WHAT IS THE GENDER BENDER? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The gender bender is the person who breaks with the established norms of traditional gender roles. It comes from the English gender (“gender”) and bender (from the verb bend, “bend”; the noun literally means “doubler”), which is why it is a very frequent word in English-speaking countries that has spread in Latin America and Spain, which is why there is no precise translation into Spanish.

Gender bender was originally known as gender-fuck, a term that became popular in the 1970s in magazines such as Rolling Stone. She was part of a generation of young people in which there were women in men's clothing and men in women's clothing, hence they have been associated with public demonstrations that have fought against discrimination against homosexuals and other LGBT people.

Gender bender has been a difficult term to define in its most specific aspects, and for this reason it has not been without controversy. Despite this, there are many well-known personalities in the world that are often considered part of the gender bender, which has also had an influence on the show.

General notion of the term

Any definition or conceptualization of gender bender is in itself problematic and slippery. One reason is because gender and sexual orientation are not the same.

Although they seem synonymous, both words have different meanings for the simple reason that being a man does not mean that he is heterosexual by definition. Therefore, a man dressed in a suit can be homosexual and a lesbian can wear a dress.

In relation to the above, gender bender not only obeys natural motives that affect the sexuality of the person, but has also been a protest reaction against the system.

Furthermore, the gender bender person tends to be confused with the transvestite and the transsexual, and there is no exact line that delimits these three categories, since in practice the first one encompasses many people of all sexual orientations.

What most complicates the definition of gender bender lies in its clashes with gender roles. On the one hand, what sex means can depend a lot on the time and especially on society; That is, gender tends to be understood in a relative way, according to the ideas that each culture has, which has its own ideas of what is masculine, what is feminine and what are the tasks that men and women must perform in their environment.

On the other hand, what science says about it is nothing more than a sketch, a scheme that tells us how the human species evolved around gender. A study by two researchers from Princeton University points out general traits that separate men from women.

But since it focuses on Western cultures, it is easy to enter a complex environment in which many times a masculine or feminine characteristic is nothing but the result of prejudices and stereotypes of others.

Thus, any behavior that deviates from masculinity or femininity cannot be classified as gender bender, since here there are no rigid norms that say when one is at one end or the other of the scale.

There is therefore no strict rule to follow to say if a woman or a man breaks the paradigms of their sex. In this sense, it is only possible to examine each particular case to give a more certain verdict that does not fall into fallacious generalizations.

Famous characters in the gender bender

The gender bender has had representatives who are often in the world of show business. David Bowie, for example, wore a dress on the cover of his album The Man Who Sold the World (1970), although he also used to wear women's clothes with makeup off stage, such as in his interviews and concerts. Likewise, the members of the American band New York Dolls have feminine elements in their wardrobe.

Prince was in fact another representative sample of the gender bender. This singer, apart from being characterized by his lyrics with an ambiguous sexuality or an open bisexuality, not infrequently wore outfits that, although they were for men, did not stop hiding a feminine touch.

In contrast, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence organization dress entirely like women, in drag queen fashion.

Others no less important are singers like Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga and Conchita Wurst. Like Bowie and Prince, Manson has feminine costume and makeup features, while Lady Gaga has declared her androgynous inclinations, that is, she is attracted to those masculine clothes that she has worn several times in her wardrobe.

Wurst (see photo at the beginning of this article), meanwhile, adds to his beard and mustache blush on his cheeks, earrings and eyeliner.

Gender bender in popular culture

Conchita Wurst

The presence of gender bender has been felt in imaginary settings, such as in literature and on television programs. Although their characters are fictional, their behavior and personality make the critics classify them within these labels, which are not entirely absolute and can be subject to debate.

See, for example, the novel entitled The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, in which sexuality is neutral but can change from masculine to feminine through its interaction with heat.

In The Secret X Files, one of its chapters, entitled Gender Bender, analyzes several homicides probably linked and motivated by sex issues.

The alleged murderer who is investigated by the agents of the American government has the peculiarity of being able to change the gender after having carnal relations with other beings, which indicates that this transformation is, in the opinion of the characters of the series, evidence of extraterrestrial activity on earth.

See also Wild Bender, which is the eighth episode of the second season of Futurama. In this cartoon series, the robot Bender had the imperative duty to participate in a fight, although to achieve success he had to radically change his physical appearance.

Bender donned a wig and a ballet dancer dress, and became the artificial intelligence fighter known as The Gender Bender (see image at the beginning of this segment).

References

1. Carter, Chris (1994, January 21). The X-Files. First season, chapter 14, Gender Bender. U.S. Fox.
2. Groening, Matt (2000, February 27). Futurama. Season Two, Episode 8, Wild Bender. U.S. Fox.
3. Lady Gaga: "I Love Androgyny" (2010). Interview with Bárbara Walters for ABC News. Available at: abcnews.go.com.
4. Le Guin, Ursula K. (1969). The Left Hand of Darkness (1st ed., 2009). Barcelona, ​​Spain. Minotaur.
5. Sheidlower, Jesse (2009). The F-Word. Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press.
6. Wilmeth, Don B. (2007). Cambridge Guide to American Theater. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press.