Change the pronoun, change the plot

The question came up: "Can you just swap the pronouns and turn a m/f romance into an m/m?"

My answer was "Sure, why not?"
Apparently, I think gender is a lot more fungible than most people do. Then again, my personal lesbian romance went heterosexual and then right into gay. So yeah.

 So I got to thinking. Of my novels, could I do swaps? The answer is yes and no. 11/15 could swap at least one character's sex, with no major changes, except to bedroom mechanics.

Can’t change sexes (4 books):

Barbarossa’s Bitch (m/m): Here changing anyone’s sex would change the story. The point is that these men are outcasts. Women are carefully guarded as the future in most settlements. If I made everyone female, I’d be writing the story of the Amazon settlement instead.

Shell Shocked (m/m): because this is contemporary, a bit more is made of Sean coming out. And Gabe is gay gay gay like a big gay thing with no hint of bisexuality, so making Sean a girl wouldn’t work. It’s also a plot point that women make Sean skittish.

Alive on the Inside (m/m): Again the contemporary thing that makes Nick so self-loathing. Although he does have a brief sex change during The Feast of Fools, he reverts back to male. As a girl, there would be no conflict.

Heart of a Forest: (m/m): not changeable. The major plot point is doing Robin Hood where Marian is boy, but only she, Robin and Bess know this. (And Bess doesn’t know Marian knows)

Can change one character but not the other (5 books):

Curse of the Pharaoh’s Manicurists/Terror of the Frozen North (m/m): Changing Charlie to Charlotte would not actually change the story in any way, except in dealing with Sarah Brown, Edward’s ex-fiancee. Sarah would see Charlotte as competition, and do all she could to keep Edward from marrying his secretary instead of her. Edward must be male because of his history.

Heart’s Bounty (m/m): Changing Miho to a girl would radically alter him. His whole plot arc involves being an outsider for wanting women’s things (flight and space) rather than men’s. Changing Hevik...would alter very little, except there would be a husband and child left behind when the exile happened, rather than a wife and child. Miho is bisexual, leaning very strongly to men, but a woman would be doable.

Nikolai Revenant (m/m, m/f): Nick has to remain male to have the backstory and novel arc he does. Making James Ligatos a woman, however, would change very little.

Anthony (m/m): Anthony must be male for his arc. But again, James being female changes very little.

Could change everyone with no effect (6 books):

Hard Reboot (m/f): Caitlin could easily be a boy and it would change the plot not one whit.

Spellbound Desire/Wild Hunt (m/f): There is no reason DJ has to be a woman. She doesn’t look, act or think like a woman. She could have stepped right off the pages of Raymond Chandler. She just happens to be stuck with boobs and monthlies. Until Bran shows her the fun stuff. Even then, Bran is functionally bisexual, and we’d lose one scene.

Glad Hands (m/m): Chuck could be a woman without much in the way of personality changes. Seven could be a woman. She’d have an R for reprobate or N for nymphomaniac instead of an H tattoo, and they’d have to trump up another reason to execute Chuck beyond “savage sodomite.”

Privateer’s Treasure (m/m): Making the ship an all-female pirate crew could work. Making Adlai a girl that Collins must disguise as a boy to keep safe would also work, but be unsavory. Making Collins a woman, whether openly captaining her ship or doing it as a man, would not change the plot.

The Sweet Science (m/f): As with DJ, there is no good reason for Lillian to be a woman. And she often disguises herself as a man to make her life easier.

Perhaps, the problem is that I write women very like myself and from there, it's a small step to man.