Way back in the day I tried to get hold of any sci-fi and fantasy books I could with gay characters. There were a small number of lists on the internet of suggested books, and that one showed up on the lists. So ending up with that sort of book was most certainly frustrating.
I do think it’s an interesting premise, one that I’ve played with in my own works of fiction, although probably not something I’d share with others, since it ends up being so problematic.
I do actually like cross-dressing tropes. Although there’s certainly problems.
I think there was just the one book I read (Delia Sherman’s A Brazen Mirror which was again on a gay book list, where it shouldn’t have been) where the protagonist was a woman, who disguised herself as a man. The King fell in love with her male disguise, but the reveal that she was a woman didn’t end up with the two of them getting married and living happily ever after. In fact he wasn’t attracted to her female self since he was gay. Of course he then got forced into a marriage with some random woman, like you do, grumble, grumble.
Another interesting case is this webcomic Exiern. It starts as the story of a male barbarian who gets transformed into a woman, goes by the name of Tiffany, tonnes of fan-service, lots of cheesecake art, silly stuff, falls into those tropes oh so badly. After a few years the creator passed the comic onto another writer, and it’s actually delved into stuff it brushed over previously. The protagonist is going by male pronouns again, insisting he’s called by his proper name. He’s a male, gay barbarian from a culture that severely disapproves of homosexuality, but doesn’t find the idea that he remains as a woman, to be with men, at all acceptable. It was certainly an interesting turn around for the comic.
I was going somewhere with this and now I can’t remember where.
Oh! There was an idea I was mulling on, the ethics of forcing your romantic interests to be your preferred gender. Which is what many Choice of Games do. I was imagining if you make that choice, actually in game, the character not the player, and then they’re stuck with a dilemma. Hrm. Maybe.
Anyway I do like tropes that play around with gender, and the cross-dressing ones, although they can be a minefield.