It doesn't really make sense to change things so that Ranma is really female,
but leave everything else unaltered.

The biggest change is that most of the impact of the early scenes comes from
the fact that Ranma and Akane really like each other, even then, in a
boy/girl sort of way, but are being forced together or pulled apart by cir-
cumstances.  For instance, Ranma refusing to fight Akane, and only dodging,
doesn't work at all with Ranma really female--the reason he doesn't want to
fight Akane is that boys don't fight girls.  And having Ranma run into Akane's
hundreds of rivals at the first day of school is a meaningless scene if there
is not something between Ranma and Akane.  Changing potential romantic
interest to friendship (by changing Ranma to female) drastically affects these
scenes--they become almost completely pointless.  Similarly, having Kunou in
love with Ranma is much less funny if Ranma is really female.  You can't use
the same scenes with the water temperature or genders reversed--although the
scenes could _happen_ that way, they don't make for much of a _story_.

Personally, I think the story would be better if you condensed all the rehashed
material from 5 chapters to 1, making it just a summary if necessary, then
went on from there.

(By the way, I wonder what Nodoka is doing in this series.  She would have to
know that Ranma is female, and could not have accepted any promise about
raising Ranma to be manly.  Having Tsubasa or Konatsu show up might be
interesting, too, especially with Ukyou at the same time....)

Also, you used a bit too much US manga stuff ("she's a couple all by herself").