Gender Bender: What It Is And How It Transgresses Gender Roles
David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Prince… all of them are or were great professionals highly recognized worldwide for the quality of their songs. Likewise, they were also seen as eccentric due to their clothing or their pursuit of an androgynous appearance. They have characteristics typical of gender bender people a concept that we are going to talk about throughout this article.
The term gender bender refers to that person who rebels against gender roles and stereotypes and the binary system they establish this break with them being actively shown to the public.
The manifestation of said rebellion towards gender roles can be carried out in countless ways. One of the most common is to show roles and behaviors attributed by gender roles to the opposite sex. Another of them (and probably the most visible on an external level) is the use of a costume or appearance that is either associated with said other sex or employs elements of both, achieving an androgynous look in the latter case. It is also common for both forms of expression to occur, just as drag queens or drag kings do.
The gender bender may be trying to generate social change with their behavior, as a movement or activism. However, it is important to keep in mind that gender bending does not have to be a radical activist position, and can merely be a form of self-expression or even exploration to forge one’s own identity independent of the opinions of others.
Although not on all occasions, gender bending can be understood (being the trend itself and gender bending being the person who practices it) as a form of movement and social activism.
In this sense, there would be a protest against gender roles, which are excessively restricted and tend to exclude those who do not conform to them. One would be expressing a greater desire for freedom to be as one wants to be, being able to be and express oneself freely without being bound or constrained by patterns not chosen by oneself and without discrimination or social criticism occurring.
This activism usually acts in a demanding but peaceful manner, sometimes acting through parody and theatricality to express the artificiality of the gender construct. As we have indicated, elements associated with the other gender are usually used, although non-gender and androgeneity or the mixture of characteristics linked to each of the genders can also be sought.
We must also keep in mind that this type of activism occurs in societies with a binary system and gender roles like ours, but not in other cultures that even recognize a third sex or identity in a traditional way.
Differentiation from other concepts
Although gender bending is a type of reaction to gender stereotypes that is associated with the LGTBI population due among other aspects to the fact that this group has had to fight against discrimination and defends the right to sexual and identity freedom, in reality it encompasses and is aimed at the entire population.
In fact, this relationship often causes gender bending to be identified with other concepts that, although in some cases they may have a certain connection, it would be incorrect to consider them synonymous.
First of all, it is worth considering that gender bending is a reaction to gender stereotypes, this being independent of the sexual orientation of the person in question. And sexual orientation marks the sexual preference and attraction towards people of a certain sex.
Thus, although socially it has been considered linked to homosexuality or bisexuality, the truth is that a gender bender can have any type of sexual orientation, in fact many of them being heterosexual. And conversely, any person or dependent on her guidance can follow or fulfill gender roles.
2. Transsexuality
Another aspect, which in fact is often identified when selling bender, is transsexuality. But also in this case the identification between both concepts is not correct.
Transsexuality implies the presence of an identification with a sex that is not the one given to us by birth, not necessarily implying a rejection of gender roles (although the majority of transsexuals must face stigmas linked to these). .
Likewise, gender bending It doesn’t have to mean feeling in the wrong body.
3. Transvestism: not always a means of expression of the gender bender
Finally there is the concept of transvestism, perhaps the one most socially linked to gender bender. And it is true that one of the ways to express the rejection of gender roles and stereotypes is through the use of clothing, accessories and makeup linked to the opposite sex, or by mixing styles typically considered masculine and feminine.
However, not all people who cross-dress do so as a sign of social activism or to break stereotypes, in addition to the fact that gender bender You can show your break with gender roles in other ways beyond your wardrobe (for example at a behavioral level).
We have started this discussion by talking about different singers who have marked and been relevant in the collective imagination and who on more than one occasion have used androgynous looks as a mode of expression.
This is because The world of music in general generates easily recognizable figures and icons for everyone. But gender benders do not only exist in this area: actors and actresses, writers or playwrights have introduced or represented this dispute or break with gender stereotypes.
In any case, it should be noted that partly due to the poor social consideration that until a few years ago they have had options different from those established by tradition, there are many people in this group who have not been able to freely express their way of life. see themselves, in addition to often being ignored, marginalized and even persecuted.
Of course, although gender bending as a movement would not begin until the 1960s, this does not mean that the concept behind it is not something that has been talked about throughout the centuries.
And not only in reality, but also in multiple works of fiction, cases of gender bending can be seen. It is said that even Shakespeare introduced in many of his characters some type of mention of stereotypes or gender roles or the fact of acting in a way attributed to the opposite sex.
