Gender-bending books (Think Mulan/She's the Man/Twelfth Night) but actually explicitly queer!

ISO

Hi! I'm looking for gender-bending books but with explicit queerness. I love love the trope in books or movies where the main character disguises herself/themselves as a man for historical / fantasy / other funky reasons (ex: for protection, to disguise themselves as somebody else, or to join the knighthood/military/all boys school/etc). Think Mulan/She's the Man/Twelfth Night. But where the queerness element is explicit. This can in be a variety of ways:

  • main character disguises herself as a man, another girl/woman falls in love with "him" has to comes to terms with her queerness when it's revealed (basically, backwards to oregon by jae, which i LOVED and would love something similar)
  • main character disguises herself as a man, starts developing romance with another male character, and he discovers his bi-ness (aka, shang and mulan but his bisexual-ness is *actually* explored)
  • main character starts to come to terms with the fact that this may be actually the presentation and gender they are most comfortable with. this can also obviously overlap with one of the above!

I feel like historical fiction or romance is where this trope would naturally fit, but would also LOVE a contemporary version of this! Not a super huge fantasy reader but would still love some recs if anybody has any! Thanks.

Posted Jun 26, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC

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