity of omega/alpha pairings (where the omega is a guy who can get pregnant--> kinda almost transman like anyway)

I had more thoughts but I forgot them....anyway AO3 has more FTM stuff, though less "magical transformation" and more "trans" style FTM

 

[Moonpearl]

Hm, wouldn't be just a male MC with a girl's mind though? Think it could be fine, depends if you do it right, maybe look up at how trans males experience life after the transition and apply it to the story. Can still have all the popular stuff like LitRPG, herems ect.

A trans man transitioning is very different to a cis woman presenting as a man through clothes or transformation.

Trans men transitioning are actively working towards a state that makes them happier and relieves dysphoria - a woman in a GB would have her presentation be at odds with her identity, and is likely to go from having no dysphoria to at least some.

They're basically complete opposites.

That said, I have no interest in writing a serious GB. The FtM GB I loved as a child was basically escape fantasy for women, and that's what I felt like recreating for myself.

 

[Kuropon]

A trans man transitioning is very different to a cis woman presenting as a man through clothes or transformation.

Trans men transitioning are actively working towards a state that makes them happier and relieves dysphoria - a woman in a GB would have her presentation be at odds with her identity, and is likely to go from having no dysphoria to at least some.

They're basically complete opposites.

That said, I have no interest in writing a serious GB. The FtM GB I loved as a child was basically escape fantasy for women, and that's what I felt like recreating for myself.

Opposites? Not really sure, read some things about Female to male transitions and how the person found out that living like a male was not what he expected. Could bring up those issues as the woman would be living in the male body, the experience in that sense would be similar.

 

[ohko]

I’ve definitely dabbled with ftm fics, but one of the things that always makes me the most hesitant is that transmale characters (often those who come from cis writers who ordinarily write BL) are often written in ways that are fetishistic/insensitive/offensive for transmen.

What I mean by this is that a lot of ftm fics are written by cis authors for a cisfemale audience, and the “femininity” of the character is something that is strongly and repeatedly emphasized (as it’s a trope in BL to begin with), which isn’t very pleasant to read if you’re trans.

MTF is different because a lot of it is written by trans authors for trans audiences, so there’s a really special community that has developed around the style of content here.

 

[Derin_Edala]

I'm not familiar with how the GB trope is defined these days. Do realistic stories with trans characters count as gender bender stories? Or do they have to involve unwilling deception/transformation?

 

[CL]

FtM...

Let me start by saying that transmasculine writers have it rough trying to get any kind of immersion with other transgender writers. You ever try to speak in a voice they'd understand? They don't get it. A world has shone a myriad of colors over their life and that is the only spectrum they can see. I ended up converting my speech pattern to theirs. I never liked talking this way.

It's simple.

The language I want to use had people thinking. I don't want to have to explain specifically what is going on. I want you all to discover different perspectives of the same image. We went through this elementary lesson. No one will have the identical thought the other had when they read this rant.

That isn't what transfeminine writers wanted of me. They wanted me to write through the same lens. I had to concentrate their sights on a clear message.

It's funny. I remember a few authors being disturbed by the mention of a female turning into a male. The manner that they saw it was "turning back" into a man. The next thing I see are rules on what we can say. If someone feels uncomfortable, I have to zip it. Even the conversation of "guys" turning into women became an eyesore.

Women. Always women. There is a transition, but just as God always was and will be, so are women. Men don't exist.

It's simple: I can't talk about what I want.

So how in the fucking hell am I suppose to write a story about it?

 

[BenJepheneT]

Very less incentive, no demand, and thus, no supply

 

[CL]

I'm not familiar with how the GB trope is defined these days. Do realistic stories with trans characters count as gender bender stories? Or do they have to involve unwilling deception/transformation?

That is a tug-o-war between transfiction and transfetish writers.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I'm not familiar with how the GB trope is defined these days. Do realistic stories with trans characters count as gender bender stories? Or do they have to involve unwilling deception/transformation?

It's like the arguement between dark fantasy or just plain fantasy with dark elements, only that the subject matter is a hell of a lot more volatile.

 

[Derin_Edala]

It's like the arguement between dark fantasy or just plain fantasy with dark elements, only that the subject matter is a hell of a lot more volatile.

My main character's a trans man, so it's great to know I might've accidentally stumbled into a definition war I didn't know or care about.

 

[BenJepheneT]

My main character's a trans man, so it's great to know I might've accidentally stumbled into a definition war I didn't know or care about.

As long as you can sleep at night, it's fine.

 

[AliceShiki]

I'm not familiar with how the GB trope is defined these days. Do realistic stories with trans characters count as gender bender stories? Or do they have to involve unwilling deception/transformation?

Gender Bender is a really broad genre that encompasses basically everything that has to do with gender and/or sex changes.

So yes, realistic transgender fiction count.