A gender bender is a person who dresses and presents themselves in a way that deviates from societal expectations of their gender, especially as the opposite sex. Bending expected gender roles is also called a genderfuck.
The concept of gender bending may have political origins, stemming from movements in the 1960s and 1970s, a guiding principle of which is the idea that the personal is political. Some individuals may choose to engage in gender bending as a form of self-expression or to challenge societal norms; in his 1974 article, Genderfuck and Its Delights,Christopher Lonc. Genderfuck and Its Delights. Gay Sunshine 21 (Spring 1974) Christopher Lonc explained his motivation for performing genderfuck: "I want to criticize and poke fun at the roles of women and of men too. I want to try [to] show how not-normal I can be. I want to ridicule and destroy the whole cosmology of restrictive sex roles and sexual identification."Quoted in
The term genderfuck has long been part of the gay vernacular, and started to appear in written documents in the 1970s. Sheidlower cites the definition of the term gender fuck in L Humphreys' 1972 work Out of the Closets: Sociology of Homosexual Liberation as "a form of extended guerilla theatre". Also quoted is the August 1972 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, in reference to the glam rock style: "The new 'macho' transvestism, called vulgarly 'gender-fuck', a curious satire of female impersonation—dresses, pumps, full make-up and beards—is represented by, among others, three men in WAC uniforms and big moustaches".
Relation to the gender binary Main articles: gender binary, gender roles, gender nonconformity Gender bending is commonly used as a rebellion against socially constructed expectations of gender and gender roles, which vary widely across cultures, though commonly include some variation of the gender binary.
For example, in Christian and Jewish cultures, gender roles and gender presentation have formed part of scriptural texts and religious teachings for thousands of years: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God" (KJV, Deut. 22:5). Crossing these lines has been interpreted by some Christians as a moral transgression.
Subsidiary cultures Cultures outside of Europe—often indigenous peoples of other nations, or subcultures that exist within Western cultures—may conceptualize gender as having more than two options. These cultures may also see people as being capable of embodying more than one gender role at different times, or of being "in the middle", "embracing both male and female spirit".Cleveland International Film Festival, selections; Kumu Hina: A Place in the Middle One such example is the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. People of the Bugis society have a total of five genders. These genders include what would traditionally be seen as cisgender men and women, as well as transgender men and women, and the androgynous Bissu shamans.
Gender bending in practice Often, parody and exaggeration are used to transgress gender roles, usually to expose them as artificial.Wilkinson, Sue and Celia Kitzinger (1996). "The Queer Backlash". In Quoted in For example, a person who engages in gender bending may purposefully exaggerate conventional notions of femininity or masculinity. Gender bending can also be achieved through cross-dressing and androgyny, both of which challenge and contribute to dismantling the gender binary by separating the expression or performance of gender from perceptions of biological or physiological sex. Thus, gender bending protests gender essentialism. This concept is protested not only through non-normative appearance, but by challenging normative gender roles, characteristics, or behaviors as well – for example, a female-bodied individual who is purposefully assertive and nondomestic in order to challenge the notion of essential femininity. Gender bending is based on gender performativity: the concept of gender as a performance. It can be achieved through physical presentation (e.g., clothing, hair, makeup, and secondary sex characteristics), as well as behavior. Because much of gender performance is expressed through clothing, in societies where a gender binary can be observed, there is an established, widespread notion that some clothes are "masculine" and should be worn only by male-bodied individuals, and others are "feminine" and should be worn only by female-bodied individuals. Hawkes, sociologist and author, addresses this "dress code" and the opportunity for resistance: "The universality of [dress] codes and their meanings allows for the [subversion of] the mainstream 'messages' they convey and through this to illuminate the existence of alternative [gender] identities."
Cross-dressing and androgyny
Cross-dressing would be a form of gender bending because the purpose is to "fuck with gender" roles and presentation. Androgyny is not specifically gender bending, but it can be considered as such if someone is being androgynous on purpose. The origin of the word "androgynous" is from the Greek androgynos: "male and female in one; womanish man; common to men and women". Androgyny as a form of gender expression may present as a blended unification of masculine and feminine traits, with the goal of making one's sex indiscernible, or as a dichotomous mix juxtaposing male and female phenotypes, with the goal of transgressing gender norms.
There have been many famous people who have cross-dressed, and many famous people now who are androgynous. The rock star Prince was very well known for his cross-dressing and androgynous look. Eddie Izzard started to freely talk about her cross-dressing as early as 1992.
Shakespeare used cross-dressing in his performances. Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man. Shakespeare had characters in his writings that were considered cross-dressers. The four of the five main female characters in his plays were seen as women who cross-dress as men or boys: Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Rosalind in As You Like It, Viola in Twelfth Night.
Fashion The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston hosted an exhibit called Gender Bending Fashion. One of the main goals was to explore fashion in a way that confronted gender-norms relating to dress. Gender bending design within this exhibition included clothes traditionally worn by women tailored for men, traditionally men's clothes tailored for women, clothes designed to be gender-ambiguous, and agender clothes designed to be worn by anyone.
Drag Drag shows are stage performances where people perform in drag. Drag costuming and makeup may, in some cases, simply involve an actor portraying a character of a sex or gender different from their own, or the performance itself may be a parody or critique of gender and gender roles. Often, "feminine" or "masculine" gender stereotypes of the person's culture are exaggerated for comic or satirical effect. Performers may call themselves drag kings or drag queens. Drag revues typically involve elaborate, glamorous costumes and musical performances. The entertainers may sing, dance, or lip sync.
A faux drag performer is a person who performs as the gender they identify as in day-to-day life, albeit in a usually exaggerated form. For instance, a cisgender woman who performs as a drag queen is a faux queen.
Rupp et al. noted in 2010 that "In order to understand the differences and similarities between gay male drag queens and female-bodied and transgender drag kings and bio queens, we consider how the personal gender and sexual identities of drag performers affect and are affected by their gender performances in drag."
Literature Literature, in particular erotica, is another method that has been used to explore genderfuck scenarios. The basis of the literary genre of genderfuck is that it is unimportant whether someone is a man or a woman during the sex act, an idea which challenges, for example the Catholic theology of sexuality. Doris Libetseder points to Carol Queen's short story The Leather Daddy and the Femme, where a lesbian femme uses a strap-on dildo to have sex with a gay leather daddy as a fitting example of the genderfuck genre.
Software It was noted as early as May 2019 that the software product Snapchat had photograph filters that make it easy to perform a gender bender on the subjects of photographs, especially those taken on handheld devices like smartphones.
Non-political gender bending Gender bending is not always a purposeful political standpoint. According to Butler, gender is something that is performed; it only holds cultural significance to the extent that this is ascribed to it. Despite the gender binary roles society imposes, there are many ways for individuals to express gender variation and not all of them are intentionally political radicalism. Further, in 1995 Tamsin Wilton argued that: Gender-fuck is not intrinsically radical – otherwise gender-benders such as Boy George, Prince, Annie Lennox, David Bowie etc. would not get away with it to the extent that they do. A politically aware gender-fuck – such as that of RuPaul or (to a limited extent) Madonna – gets much closer to radicalism, but it is only by incorporating a critique of gender as an axis of power that playing about with gender signifiers can be more than wickedly entertaining.
Judith Butler and gender as performance
Judith Butler is a theorist who believes that gender is something that is performed by individuals. Their concept of gender performativity posits that people choose to perform gender in a context in which we are given very few socially acceptable choices, but it can be explained as being similar to what actors do in front of the camera. Due to the importance we place on the belief that men need to act like men and women need to behave like women, it is often believed that gender is an innate attribute and not a social construct. In their article Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, Butler explains that if gender is something that sexed bodies assimilate to in order to follow the societal codes of what is appropriate behavior, then those actions can be conceptualized in different ways to allow more flexibility for individuals. In the same article, they assert that in American culture, there is a gender binary along with strict social repercussions against those who act against the "normal" script. This script is policed by harassment, parental pressures to fill expectations, and peer influence. All of these are ways to guarantee that the culture will repeat itself from generation to generation.
Butler's theory about gender roles and their social implications and need for reconstruction is developed in their book, Gender Trouble (1990) in which they argue that the limited acceptance of variation in gender roles does great harm to individual expression. With the limited options for both men and women, there is little room for their combined forces, because men are constantly focused on becoming the financial supporters of their families, which leaves women with the sole option of being the maternal experts they are expected to be. This idea excludes the masculine women or feminine men from being acceptable parental figures for their children because it may lead to a child growing up and conceptualizing the world differently.
Gender and child raising