Why are there so few Female to Male GB stories?

[RootBeerBert]

I don’t really read GB stories, though I do skim through some of them and I’ve noticed that all usually have a male mc turn into a female but I was wondering why there are none (or so few) that have a female turn into a male. This is just curiosity so please enlighten this ignorant one!

 

[Reyezwriting]

It's not that appealing? Although my wife used to love Ouran High School. Maybe if someone tries something like that?

 

[greyblob]

because the majority of gb readers and authors are men themselves

 

[Temple]

^ This. Men can get male turning female, not the other way around. Notice that female to male GB have mostly female fans.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Uterus envy.

 

[ioriangel]

That's because those inevitably end up being yaoi if the MC isn't lesbian.

 

[Temple]

^ which circles back to having majority male readers.

 

[Deleted member 80680]

That's because those inevitably end up being yaoi if the MC isn't lesbian.

Hm, technically still straight. Might end up writing one, have a cool idea in my head

 

[LordJoyde]

Because why would I turn a woman into a man when I can turn her into a futanari instead?

 

[BlackKnightX]

Because there seems to be more male readers on this site than female. The target readers for male-to-female GB are usually male for obvious reason—especially if it’s GL.

 

[PancakesWitch]

Becuause all the perverts here want to be cute girls

 

[AnUnknownMan]

I would be interested in seeing both happen concurrently to a couple. The foil dynamic would work well and help contextualize any messages made. Seeing both a man trying to be an ideal woman fail miserably and vice versa would help highlight how little they understand what they truly want.

 

[Cipiteca396]

I would be interested in seeing both happen concurrently to a couple. The foil dynamic would work well and help contextualize any messages made. Seeing both a man trying to be an ideal woman fail miserably and vice versa would help highlight how little they understand what they truly want.

There's a whole subgenre for that called Body Swap.

I don’t really read GB stories, though I do skim through some of them and I’ve noticed that all usually have a male mc turn into a female but I was wondering why there are none (or so few) that have a female turn into a male. This is just curiosity so please enlighten this ignorant one!

This site has a large transgender audience, mostly female. Because of that, there's a lot of people who want to write mtf but not as much for ftm.

Aside from that, and what others have said, it's mostly about popularity. There's a lot of successful mtf genderbender, and so people think that making their story genderbender will guarantee them popularity. But there's only a few ftm stories, and so writers aren't sure that anyone will read it if they write it.

Going back to the popularity thing, if a male author wants to write a Female Protagonist to draw in more readers, but isn't confident in their ability to make a female character, they sometimes use genderbender as an excuse for why their character doesn't act quite 'right'. Those ones are usually pretty recognizable though.

 

[CL]

That's because those inevitably end up being yaoi if the MC isn't lesbian.

You say it turning into yaoi as if it is a bad thing.

Hm, technically still straight. Might end up writing one, have a cool idea in my head

You have my support.

Because why would I turn a woman into a man when I can turn her into a futanari instead?

Or give them a tail that acts as a phallic-like object (tentacle(s)?).

I would be interested in seeing both happen concurrently to a couple. The foil dynamic would work well and help contextualize any messages made. Seeing both a man trying to be an ideal woman fail miserably and vice versa would help highlight how little they understand what they truly want.

Instead of "swingers" we get "swappers"? That sounds like it'd be a cool theme.

There's a whole subgenre for that called Body Swap.

This site has a large transgender audience, mostly female. Because of that, there's a lot of people who want to write mtf but not as much for ftm.

Aside from that, and what others have said, it's mostly about popularity. There's a lot of successful mtf genderbender, and so people think that making their story genderbender will guarantee them popularity. But there's only a few ftm stories, and so writers aren't sure that anyone will read it if they write it.

Going back to the popularity thing, if a male author wants to write a Female Protagonist to draw in more readers, but isn't confident in their ability to make a female character, they sometimes use genderbender as an excuse for why their character doesn't act quite 'right'. Those ones are usually pretty recognizable though.

It isn't just that, but some of the readers of mtf are against ftm stories and go out of their way to harass those authors. I know of at least one who is even against anything non-lesbian (this included stories about kids). These types of "haters" are demoralizing because they've come from a place many of the transgender authors migrated away from and that place's moderator was very negligent towards that kind of toxicity. So, yes, there are more of the male-to-female stories due to popularity, but also because there are a few mentally unwell people who are willing to put an ax in our heads for even thinking about female-to-male content (even more if BL relationships are involved).

 

[AryaX]

You may get rid of the pesky Y chromosome and clone the X and get XX... but how do you expect to turn XX into XY ?

 

[AliceShiki]

People often overthink those things too much.

MtF is more popular, so there are more MtF works to use as reference.

Authors always have their references. Nobody creates stories without reading other stories and inspiring themselves on stuff they read.

If one never read a FtM story, chances are, they'll most likely not think of making a FtM story because they have 0 references there, and as such, they have very little sources of inspiration for their own FtM story.

It's this simple. MtF is more popular and inertia is a powerful force. The more people do MtF, the more people start seeing it, and therefore start getting inspired by it to make their own MtF stuff.

FtM will grow too with time, but inertia currently pushes for MtF, so that is that.


As for people talking about male/female readerbase proportion... They are half-right at best.

Gender Bender has two very different audiences with close to 0 overlap.

One part of the audience wants to see the Gender Bender for laughs. They wanna see the main character into unusual situations because of the genderbending, and want to see the genderbent character still feel like their original gender and pursue a same sex relationship... That's the audience that is supposedly predominantly male and that prefers MtF.

The other audience are the people that care about seeing internal struggles of the genderbent person. They want to see the gender bending taken seriously, and they want to see the genderbent character thinking more about themselves and their current situation... For this audience, MtF and FtM have very little difference. They care a lot more about how well the author depicts the story and its characters as a whole.


As for the haters and stuff... Uhn... Not much more to say about it, I guess? Report them if they're harrassing you, and ignore them otherwise? You'll have to learn how to deal with this kind of people when dealing with the public.

 

[Ai-chan]

Now, this is speaking generally. Ai-chan is not dissing either. But for the majority of the people on Earth:

Tomboyish girl = Adorable
Sissy boy = Disgusting

When you write gender bender, much of the original gender's mannerism and mentality would be carried over. While hormones can affect behaviour and body musculator and skeletal features can affect mannerism, you don't just forget stuff you've grown up with for your entire life. Anime may make sissy boys funny, but in real life, a lot of people are not comfortable around such people.

But then again, if you don't make the gender bender realistic and choose instead to avoid the cringe, your story will not be interesting to people who do read those stories. But if you make it realistic, you lose out on the majority of the readers on that site. You can cop out by making a tomboyish girl into a man, to avoid the cringe, but what's the point? Might as well just make the character a man from the start. For that matter, it's not as popular as MtF. The pitfalls and challenges are a lot less.

 

[minacia]

FTM genderbender was one of my favorite genres growing up, but specifically only in the crossdressing/genderbender sense and not the trans sense (because I'm not FTM trans). I think it's really important to keep in mind that GB as a genre is very heavily split between transgender and non-transgender reader demographics.

Coming as someone from the latter category, the biggest appeal of FTM GB growing up was upending gender stereotypes. I thought it was super cool when the female protagonist would crossdress as a man and become a knight or king, and I just enjoyed that type of story a lot. A lot of my favorite teen novels and manga follow that kind of plot (i.e. Basara). The heroine isn't trans though, because she continues to identify as female through the entirety of the story, and there isn't really any interest in obtaining a male body aside for strict plot reasons.

Structurally though, this type of story is very different from a lot of the MTF GB here, most of which are stories that are targeted to trans audiences (or egg audiences), or alternatively men who have a transformation fetish. The style is so different that sometimes it doesn't even feel like the FTM crossdressing stories are the same genre as genderbender as a whole. In fact, FTM crossdressing is really common in shoujo/josei, and a lot times people neglect to tag it as genderbender. On the other hand, MTF crossdressing is almost always tagged as genderbender (i.e. genshiken nidaime, princess jellyfish).

EDIT:
Oh, I also forgot about this until after I posted, but another appeal of FTM GB was being able to get close to guys that you like.

For instance, the plot of Hana Kimi is that she crossdresses as a guy and goes to an all-boys school... and the ML is her roommate (and she has to hide the fact that she's a girl from him). It's really entertaining and teenage me was really excited about it. I guess this is very similar to the MTF GB in the girl's locker room trope, although idk why male-oriented manga always has an ecchi spin and makes the MC seem creepy.

But yeah, FTM GB into an all-boys sports anime setting sounds like a type of story/fanfic you could definitely find if you went looking for it.

 

[AryaX]

...On the other hand, MTF crossdressing is almost always tagged as genderbender...

Is it? Umm... I don't recall any among what i've read... Maybe there were, but I just don't remember...

But if there is any truth to that... Then... I Hate That!

If crossdressing was what I wanted, I would look for it...

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Because Being female is living life on easy mode.

Seriously. I deal with suicidal clients and transgender is like, the biggest red flag. When you have male to female, the problem seems to be around how hard it is to pass as a woman. But Woman to man? They often remark how hard it is. Woman are told that men are in charge of the world and all this nonsense. No. Men do not work together. We all are alone. There is no male conspiracy.

The 1% of men who are in charge of everything are not All men. Women seem to think all men are like CEOs. There's been studies. They think 80% of men are below average in appearance.

80% of men are... well... losers. Barely getting by, hardworking slobs. Only the top 20% of men actually REALLY get to enjoy being a man.

Now, if 80% of men have crappy lives, and you are jumping into this "pool" of people and now you have to compete with other men who will COLD STONE SHANK YOU WITHOUT A THOUGHT, what is the likelihood, you, a trans-man are going to find yourself in the top 20% of men who are 'Above average', much less the 1% who are actually successful?

Now, is every aspect of being a woman better than being a man? Hell no. Different sets of problems, different sets of priorities. But what I mean is, as a woman, if you sat down on the side of the road and cried, there is a good chance someone will stop to check on you. If you are a man, at BEST you will be ignored, at worst, arrested and sent to a rubber room.

Men are expendable. Society is BUILT on the disposability of men. Men are chewed up and spit out all the time and every other man looks at that 1% of men that are REAL losers with distain. Women are born with inherent worth. A woman is valued for her ability to have children, even if she has nothing else going for her. SOMEWHERE there is a man who will want you, if you have fertile eggs.

Women are human beings. Men are human doings.
If a man isn't DOING something... what good is he?

I know some of you are going to shout, "How sexist" and shit, but I'm sorry, in general, this is the way the world works. And if you think I'm complaining, you are wrong. Wouldn't have it any other way. I'm in that 20%, so I'm just fine with the system as is. I worked HARD to get to my spot, and the system gets rid of the weak.

So a man wanting to become a woman is a man who wants to enjoy the privilege of being in the protected class of 'female'.
A woman becoming a man just winds up having to fight constantly. The doors would open for you because men opened those doors for you. Now, those doors are slammed in your face because those same men now see you as a THREAT. You are now a competitor.

Hate to say this, but where's the market in this?

The only men who would read this are men who would enjoy it sadistically. They would read it to watch the woman suffer, and honestly? Men love women. We do. We think you're great. Most of us don't like watching women suffer, unless it's so we can come save them. We like that. Makes us feel useful.

What about women? DO you really want to read a story that highlights how good you have it? You might have some sympathy for men and then the whole system breaks down. If we can't send men off to die in war, to dig the ditches, to risk their lives to make society function, because we actually see them as human, then who's going to do all the dirty/dangerous jobs?

In the end, all most men want is to be thanked. That's what we want. We don't mind doing crazy heroic or suicidal things, we just want you to thank us afterwards.

As a woman, do you want to become a man, risk your life getting someone out of a burning building, then get Spit on because of your 'Male Privilege'? And that's not a joke. That happened. I got to hear it from him while I was consoling him in the TLS. I got... SO MANY horror stories. You have no idea.

My point is, they go male to female because it's a positive change. Female to male is almost always a negative one. People don't like stories about suffering for suffering's sake.
---

BTW, Side note:
The word for Female human is Woman.
The word for both genders is Human.
The word for Male human is Wereman.

With the coming of the industrial revolution, this world fell out of use. You stopped calling someone a wereman and called them by their job. He is a POLICEman, a GARBAGEman, a GENTLEman. If someone says it's policeman and policewoman, correct them and say, "No. It is Policewoman, Policehuman, and policewereman, but that's stupid, so just stick with the gender neutral policeman.

Society itself killed the word for Male Man and instead a man is referred to by his job. This is my point on how a woman is a human being, and a man is a human DOING.

Also, Werewolf means Half Male Human/Half wolf. A wolfman would be a better, gender neutral term, because werewolves are only male. A female werewolf would be called...

A Woowolf

I find that hysterical.