Genderfuck - Fanlore

Genderfuck is a term that has multiple meanings:

• In mundane (but not necessarily mainstream) usage, "genderfuck" refers to gender expressions that defy the normative man=male=masculine/woman=female=feminine dichotomy, question the conflation of sex with gender, and generally disrupt ("fuck with") the gendered status quo.^[1]

• "Genderfuck" may be used as a synonym for genderswap, a fanfic or fanart conceit in which one or more characters switch sex.

• Bodyswap fic where characters of different sexes swap bodies, a subcategory of genderswap, may also be genderfuck.

• Genderbender fic, a kind of AU where, e.g., a canonically male character has always been female -- born female, assigned a female gender, genetically female, female secondary sex characteristics, and a female gender identity as an adult -- may be a kind of genderfuck. These stories may also be labeled "genderswap."

• "Genderfuck" may describe the gender presentations of characters in transfic.

• "Genderfuck" or genderbending may also be used to describe stories in which the characters, while not specifically identifying as transgender, take unconventional gender roles or have mutable genders (or, through magic or alien biology, mutable biological sexes).

In a broader sense, any fanwork that plays with sex and/or gender in any of these ways might be seen as genderfuck because of the inherent challenge to static sex/gender identity.

1. ↑ Wikipedia article on Genderfuck accessed 2008-10-02