All this "What if Ukyou was really a boy?" talk makes me wonder if we 
aren't missing the boat.  Ukyou is like the very last main character to 
show up, and changing her would have only minimal effects on the whole 
Ranma situation.  

The _real_ question is this.

What if Akane was really a boy?

If people find this sort of idea-trading to be useful in the development 
of new stories, then I have a different one to propose for an alternate
universe Ranma tale.  It seems that there is an old Japanese superstition
that one can help protect a boy from a bad fate or destiny by dressing
him as a girl.  I'm not sufficiently schooled in Japanese culture to know
the origins of this superstition or how it has been applied through history,
but I have been made aware of it on a couple of different occasions.  In
Anime, you can see it brought to play in "The Hakkenden," where the 
character of Shino begins the story disguised as a girl as part of an effort
by his father to protect him.

An alternate history in which Ranma is raised in such a fashion, probably
by his mother, might be interesting.  The differing point could happen early
in the young Ranma's life, when Nadoka is given some premonition that
a bad fate awaits her son (perhaps she reads a copy of "The Bitter End").
Instead of Genma taking Ranma away from his mother on a long training
journey, Nadoka takes him away from his father on a journey of her own,
trying to avert the fate which was foretold in every conceivable fashion.  This
includes raising Ranma in a girl's disguise, as per the superstition.
  
Destiny being what it is, they would probably end up meeting a lot of the
same people along the way, getting cursed, and all that stuff (Nadoka as
a panda?  I'm pretty sure THAT hasn't been done in too many fanfics).

I'd write it myself, but I'm already writing another story and only have so much
free time on my hands.

Grayson Towler
grayson@rigroup.com

"Relentless - A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction"
http://www.rigroup.com/~grayson/relentless