I apologize for not responding sooner.  Truth to tell, I wasn't sure how
to respond, then found the email account buried over time until I forgot
about this.

On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, Scott Pollert wrote:

Well, another well written story, in similiar vein and mood to "A man I'll
never be" by... er, SKJAM was it? Or at least that's the story that this
reminded me of. 

Er... I wrote AMINB, a long time ago.  

Anyway, on another note, when the last chapter of this story came out, I
found myself in agreement with those who were arguing that certain passages
in the story seemed to suggest that Ranma was rejecting his male half
completely. While I never vocalized this, I was disappointed at the time
with the direction this story had gone. 

This story has always been well written and an enthralling read, but
originally, when the premise was first introduced, that of Ranma exploring
his feminine side, I had been hoping for a little more balanced treatment
of the issue. In the course of the story however, events seemed to have
skewed off that desired course. Sooo....

Well, this is not an easy thing for me to answer.  Explaining transgender
psychology to someone without a good grasp of it is difficult at best,
impossible at worst - which is, of course, one reason why personal
relationships involving the transgendered and their next of kin tend to
suffer.

In part 8 (finished in rough draft form; Kat and Hitomi are looking it
over for any corrections), Ranma will say the following words several
times in various situations: "I don't know who I am."  This is very true
of anyone who suffers from gender dysphoria.  They literally *don't* know
who they are.  Some days they feel like every other ordinary man, and
don't have the slightest urge to dress up or participate in some other
typically feminine activity.  Other days, though, the urges come on so
strong that they wish they were a woman forever, and would never go back
to who they were.  Part of them wants to go one way, part another, with
the feelings fluctuating wildly depending on the circumstances.  

Trust me, this will be made clearer in Part 8.

Finally, as for Ranma's ultimate choice... well, some things will be kept
secret until the end.

-- Nick