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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) and behavior. The concept of "passing," or being read by others as the gender one is trying to present oneself as, regardless of one's physical sex characteristics, highlights how all gender presentation is a performance rather than a natural characteristic.[1] This definition of gender identity as performance also entails that gender is not inherent or fixed, but rather created and continually changed.[1] 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." However, other scholars have noted that the definitions of "masculine" and "feminism" are not truly ‘universal,’ given that they vary across culture and time.[2] For example, men who wear tight pants have not always been considered feminine or gay.[2]
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. In many ways, genderbending challenges and contributes 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.
However, at the same time, some forms of gender bending reinforce hegemonic definitions of what it means to be ‘feminine’ or masculine.’[1] For example, although drag queens accomplish gender bending by presenting female despite being biologically male, many—particularly those who "pass" as female—they still reify "the social image of what it means to look like a woman" which encompasses "having a select type of stylized hair, make-up, clothing, and body language."[1]
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 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 cross-dressed 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.
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 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 for. 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.
Ballroom Culture
"The House/Ball community," present in "almost every major city in North America," organizes national "ball events" where Black and Latino/a competitors are scored "based on the deployment of performative gender and sexual identities, vogue and theatrical performances, and the effective presentation of fashion and physical attributes."[2] "The gender system" present in this community reflects six different categories of sex, gender, and sexual identity which—while not representing a complete departure from the respective hegemonic conceptualizations of these identities—expands the possibilities of self-identification for its members.[2] These categories are: (1) "butch queens," who are biologically male gay or bisexual men who may be "masculine, hypermasculine, or feminine," (2) "femme queens," who are transgender women (MTF) undergoing medical gender reassignment, (3) "butch queens up in drags, who are gay men who perform drag but do not take hormones or live as women," (4) "butches," who may be transgender men (FTM) undergoing gender reassignment, or women who appear masculine, (5) "women," biological females of all sexual orientations, and (6) "men/trade," biological men who are heterosexual.[2] These categories all clearly reflect the idea of genderbending. However, the ability to convincingly perform a certain sex, gender, or sexual identity is also often employed by members of the Ballroom community to "pass" as cisgender and non-queer in spaces where to be marked as gender-noncoforming or queer would have material implications for one's physical safety.[2]
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.