Valles Wrote:Hm. I hadn't known that the problem had a physical/neurological basis beyond, er, the obvious - though I'd never doubted its seriousness or the sincerity of those afflicted. It does raise the thought, though, that most of the 'magic reassignment' sources I've seen in fiction, both fan and pro, were of a sort - either literally magic or sufficiently ultratech to realign at the cellular level - that'd be at least capable of altering brain chemistry on the fly. That is, that someone like Ranma would be more likely to have the brain wiring go from 'Situation: Male, check' to 'Situation: Female, check' rather than 'Situation: Female, ERROR!'
That sounds like sort of the idea I was playing around with for my AJ4R character where her new body is so comfortable that she not only isn't having any gender identity issues, but she hasn't really thought about the fact that yes, she used to be male, and the whole situation is kind of odd isn't it?
As for Ranma (in general, not necessarily for this particular story), it could depend a lot on just how the author is defining curses. If they're something that came about due to wild magic and whoknowswhat, it wouldn't be surprising if they ... didn't quite work right. Created by the gods for some holy purpose... probably going to work well. Brought about by a malicious entity... might not work right just to screw with people.
In most of the stories I can think of, whatever magic or technology is involved is designed by people with a vested interest in not causing physiological/psychological for the users (which may include themselves), so it's not too startling when it does work well.
(I was also reminded of some things in the "Proteus" novels by Charles Sheffield. While I don't remember anyone actually changing gender in the stories, I'm pretty sure it's established as possible. And that's really a *minor* change compared to other things that form-change can do. I think there was one scene where a character was perfectly comfortable with the way they felt, but was thrown off balance when they saw themselves... Felt the same way they always did, so expected to look the same.)
-Morgan.