Trigger Warning: Trans people may have a very hard time getting through this, but you should know that Act 1 here is the most depressing part. There is no violence or anything graphic, but the theming could put some people in a bad mindspace. I promise there is a happy ending to all of this.
Based on a true story.
My name is Ranma Saotome and I've been living as a girl for about a decade now. I know it sounds crazy, but when I was about 16 or so, I was training in martial arts with my dad in China and we happened across this ancient cursed training ground, and, well, I became a plucky little ginger when splashed with cold water. And to be quite honest- I absolutely loved it.
Y'see, I was only ever into the martial arts thing because of my pops. Sure I enjoyed the camping and seeing the world, but the whole experience was laced with a looming sexism and misogyny that really put a damper on things and made it hard to just plain enjoy it. Every aspect of it was to 'be a man' or to 'man up', and to make matters worse, I'm pretty sure it was all just used to try and pound the natural femininity out of me.
When I was little, my best friends were always girls. I always got along better with girls. I enjoyed playing with them and their toys, dressing up, playing pretend, or just sitting around and making flower crowns out of whatever flowers or weeds were nearby. I was teased relentlessly for it, especially by my own family. I had a brother, Kumon, who'd constantly make homophobic slurs at me all throughout my childhood, and haze and beat me along with his friends. So, to toughen me up and work that, quote, 'sissiness' out of me, dad took me on a long training trip.
We'd come home often, but at least once a month, we'd have to run off to who knows where and live in the woods for days on end while I practiced one arte or another. After a while, around age ten or so, I started to realize that my natural femininity was wrong to act upon and I built up a facade; I basically created a character of someone else to play to the rest of the world to avoid seeming abnormal. I alienated all my girl friends, I forced myself to try and appreciate more typical 'boy' things, and I dived head-long into martial arts as both a defense mechanism and a way to distract myself and check out from reality. It's easy to forget life when you focus mindlessly on a kata.
As I grew up, that feeling of hiding myself for the sake of others began to compound. During the onset of puberty at thirteen or so (I was a very late bloomer), I became suicidally depressed over who and what I'd become. I was no 'boy' in my mind, certainly no 'young man' as everyone called me, and nothing scared me more in the world than becoming a proper 'man'; the chauvanistic asshole with big burly muscles and short hair and... even thinking about now it makes my skin crawl. I was scared to grow up and truly cement the lie into reality by simply letting life run its course.
Of course, I'd heard the things about people who felt like me undergoing medical changes to be themselves, but society always labelled them as psychotic freaks and perverts of the highest calibur. I decided it would be better to live the lie or otherwise kill myself at a later date than it would be to transition into living as a woman in my fifties like everyone on TV always did, and turn out looking like some weirdo. That's not what I wanted to be. I just wanted to be myself to the outside world as a girl, like I always saw myself on the inside. Sometime around then, I began to wear my hair long and in a braid to try and hold onto that sense of self I'd locked away. To remind myself that this really was all an act and someday, maybe, I'd get to be myself.
And of course, I was relentlessly teased for that as well. My brother would constantly bully me and just found that as a new thing to attack. It didn't last long though. Into our teens, he began getting in a lot of trouble with the law and I began seeing less and less of him as he drifted from jail to jail to drug rehab center and back to jail. A pattern that continues well to this day, many years later.
During one of those times when he was away, Pops and I found our way to China on that infamous training trip that changed my life forever. When I was cursed, I immediately saw it as a blessing, but I was also immediately overcome with a sense of guilt, and shame, and disappointment in the eyes of my parents. I was so happy and afraid all at once. Here I was, finally seeing myself for myself for the first time in my life, and I couldn't even enjoy or embrace it because of the social pressures telling me it was wrong to want to be female. It was wrong to be yourself if it meant being a girl. It led to a lot of fighting.
At first, I was forced to treat it as something I disdained, and pretended to dislike from the get-go. I'd 'accidentally' spill some cold water on myself and have to spend the whole day as a girl, much to my father's ire. "Sorry Pops, I don't have the chance to find some hot water right now, I've gotta go to school!" Eventually he caught on and pulled me from my normal high school out of shame for himself, and threw me in an independent study program I would later graduate from. And he made sure whenever I saw my contact person with the program that I was always in male form, whether it was being sure to get us coffee on the way there, or storing a thermos in the car just in case. It was disappointing, but at the same time, I was able to be myself alone in my room for most of the days. I'd sometimes change whenever I left my room if I knew someone was out in the hall or in the kitchen, only to change back when I got back to my room. It felt like a prison.
And it lasted for years.
My only outlet was martial arts events and trips, which my dad started to insist on bringing other people along to, who didn't know about the curse, as a way to guilt me into not changing while we were out. It got to the point where my only time as myself was alone in my room, and nobody but my parents knew. My mother was even a bit confused by it all, to the point where she just plain ignored it and started calling me gay, both as a way to casually insult me into shame in hopes that I'd stay a guy forever, and as a way to explain to herself why a guy would ever possibly feel at home in a female form. She didn't understand that it had nothing to do with sexuality at all, but she didn't care to learn. For the most part, she ignored me. That may have been for the best.
When I was twenty, things started to change. I'd managed to get a job where, even if I had to present as male, I wouldn't have to compromise my personality. Yeah, everyone still thought I was gay, but I'd fend it off whenever I had to. My ultimate goal with that job was to get away from my parents and live on my own. Find another town, splash myself with cold water, and that'd be the end of it. Cool showers would ensure I'd never have to feel out of place in my own body again.
That opportunity finally arose one summer when some family far away agreed to let me live with them. The plan was perfect: get a job, save some money, get an apartment on my own, and then separate myself from my family best I could so I could live in peace. The only problem was the family I ended up living with were my elderly grandparents, and they were absolutely not allowed to learn of the curse.
During my time with them however, I managed to be on my own outside the house as much as I could; something I couldn't do with my parents' sense of shame about me hanging over the entire town we lived in. Here, I'd made friends, gotten another job, and started enjoying life a bit more. The only problem was I was doing it all as a guy, to avoid any chance of my grandparents finding out about the curse. I told myself I could deal with this and, who knows? Maybe even work that feminity out of my system and live the way I was 'supposed to'.
At one point, I forced myself to play the typical guy and got a girlfriend. The whole sense of guilt came rushing back with Akane as I felt like I was constantly lying to her; that I wasn't being myself and therefore wasn't treating her right. I tried all the slick moves I could think of, we went on dates, she taught me to make out, and we had some fun with her on my arm as we went through those few months, but that sense of self-hatred only intensified over that time. When we finally had sex for the first time, I had a harsh realization. It was my first time and she did everything right that she was supposed to, but me being in my position just felt so... wrong. I wasn't supposed to be the one taking charge and thrusting away, I was supposed to be the one in ecstacy at making love and wrapped around someone else. I was supposed to be the soft one; the loving one. That whole experience left my mind blank over the course of the next few days. It all came crashing down- the false persona, the last-ditch effort to try and prove I could mentally overcome this and be the man everyone wanted me to be, all of it. I couldn't keep living this lie anymore.
I started growing my hair out again. I'd snipped the braid in an effort to masculinize when I moved in with my grandparents, but now it was a shaggy mess again, in that awkward between stage where it's too short to tie up, but too long to look any good, on a guy anyway. I made... different friends. Ones like me, only without the blessing of the curse. Ones who had struggled to be themselves on a certain level and ones who I could be myself around. What's more is they were all my age. The proved to me that it was possible to accomplish this goal young enough in life that I'd be able to live a full life as myself, so long as I was able to start as soon as possible.
I started spending more and more time in my female form and staying out late with my new friends. I became particularly good friends with this one girl named Shanpuu, a Chinese girl who I could swear had a curse like mine, but she'd never admit it. What's more, hot water did nothing to her. She taught me how to dress and accessorize and most importantly, how to accept that this is just who I am: Ranma Saotome, a girl. No, a young woman entering her twenties. Just like any other.
The change in personality was pretty apparent to Akane and my grandparents, who started to chastize me over my looks. By now, I had my hair in a shoulder-length bob that I would tie up into a small ponytail at home or at work, but would let hang down in a fashion 'not befitting a man' whenever I was out. My grandfather would constantly ask me where I was going, and why I was growing my hair out, thinking I was becoming some weird mental idea of a hippie that he had and thinking I'd be delving into drugs like my brother. It even got to the point where he started going through my things and finding my feminine clothing that I'd gotten from Shanpuu, and I had to claim over and over again that it was Akane's. Akane, for her part, was just plain confused.
Akane's a sweet girl. Her long black hair and plucky demeanor made her incredibly cute and I felt so guilty about all of this in regards to her. She didn't deserve to have to go through my personal problems. As I started to learn to be myself more and more, my time with her was spent less cuddly and kissy but more as general friends. Hanging out, joking around, and even playing some video games together. At one point, she met a guy through work that she began to crush on and she told me we needed to talk. Our 'relationship' had died a couple months before, but while we devolved into just being casual friends, we still held the labels of a relationship and needed to rectify that before she could venture off to this new guy. One who would treat her right.
So one day, she asked me out for dinner and when we met up, she was immediately nerves and anxiety but I knew what was up so I told her right from the start, "It's ok, Akane. This little experiment of ours didn't go so well but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends". Just a formality at this point, but I took the pressure off her and she was immediately relieved. She began to tell me all about Daisuke and how they met and clicked and she thought he was just perfect, all the while I was encouraging her over ice cream and afterwards, on our walk back to where I lived, we stopped by a convenience store for drinks and I grabbed a bottle of water.
"Akane, listen... there's something I need to tell you about me," I began as we arrived at a park. By now it was pretty dark and all of the dim lights were on, so we were alone. I sat her down at a bench and she watched in confusion as I opened the water bottle, and rather than drinking it, I poured a bit of it right over my head. She watched with wide eyes as I instantly shrank several inches and my hair turned a deep shade of auburn. I didn't know what I expected her reaction would be, but it certainly wasn't for her to throw her arms around me.
"Oh my god, you're a girl! It makes so much sense now!" she began as she held me tightly. I didn't know what she meant by that, but apparently she had been thinking I wasn't your average normal boy either. "How'd you do that trick though?"
So I told her. I told her everything, from my childhood behavioral problems, to the fateful trip to Jusenkyo, to my life as what was basically an only child in solitary confinement, to lying to her and using her to try and force myself to 'man up'.
She cried as my tale ended and I apologized with a proper bow for the way I'd been using her, and she simply shook her head with a sad smile, saying she understood why I'd been the way I had. "If I had to hide who I was for so long, I might be that way too. I'm glad you are coming to terms with it though, before you end up snapping and doing something rash".
We kept talking for the next couple of hours about what I could do to fix my life and how I could possibly be done with manhood for good. I told her about my Chinese friend and how she'd been helping me, and I promised to introduce them someday, but the night drew long and we both had to get home. We shared one last hug and I had to ask her, finally, why she was being so nice and accepting, and she told me the nicenest thing I'd ever heard at that point in my life, "Because you're my friend and that's what friends do". I started crying myself as we said our goodbyes.
As I started walking home that night, I felt a swell of happiness I don't think I'd ever felt before. Like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I needed to stop running from my problem for good and fight to be myself, or die trying. I got so caught up in the moment that I nearly made it home before I realized I was still in my girl form and I had to round the block to a convenience store for some hot water. It was already 4a.m. Needless to say, my grandfather didn't like me showing up super late again, and wet on top of that.
Things were starting to get testy with them. They were in their seventies and didn't much like a young adult like me being constantly around. And with Kumon's problems and how much he'd hurt them, I was distrusted out the gate. But things would be ok. I just had to go long enough to save money and get my own place. I was still going to my plan.
About a month after my moment with Akane in the park, things took a harsh turn for the worse. All this time, my grandparents had been taking half of my monthly income in rent, leaving me very little to go off of, and one day in September, I lost my job. The work was seasonal and had ended very abruptly, leaving me with no income and very little in savings. I told my grandfather what had happened and that it'd be alright, I'd just get another job as soon as I could, but he was not having it. Without my job, I couldn't pay his rent, and they weren't willing to let me stay there any longer. I'm pretty sure it had been a long time coming, and they thought I lost my job due to my appearance and the drugs they thought I was doing, but they just used the laying off as a convenient excuse to make me leave.
I had nowhere to go.
Akane and her family were not even remotely ok with putting me up, and none of my other new friends had the means. The only person who could help me was Shanpuu, and even then, she and her great-grandmother simply had no room to spare. My grandparents had gone behind my back and called my parents and arranged for me to be sent home. My plan was over in the span of about two days, and I was going back to my prison for who knows how long. I was devastated.
My flight had been paid for and my things had been shipped back, and I had a couple of days left to say goodbye to everyone. Akane and I cried as we said our goodbyes. Having just become real friends, it was hard to leave so suddenly. The others were a bit easier to let go, but then there was Shanpuu again. The day before I left to go home is when I stopped by her family's little restaurant to say my goodbyes and I finally explained the curse to her in full.
Before, she thought I was just a guy having these weird gender-questioning feelings, and thought I was just at the start of a very long and difficult path, but seeing the curse in action, she didn't even seem shocked. It was bizarre. I poured some water on my head right in front of her and watched as her expression ran from quizzical to calculating. She whispered for me to follow her and we left the restaurant's kitchen for a room up in their apartment on the second floor.
The room was full of dusty relics and what some might consider treasures from another world, all collected by her great-grandmother over her long life and brought with her to Japan when she moved. Shanpuu dug around through the clutter of boxes and trinkets before she found her prize: a dirty old wooden bucket and a ladle?
I asked her what on earth she could possibly need such an ancient and weathered looking tool for right now, and she simply sighed and made direct eye contact as she began her tale.
"This ladle is magical artifact from Musk tribe in China, near home village, and nearer still Jusenkyo."
My eyes went wide. "Jusenkyo? You know of it?"
She smiled a sad knowing smile and continued, "I know more of Jusenkyo than Ranma does. In my village, when one such as us comes along, magic waters of Jusenkyo used to make person's life happier."
The gears were starting to turn, and I finally realized why I couldn't believe she was transgender.
"...You fell in the same pool I did."
She nodded.
"Yes, many many years ago, when just a girl. Many villagers thought Shanpuu too young to know, but great-grandmother believed me and when Shanpuu was sixteen years of age, we discover ancient relic from Musk tribe, this magic ladle."
She held the bucket up for me to see and when I gave her a confused look again, she carried it past her to the bathroom and began to fill it with some water.
"We are same in that we both cursed, but I found cure. I found a way to stay girl forever. Tell me, Ranma. Would you like that too? To stay a girl forever and be yourself?"
Well, a deep part of me has wished for that since long before I was cursed. Every birthday wish, and every New Year's wish at the shrine, had been some form of the same dream: to be a girl forever. And now I'm being propositioned for this dream come true by someone who had the same dream, and found a way to do it.
Of course I said yes in a heartbeat.
Shanpuu took the ladle and scooped some water out of the bucket and looked like she was poised to splash me, but stopped and lowered her arm before giving me a sad look.
"I feel I must warn you, this will make you a girl forever. The only way to turn back to boy is with another Musk relic, but the kettle has been lost for centuries. This is permanent and will change Ranma's life forever. Are you absolutely sure?"
I had to fight from scoffing. Of course I was sure. I was severely depressed about having to go home, back to hiding, back to my parents' sexist shunning, with no sign of a way out again. My first real attempt to get away was shattered and fell apart far too soon, and I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. I was suicidal. And I was willing to do anything to not be a boy again.
I nodded, and she flung the water right in my face.
I didn't feel any different, but she swore it worked to lock the curse for good. I asked her to warm up a kettle so I could see for sure and she happily obliged, and when I poured the steaming water over my red hair and I stayed a small girl with my modest chest and everything, I was beside myself with glee. I couldn't believe this was real, but then again, if Chinese curses were real, why not artifacts that could manipulate them? I was never going to be a guy again! I was finally me, Ranma Saotome, woman among women, as I felt I should have always been.
I danced in ecstacy in that moment, thanking Shanpuu over and over and over again, and I even stayed over that night. It was the first time I'd slept as a girl in almost a year, and it felt so amazingly comfortable that I can't even describe it.
This is where my life truly began.
A/N: Thanks for getting through this. I've been sitting on the idea of telling my life story with a Ranma-ized twist for a while now, and yesterday it just flowed out of me and I couldn't stop. So much of my life has been a chaotic mess that it relates to Ranma's in several ways. It's why this series keeps drawing me back, even into my thirties. I don't want to go into specific details, but about 85% of this happened in real life. As such, this is a topic very close to home and it's very hard for me to talk about publicly, but in this form, I can kinda get it off my chest. Sorry for the dramatic mood of Act 1 here, but the context is necessary for 2 and 3. Act 2 is far more light-hearted, and 3 is happier times.
Oh, and for an update on my last author's note in A Different Ranma, A Different Life, my wedding is in two months lol
