The Eleventh Doctor's very first lines (I have bolded the parts relevant to this discussion):
DOCTOR: Legs. I've still got legs. Good. Arms. Hands. Ooo, fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears, yes. Eyes, two. Nose, I've had worse. Chin, blimey. Hair. I'm a girl! No. No. I'm not a girl. And still not ginger. And something else. Something important. I'm, I'm, I'm (Bang!) DOCTOR: Ha! Crashing!
I'm not really coming down on any side of the argument, except I don't see why the Doctor shouldn't be female. Clearly he considers it a perfectly logical possibility. (This doesn't mean that he SHOULD become female. But discounting the possibility goes against the show canon.)
Also there have been two female Doctors already:
Joanna Lumley in The Curse of Fatal Death (yes it was for Comic Relief, but she counts just as much as Rowan Atkinson or any of the others), and Arabella Weir in Big Finish (Exile).
Add to that the Corsair (as others have mentioned upthread) and Missy, and Time Lords changing gender is clearly something the species is capable of, and not all that unusual. The Doctor treats Missy no different to how he's always treated the Master. Describes her as simply someone who was once a friend.
To me, it'd come down to the right actor. (I'd love Sue Perkins, although she might be too Tennant-like.)
no subject
DOCTOR: Legs. I've still got legs. Good. Arms. Hands. Ooo, fingers. Lots of fingers. Ears, yes. Eyes, two. Nose, I've had worse. Chin, blimey. Hair. I'm a girl! No. No. I'm not a girl. And still not ginger. And something else. Something important. I'm, I'm, I'm
(Bang!)
DOCTOR: Ha! Crashing!
I'm not really coming down on any side of the argument, except I don't see why the Doctor shouldn't be female. Clearly he considers it a perfectly logical possibility. (This doesn't mean that he SHOULD become female. But discounting the possibility goes against the show canon.)
Also there have been two female Doctors already:
Joanna Lumley in The Curse of Fatal Death (yes it was for Comic Relief, but she counts just as much as Rowan Atkinson or any of the others), and Arabella Weir in Big Finish (Exile).
Add to that the Corsair (as others have mentioned upthread) and Missy, and Time Lords changing gender is clearly something the species is capable of, and not all that unusual. The Doctor treats Missy no different to how he's always treated the Master. Describes her as simply someone who was once a friend.
To me, it'd come down to the right actor. (I'd love Sue Perkins, although she might be too Tennant-like.)