Gender bender

This article is about human gender. For the hardware component, see Gender changer. For the X-Files episode, see Gender Bender (The X-Files).

A gender bender (LGBT slang: one who genderfucks) is a person who disrupts, "bends", or "fucks with", expected gender roles. Gender bending is sometimes a form of social activism undertaken to destroy rigid gender roles and defy sex-role stereotypes, notably in cases where the gender-nonconforming person finds these roles oppressive. It can be a reaction to, and protest of, homophobia, transphobia or misogyny. Some gender benders identify with the sex assigned them at birth, but challenge the societal norms that assign expectations of particular, gendered behavior to that sex. This rebellion can involve androgynous dress, adornment, behavior, and atypical gender roles. Gender benders may self-identify as trans or genderqueer. However, many trans people do not consider themselves "gender benders".

Genderbending may be political, stemming from the early identity politics movements of the 1950s and 1960s, a guiding principle of which is the idea that the personal is political. In his 1974 article, Genderfuck and Its Delights, 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 and show how not-normal I can be. I want to ridicule and destroy the whole cosmology of restrictive sex roles and sexual identification."

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 Rolling Stone magazine, Aug 30th, 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".

Gender binary

To "fuck with" gender, one must have an expectation to be able to rebel against. These expectations are socially constructed and can vary widely between cultures. In many cultures it is only acceptable for an individual to embody one of two polar gender roles; this is known as the gender binary. In these cultures, for a person to be seen as belonging in a particular gender category the individual must not only have a particular genital and chromosomal makeup, but must conform to that culture's ideas of appropriate sex-role stereotypes, including sexual orientation. To this end, those who go against expected conduct, for example gays and lesbians, may be seen as "less than" or "other".

In Western cultures, gender roles have changed somewhat over the years. However, mainstream western culture still tends to expect stereotypical "feminine" behaviors from females, and "masculine" sex-role stereotypes from males. A study by Princeton University outlined these common, prescriptive gender stereotypes: "masculine" - acts as a leader, aggressive, ambitious, analytical, assertive, athletic, competitive, defends own beliefs, dominant, forceful, has leadership abilities, independent, individualistic, makes decisions easily, self-reliant, self-sufficient, strong-personality, willing to take a stand, and willing to take risks. "Feminine" sex-role stereotypes, as defined by this same study included: affectionate, cheerful, childlike, compassionate, does not use harsh language, eager to soothe hurt feelings, flatterable, gentle, gullible, loves children, loyal, sensitive to the needs of others, shy, soft-spoken, sympathetic, tender, understanding, warm, and yielding. A famous person who gender-bends himself is Jeffree Star (also known as racist fuck and snake).

In Christian and Jewish cultures, gender roles and gender presentation have been policed since Biblical times: "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" (Deut. 22:5). Crossing these lines has been interpreted by some Christians as a moral transgression.

However, other cultures - often Indigenous Peoples, or subcultures that exist within Western cultures - may see their people as potentially fulfilling more than one gender role. These cultures may have more than two gender roles as part of their social structure. Other cultures may see people as being capable of embodying more than one of these roles, or of having no gender at all.

Gender bending in practice

Often, parody and exaggeration are used to transgress gender roles, usually to expose them as artificial. For example, a person who engages in genderfucking may purposefully exaggerate conventional notions of femininity, or masculinity. Genderfucking can also be achieved through cross-dressing and androgyny, both of which challenge and contribute to dismantling the gender binary by separating expression or performance of gender from perceptions of biological or physiological sex. Thus, genderfucking 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. Genderfucking is based in 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 a 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 genderfucking because the purpose is to "fuck with gender" roles and presentation. Androgyny is not specifically genderfucking, but it can be considered genderfucking if someone is being androgynous on purpose. Many people who are androgynous may not make a conscious effort to look so. The origin of the word "androgynous" is from the Greek androgynos: "male and female in one; womanish man; common to men and women".

There have been many famous people who have been accused of cross-dressing and many famous people now who are androgynous. The rock star Prince was very well known for his cross dressing or androgynous look. Eddie Izzard started to freely talk about his 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. With this said, 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. Genderfucking is seen through many forms of life. One of these forms is Drag.

Drag

Conchita Wurst, a bearded drag queen

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 stereoptypes of the persons'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 female-bodied person who performs as a drag queen is a faux queen or the other way around for a faux king.

"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's unimportant whether someone is a man or a woman during the sex act. 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.

Non-political genderfucking

Genderfucking 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 one of the most well-known theorists regarding the idea that gender is something that is performed by individuals. Her concept of gender performativity is the idea that people choose to perform gender in a context in which we are given very few socially acceptable choices, but 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 her 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, she asserts that in U.S. culture, the gender binary and its strict social repercussions against those that act against the "normal" script, this script is policed by harassment, parental pressures to fill expectations, and peer influence. All of which are a way to guarantee that the culture will repeat itself from generation to generation.

Judith Butler's theory about gender roles and their social implications and need for reconstruction is more fully developed in her book, Gender Trouble (1990). She argues 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 expert she is 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 childraising

According to Susan Witt's recent study, children generally come to their first conclusions about being male or female from their parents since typically they are the first people the child relates to and the nature of the relationship is intense. Besides parents giving children gender specific clothing, toys, and expectations, there are often many subtle messages about what is acceptable or not regarding gender. Witt's study showed that children that grow up with more androgynous gendered parents are more focused on achievements and typically have a better sense of self. Conversely, in cases of gender nonconformity, when a child exhibits gender performances that are atypical of their prescribed gender role, Kerry Robinson reports that a parental figure may respond with hostility. According to the Official Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics, people who do not conform to the gender binary are often subject to abuse from society, from within the family and within their community. Types of abuse range from physical and sexual to psychological abuse and are not associated with homosexuality alone.

Examples

David Bowie

Exploiting his androgynous appearance, rock star David Bowie wore a dress on the UK cover of his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World, and often wore dresses, makeup and leotards both onstage and while doing interviews. In a time when very few people were out, he announced he and his wife were both bisexual.

Annie Lennox

Singer-songwriter and political activist Annie Lennox began her career as lead singer with The Tourists in the late 1970s. In The 1980s she fronted synthpop band the Eurythmics but has focused on solo work since the 1990s with the exception of an album and tour with Eurythmics In 1999. The Spin Alternative Record Guide described her in 1995 as "Gender-fuck goddess Annie Lennox".

The Cockettes

The Cockettes were a psychedelic drag queen troupe, founded in San Francisco In the late 1960s. According to the journal Maledicta in 1987: "Real transvestites and transsexuals are... embarrassed... [by]... The gender-fuck Cockettes and such (in dresses and beards)."

It's Pat

Pat, a character from the television show Saturday Night Live, served as the basis for the movie It's Pat. The sketches and film feature an androgynous main character, Pat. People are unable to determine Pat's sex, including one male who cannot determine it after having sex with Pat, while stranded on a deserted island.

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the movie, Rocky Horror Picture Show, is a male bodied person but wears lingerie, clothing, and accessories thought to be feminine. The character also wears make-up. In one of the songs featured in the musical Dr. Frank-N-Furter sings, "I'm just a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania."

New York Dolls

The New York Dolls are a rock band who formed in 1971 and had a protopunk sound. they broke up in 1977 but reformed in 2004. Their genderfuck is generally viewed to be quite subtle.

Phranc

The American singer-songwriter and artist Phranc began her career in 1978 with punk band Nervous Gender. In 1985 Village Voice wrote: "Part of Phranc's appeal is the genderfuck of her sweet feminine voice coming from such a masculine frame." She later worked with queercore band Team Dresch.

Boy George

Boy George a highly androgynous musician, and was part of the English New Romanticism movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He famously stated, "I can do anything. In GQ, I appeared as a man."

Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard started to freely talk about his transvestism in venues like Edinburgh Festival as early as 1992. His stance is that cross-dressing is neither part of his performance nor a sexual fetish. He remarks in his show Unrepeatable, "Women wear what they want and so do I." According to Izzard, "Most transvestites fancy women." He identifies as "a straight transvestite or a male lesbian". He has also described himself as "a lesbian trapped in a man's body", transgender, and "a complete boy plus half girl".

Prince

Prince (musician)

Marilyn Manson

Charlotte Richardson Andrews of The Guardian says Marilyn Manson's gender-bending rock act "shows trans identities can resonate with the public in a way that cannot be ghettoised". Manson's gender-bending has been compared to that of Alice Cooper and Bowie.

Grace Jones

According to SheWired, Grace Jones laughs at outside attempts to define her gender identity. Jones herself has said of her gender ambiguity that she feels her masculine side is "a bit stronger". NPR cites her as an influence on Madonna and Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is very specific in what she wears and even states that, "But in a sense, I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny."

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

The charity, protest and street performance organization Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence was formed by gay men in 1979, originally using nuns' attire and high camp to draw attention to social conflicts in the Castro, San Francisco. Currently they fundraise for AIDS and other LGBT causes and promote and educate on safer sex issues. The Cambridge Guide to American Theater identified them as one of the "more anarchic uses of "gender-fuck"... [which]... "parodied traditional drag".

WisCon

WisCon, the world's oldest and foremost feminist science fiction convention, sponsors an annual "Genderfloomp" dance to "seek to explore and expand our concepts of gender via dance party. Gender play/blurring/queering/drag, both in dress and manner, is highly encouraged but hardly required".

In fiction

In fiction, the term gender bender may refer not only to characters modeled after real-life gender benders, but also to characters who undergo changes in their physical sex – magically or otherwise – throughout the story. A work of art which challenges gender roles or features gender bending may itself be referred to as a "gender bender".

• In Orlando: A Biography, an influential novel by Virginia Woolf published in 1928, the protagonist lives three hundred years and in the middle transforms from a man into a woman.
• A historical and well-studied example of "gender bending" in English narrative is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
• In the novel The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, characters have neutral sex for most of their lives, but take on either male or female characteristics when in heat (kemmering).
• In Neil Gaiman's comic, The Sandman, the character Desire is gender-fluid, and can become male, female, both, or neither, depending on the situation.
• Early examples of cross-dressing in films include A Florida Enchantment (1914) directed by and starring Sidney Drew and Mabel's Blunder (1914) directed by and starring Mabel Normand.
• The X-Files episode Gender Bender features a series of identical sexually-oriented murders, where the killer appears to be both male and female, changing gender after experience of intercourse.
• In the eighth episode of Futurama's second season, Bender is briefly known as "The Gender Bender".

See also

• Coloniality of gender
• Androgyny
• Cross-dressing
• Versatile