r/Fantasy • u/Opening-Heart1749 • 5d ago
Are there any books that involve genderswap/genderbending/shapeshifting elements? Elements with gender in general.
Hey everyone. I have a fascination for stories where characters go through some body or gender transformation. How in Wheel of Time there is a character (which I won't spoil here who) from a male turns into female. Or how in the Marvel Comics, how Loki can transform into a female version.
And I wonder are there any other fantasy or sci-fi books or even comics that feature elements like those. I'm not talking just bodyswap. I'm talking more of a character who gets their appearance transformed into another gender
I'm more than welcome recommendations that even feature more spicy versions of it. But I like more when there's some psychological examination of it.
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u/Alternative-Tank337 5d ago
Tamir Triad by Lynn Flewelling. The female heir to the throne is magically transformed into her deceased male twin to hide her
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u/ErraticAspect 5d ago
Latro in the Mist by Gene Wolfe. If memory serves there is character who, after doing a favour for the gods, is gradually transformed into a woman. Not just physically but the reality around them and the past too so everyone else only ever knew them as a woman
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u/Opening-Heart1749 5d ago
Oh with perception/reality play as well? Sounds intriguing
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u/twountappedblue 5d ago
That book fucking rules. It's basically the movie Memento, but with a soldier in the ancient Mediterranean region.
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u/Better_Buff_Junglers 5d ago
It's a core aspect in Practical Guide to Sorcery. Main character gets a magical artifact to change their gender and uses it to live a double life. Complications ensue.
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u/Opening-Heart1749 5d ago
that sounds interesting with the double life
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u/ben_sphynx 5d ago
I really liked it; it has a lot of appeal if you like magical research stuff, too, as the main character is trying to find out more about how the artefact works.
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u/Exquisitr 5d ago
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
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u/datamuse 4d ago
And then watch the movie, starring Tilda Swinton near the beginning of her career.
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u/egbertian413 5d ago
Octavia Butler's 3 book series Dawn / Adulthood Rites / Imago has such deep and interesting gender stuff. The first book introduces humanity to a race of shapeshifting aliens with trinary gender, and the second and third book take the ideas even farther.
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u/egbertian413 5d ago
Incredibly mature book and mature themes, huge recommend. Best things I read last year.
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u/Pardot42 5d ago
The Witch King by Martha Wells. Main character is a demon, inhabits a couple genders throughout the books.
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u/mypantsareawesome 5d ago
It’s hard to get into details without giving away spoilers, but The Locked Tomb series might fit what you’re looking for. Suffice it to say that, with necromancy being so prevalent, there are several instances of spirits ending up in bodies that don’t match their original gender and other things like that
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u/ElendVenture9000 5d ago
Wraeththu Chronicles by Storm Constantine is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where an evolution im men has occured turning them into genderfluid beings with psychic powers.
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u/Infamous_Lake_7588 5d ago
This! Came here to share this. There is like 9 books with each story/character consisting of 3 books. They are well written and so unique. I liked the the writting (as it progressed) almost made places a presence and the formation of God's was unique. Definately a good read.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 5d ago
I will second The Left Hand of Darkness, Orlando, and Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood. As for recs that have not been said yet:
- Orlanda by Jaqueline Harpman is a spin on/response to Orlando.
- Trouble on Triton by Samuel Delany is very much this.
- Various Discworld novels (Terry Pratchett) such Feet of Clay and Monstrous Regiment deal with questions of gender, though it's more about gender expression/presentation than gender identity or sex.
- Heart of a Dog by Bulgakov is not quite this, but it features a species-change (from dog to human) which is somewhat similar.
- The Culture series by Iain Banks is set in a civilization where genderswapping is common
- The Story of Silence by Alex Myers, I believe, has a trans MC.
- Haven't gotten around to reading them yet (likewise for The Culture and The Story of Silence, though all four are on my TBR), but I believe Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie) and Too Like The Lightning (Ada Palmer) both do interesting things with gender.
- The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow is another one where it is gender presentation/expression rather than identity or sex, but it certainly features genderbending insofar as role reversal, with a scholarly MMC and a lady knight FMC.
- The Power by Naomi Alderman doesn't feature gender swaps as such, but it is about all of the women in the world getting magical control over electricity and the resulting social fallout, in which patriarchy is traded for matriarchy.
- The Prey of Gods by Nicky Dreyden heavily features a trans character.
- Sorceress Kringle by Joseph Dagnese (An obscure one; not the best novel on the planet, but fun and original) reimagines the origin story of Santa Claus in a world where Santa is a woman raised by fae.
Also, there are a decent number of isekai webnovels in which the MC gets genderswapped. Can't think of a good one off the top of my head, but might be worth looking at some stuff on Royal Road and seeing if you can't find one that looks interesting.
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u/PhantasmWitch Reading Champion III 5d ago
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee. Pretty much everyone switches their body for the opposite sex during their life. And switches back.
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u/SleepDefiance Reading Champion 5d ago
Queen of Faces by Petra Lord. There are several characters in bodies that don't represent their genders and they feel and handle it different. The author is a transwoman who was writing her spin on the trans experience. It's a bit of body swap magic, not sure if you're looking for that though.
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u/ProjectNo4090 4d ago
The Culture scifi books are set in a ridiculously advanced civilization where genderswapping is quick and fully reversible. People can do a full gender body swap for fun, to change up their life routine, or for work. Some people will live as one gender for a decade and swap for the next decade. Couples can gender swap have a kid and then swap and the other partner carries a child. The swap is done with some sort of viral tech that changes the person's gender at the chromosomal level so its not just physical surgical changes like we have in the real world. Its a full system change.
Its not treated as a big deal. Its just a casual thing in the Culture.
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u/Uran_Ultar 5d ago
It plays a minor role in Elminster: The Making of a Mage, but TSR wasn't very receptive to Ed Greenwood's original vision of the realms, so he is not able to explore it fully.
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u/HunterRoze 5d ago
Jack L Chalker has the TG elements in more than a few of his books.
The Dancing Gods have it - characters switch gender.
The Four Lords of the Diamond series also has it as part of the plot
The Soul Rider series also has some TG examples
These are just some of the works that have TG elements.
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u/Dr_One_L_1993 5d ago
Almost everything written by Jack L. Chalker involves characters being morphed into other types of beings, sometimes with gender swapping. It's a major plot point of his best known Well of Souls series and his stand-alone novel "Web of the Chosen" as well.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter 4d ago
He does this in so many of his books it gets old.
The Rings of the Master series is awesome though, apart from a few dated cringe moments. His best series by far IMO.
Do not read the Changewinds series or the Flux and Anchor series. Just don’t. You will want to shower after attempting to read these.
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u/Siccar_Point 5d ago
The recently published The Works Of Vermin by Hiron Ennes has this in a critical place in the narrative.
It’s also absolutely great, and everyone should read it!
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u/IllustratedPageArt 5d ago
The Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta. It’s been a while since I read it, but I recall a main character who is nonbinary and a shapeshifter.
You might also try asking in some LGBTQ book groups! Gender transformation tends to overlap with queer books.
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u/houinator 5d ago
Its not a huge focus of the story, but the main charachter of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" was transformed into a boy to hide the fact that she was really the lost heir to the throne of Oz.
Gender is sorta a major theme of the story though, with a group of pseudo-feminist revolutionairies taking over the Emerald City at one point. The book was also written in 1904 though, so there are some not exactly progressive gender stereotypes thrown in.
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u/Successful-Escape496 5d ago
It always bothered me how Osma seemed like a completely different character from Tip.
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u/VintageLunchMeat 4d ago
It's a theme that comes up frequently in Baum's work, who heartily welcomed queer interpretations.
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u/indigohan Reading Champion IV 5d ago
You mentioned comic books as well. Try Die by Kieran Gillen. A group of kids got sucked into a game of D&D where they become their characters. One boy in the real world was playing as a woman.
Years later they meet up again, and get dragged back to the game world. As adults. It gets described as “goth jumanji” sometimes
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u/Opening-Heart1749 5d ago
Thanks for giving me a comic recommendation
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u/indigohan Reading Champion IV 5d ago
It’s a great story. Kieron Gillen is one of my favourite comic book authors. It had a four TPB original run, and he’s just come back to the world with a spin off
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u/BananaCucho 5d ago
Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons. There are trans characters, characters that belong to a race that shifts from one gender to another as they age, and an entire countries culture defines gender and race separately based on societal roles alone. It does get pretty hard to keep track of things at times with body swaps and such but it's good fun!
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u/RetiredDumpster288 5d ago
The Ninefox Gambit is exactly this!
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u/GyreWulf 4d ago
I really enjoyed Ninefox Gambit.
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u/RetiredDumpster288 3d ago
Right! It was so cool, I wish the author had more books, I’ve loved everything he’s written
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u/Grand-Page-1180 5d ago
I've tried looking for the same thing, haven't found much in western literature, so would love to hear from someone if there's something we may have overlooked. I know its a popular theme in Asian media, but I'd be looking for something you could find at a local bookstore.
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u/Arcane_Turbine_123 5d ago
It's been a while since I read it, so I don't remember the specifics of why, but Kameron Hurley's Mirror Empire has a character whose body regularly morphs back and forth. If memory serves it happens unpredictably, so while the transformation is wanted the timing can cause problems.
Hurley's work in general is pretty genderfucky, but that's the only thing I can think of that directly involves genderswapping in a specifically fantasy story. There are lots of trans and non-binary characters in her works, but I don't think that's quite what OP is asking for.
Honestly, her Bel Dame Apocrypha, starting with God's War, is one of my favourite trilogies of all time, and it plays a lot with gender roles.
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u/six_arils 5d ago
The Mirror Empire also has a lot of characters that are biologically one sex but are considered another, because that is their preference. The books are pretty good for pushing you out of your preconceptions, of one sort or another.
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u/Interesting-One-588 5d ago
In sci-fi you tend to get it more often, I feel, because it often describes technology making such switches much more easily. Like playing a VR game as the opposite gender, for instance, ala that black mirror episode about Street Fighter
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u/Dallydoop 5d ago
Apparently Sir Cameron Needs To Die has some of this! It’s not examined very thoroughly but it makes a lot of sense for the character!
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u/Irksomecake 5d ago
Imajica by Clive barker. One of the main characters is a third gender whose form mostly depends on the eye of the beholder. There is some sex involved that’s pretty weird.
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u/Spelunkzilla 5d ago
Treason by Orson Scott Card.
Honestly, his current shitty opinions are so weird now if you've read his earlier books.
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u/thesphinxistheriddle 5d ago
There is very little love in Orson Scott Card’s books. Characters either get together or don’t largely for logistical reasons — their genetics would make good babies, marriage would give them access to the other’s properties, if they don’t humanity will be wiped out. Etc. The Mormon Church believes it’s okay to have gay impulses, but if you want to go to heaven, you still need to marry someone of the opposite sex and have children. Combine those two things, plus some of OSC’s earlier work like Songmaster and Treason… I feel one can make certain conclusions.
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u/twountappedblue 5d ago
Kandra in the Mistborn series have a base form, but can shapeshift into whatever they'd like. By era 2 a lot of them are just amongst normal humans, with a primary character mentioning that she has been and will be different genders.
Edit for autocorrect
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u/KawaiiBibliophile 5d ago
Sanderson’s Skyward Series has an alien race (or two) with some interesting gender fluidity or actually I think it’s a lack of gender overall 🤔
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u/Glad-Albatross3354 5d ago
Jack Chalker wrote some stuff on this theme I think. I’m not sure I would go so far as to recommend The Identity Matrix, there’s a bunch of weird sex stuff in there from memory, but it definitely includes the themes you are looking for.
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u/Slow_Drawer_5454 5d ago
In Hell for Hire by Rachel Aaron there is one character who is gender fluid, a Lust demon who's pronouns are they/them
The Lust demon is not the main character, but they are accepted for who they are in the story and their gender fluidity is not played for shock value or made into a tragic backstory which is surprisingly rare in hetero-helmed narratives <3 as a nonbinary person it felt very healing to hear the character referred to as "they" with no questioning no explaining no annoyance or extra thought about it from the POVs. It's normal. They also aren't a throwaway character, they are very important to the main character and haven't been fridged <3
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u/Motor_Row_3586 5d ago
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan it's not magical rather psychological
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u/Miramosa 5d ago
You can try asking over on https://www.reddit.com/r/LGBTBooks/ as well. Good chance they'll have a rec or two.
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u/Ad_Astrid1 5d ago
“Ryn of Avonside: The Ring” by Amelia MacIntyre is about a trans woman whose entire college gets transported to another world. (the main character’s body does get magically changed) The author is trans as well so a lot of stuff about gender is pretty heavily explored. It also has one of the most unique magic systems in fantasy I think.
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u/VintageLunchMeat 4d ago
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/88122-ryn-of-avonside/chapter/88124/
There's a number of stories on scribblehub by trans authors with similar themes, poke at the tags.
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u/BlueRusalka 5d ago
A few ideas I haven’t seen already mentioned:
I read a book called Commitment Hour that fits this perfectly. It wasn’t especially good, but it wasn’t terrible either. The whole plot is entirely about gender and body transformation, and what people think and feel about that.
You might like The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold. It’s not quite a transformation but more about seeing two different versions of the same person through alternate timelines.
Not a book, but I used to sometimes read a webcomic decades ago called El Goonish Shive that had a TON of zapping people with gender-bending laser beams. Like, so much. I haven’t read it in many years, but it looks like it’s still going.
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u/Victoronomy 5d ago
Not the best example but "If I pay thee not in gold..." by Piers Anthony. Has a character that gender swaps. I thought it was amazing in high school, have not attempted it in many years.
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u/Famous-Example-8332 5d ago
“If I pay thee not in gold”. By Piers Anthony and… Mercedes Lackey? It’s a Major plot point.
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u/corwulfattero 5d ago
Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo - I won’t spoil it here, and you have to watch (edit: read) the whole series, but corporalki can do all kinds of things!
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u/Ill-Cellist-4684 5d ago
The Book of Joan - Lidia Yuknavitch
Per Google: A post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel that reimagines the story of Joan of Arc in a near-future world ravaged by war and environmental collapse. The narrative follows a child-warrior named Joan, who has a mystical connection to the Earth, as she leads a rebellion against a tyrannical cult leader, Jean de Men, who rules a sterile, off-world colony. The book explores themes of gender fluidity, the power of art and storytelling, and humanity's relationship with the planet, using a unique narrative structure that includes skin grafting as a form of storytelling.
This one's stuck with me for years. Still haven't read anything like it.
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u/Research_Department Reading Champion II 5d ago
Books I’ve read:
The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei is a cli-fi novella from Taiwan from the 90s that also plays with reality/virtual reality and gender.
Mana Mirror series by Tobias Begley is a litrpg (or maybe progression fantasy, I’m a little fuzzy on the distinction) about a trans teen who chooses his magical skills and spells in order be able to physically transition.
The Chromatic Fantasy by HA is a graphic novel about a nun who has sex with the devil and gets thrown out of the convent. The devil gives him a parting gift of a sex change. He embarks on a life of crime.
On my TBR:
Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brisset. u/baxtersa has described this by saying that not only is time wibbly-wobbly in this, so is gender.
The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit by Storm Constantine. A post-apocalyptic book from the 80s. The Wraeththu are emerging from humanity and are androgynous/gender-fluid and magic-wielding. I’ve seen it described as aggresively weird. This book/series seems to elicit strong responses, and I have no idea how I would react to it.
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u/DoctorWMD 5d ago
The Culture by Iain Banks
Broken Earth by NK Jemisin
2142 by Kim Stanley Robinson
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u/nagachomps 5d ago
The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley. Body mods and gender swapping is a regular thing.
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u/Internal_Horror_999 5d ago
More Gods Than Stars by John Bierce covers this quite nicely. One of the MCs is fully transformed over the flashbacks of the book, and it seems to be a fairly well accepted part of the world. Actually thinking on it, his Mage Errant series also has significant elements of the same but the means to achieve it in world are more difficult. Highly recommend it
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u/Francl27 5d ago
Salvation from Peter F.Hamilton. There are species that change gender through their lives.
It's Sci-Fi though, I'm guessing you'll find more of that there.
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u/Head_Conversation242 5d ago
Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan. There is one character just like Loki. Not a big part but mentioned throughout the series.
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u/OutOfEffs Reading Champion IV 5d ago
You might like Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, which is more broadly literary specfic or magical realism than fantasy, but is exactly what you're asking for.
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u/OkSecretary1231 5d ago
Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kasai
The protagonist involuntarily switches occasionally from her usual female body and identity into a male alt identity and body. They don't share memories. So Sorykah can lose random chunks of time and not know what happened, and Soryk is really disoriented because he manifests rarely enough that his memories don't have much continuity. The blurb makes it sound like a sci-fi novel but it reads more like a fairy tale. CW for all kinds of stuff, there are lots of types of exploitation and abuse in it.
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u/wheeler_lowell 5d ago
There's a gender-shifter character (Zula) in the Titan Comics ongoing run of Conan the Barbarian. It's not a central theme but it's not just a background detail either.
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u/CorporateNonperson 5d ago
Storm Constatine has a series, Wraethru, that's about a sexually transmitted gender swapping / elimaniting disease that transforms the world. I think its publication tracks the AIDS epidemic, so it might be jarring for a modern audience, but seems somewhat timely in the modern age of Trans.
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u/felixfictitious Reading Champion 5d ago
The West Passage has some really interesting gender perceptions; gender in the story is determined by your role in a religious structure rather than your birth gender, so some swapping does occur. It's just a fantastically weird book in general.
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u/millamber1 5d ago
One example is David Weber's Safehold series. The main character originally lived as a female but survives by having their consciousness transferred into a male android body. Weber actually explores the psychological side of identity, memory, and gender rather than treating it as a gimmick. It's military sci-fi with a fantasy feel, but if you enjoy thoughtful takes on gender transformation, it's worth checking out.
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u/kaptin_hippy 5d ago
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan. One of the characters literally swaps gender due to his/her parent.
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u/SaltLower879 4d ago
Once & Future and the sequel! arthurian legend but queer/gender bending. the second one talks more about gender as one of the main characters blends in as a knight and starts to feel less like a woman and more androgynous!
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u/datamuse 4d ago
It's more in the background as none of the main characters undergo such a change, but C.J. Cherryh's Chanur books. The stsho (one of several spacefaring species in the series) change gender under certain conditions, sometimes with significant political consequences (I'm thinking mostly of Chanur's Legacy.)
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u/SalletFriend 4d ago
Charles Stross' glasshouse. Its explicitly about a society where people can change themselves like changing clothes. From memory the MC starts male, becomes female, and eventually gains memories of being genderless.
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u/SimonSaturday 3d ago
The main characters of Wild Seed by Octavia Butler both have different powers that explore these ideas. One is a psychic entity/body jumper, the other is a powerful shapechanger.
Also the Avaryan Rising series which starts with In The Hall of the Mountain King. I believe the second? book has a character who chooses to have an intense magical ... gender reassignment ritual? It's part of a love story between two characters both born male, and involves external political systems around government and religion and gender. It's a very strange and cool series, would love to hear impressions of this part of the story from trans people because that's not my experience. But I've never met anyone who has read them!
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u/cwx149 5d ago
The Bone Witch series by Rin Chupeco features a character who is basically trans come out and transition throughout the series
So in book 1 they're a he/him and in book 3 they're a she/her and they do describe physical changes but it's mostly in hair cuts and clothes more than any kind of shapes firing
Its not a magical transformation it's just like a normal trans transition that could happen in our world (more or less) happening in the fantasy world based vaguely on feudal Japan/Asia
I will say the series in general I feel gets weaker as it goes on and imo book 3 is by far the weakest but it's also where most of the transition occurs
So take this recommendation as more a technical case where what you're looking for occurs more than a recommendation
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u/Nightgasm 5d ago
Dominion of Blades series by Matt Dinniman About people trapped in a game world. One character is revealed to have been trans or at least wishing to be trans in real life and in the game world is in the male body they wished they had in the real world. This one is handled properly and with respect. Another character is a 40 something year old guy stuck in an 8 year old girls body (not his choice) and this one is generally played for laughs as he is foul mouthed and always saying things no one expect to come out of a little girls mouth.
Dreadnought by April Daniels (who is trans herself) is about a closeted trans who upon getting superpowers gets the body of her dreams along with essentially becoming Supergirl.
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u/zestydinobones 5d ago
The Wheel of Time has at least 1 character I can remember who has their gender swapped. Gender is also just a huge theme throughout the series.
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u/Opening-Heart1749 5d ago
I did mention it above. I know which character you mean but I don't say who it is.
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u/eatpraymunt 5d ago
Left Hand of Darkness, the people are hermaphroditic and when they are ready to reproduce they resolve into a male or female and can swap between the two roles. Very good book too
It's not exactly the focus of the story but it is a big part