Talk:Genderswap

Genderfuck vs. Genderswap?

Is there a difference between genderfuck and genderswap? Some people use it distinctly, it seems; I would not know how wide-spread that distinction is, though. E.g. cf. executrix' comment here.. --Lian 02:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I propose that this page (Genderswap) be used to discuss that which should properly be called "sexswap" -- through the magic of ~handwavy~, a character suddenly has a body of the opposite sex (this is the content that's currently on this page). "Genderfuck" could be used as an umbrella page, noting that fans may use it to mean "genderswap" or some other tropes (e.g., "always-a-girl"/genderbender, genderfuck in the sense that Executrix uses it above, possibly some others?)--Ari 02:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Genderfuck is often used as both an umbrella term as well as a substitute for genderswap, so I think it should have its own page.--kyuuketsukirui

Yup, Genderfuck / genderbender are the umbrella term, imo, and need their own page.--anatsuno 09:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

examples

I removed "straight as a circle" because it isn't genderswap at all. It's certainly worth mentioning somewhere, but not here, and in fact is used as an example in the woke up gay article. We should have no trouble coming up with examples that fit better. I just thought of a Reboot example that I liked, but it's very recent and perhaps not "notable": Decimation by waldorph.

thought of an HP art example, but I can't find it: pencil drawing, possibly by glockgal, of either Harry or Draco looking startled, with breasts, and the other character laughing.--æthel 18:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Length of List

I think the list of fanworks is as little long. What do people think about creating individual fanwork pages for the works mentioned and wiki-linking them instead? That way the discussion/meta about those important works can be preserved, if it happened. --awils1 09:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm of two minds about that. I can see how the list can become too long and too light on explanatory notes about why a fic is notable to be useful. But, if the list items are illustrating or expanding on the points made further up on the page, removing them to individual pages about the work actually removes content from this page that is about this topic. And I think that even just illustrating which character is switched or which fandoms have this trope is relevant to the topic. For example, the BDSM page has a short clean-looking list of links to fanworks (that I am planning to work on and expand) that actually adds little informational value to the page itself, since there is no discussion on that page of how the stories use BDSM, how they differ, how they were received, etc. A re-edit of the list to group things thematically rather than by timeline or fandom might help the information say more about Genderswap, but removing everything but a wikilink to a stub definitely makes it say less. --facetofcathy 15:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd go for grouping the examples thematically. We could even put the always-a-girl/boy examples as a subheading under the Always Been a Girl section. (And what is the relative prevalence of always-a-girl vs. always-a-boy?)--æthel 16:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Magic Switch

I think grouping everything under "magic switch" is misleading. The Same Inside for example is famous for not explaining the switch at all, it just happens (incidentally, it's the story that introduced that kind of genderswap into mainstream media fandom and it was the number one pimping story for popslash fandom because it was the first popslash story a lot of people read). On the other hand, in The Course of True Love and More Lovely and More Temperate magic *is* the explanation for the switch. In the first story it's the natural magic's reaction to a magical event Merlin caused and in the second one it was a curse by an enemy sorcerer.

I moved the popslash story above the subheading, though if the point is to distinguish stories where a character's sex is suddenly changed during the story from stories where the character has always been the other sex, maybe the heading should just be renamed? Or maybe a heading for "sudden switch" and subheadings for different explanations.--æthel 21:31, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Linkdump

http://thefourthvine.dreamwidth.org/135749.html & http://thefourthvine.dreamwidth.org/136115.html --Anenko 20:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

http://girlgay.dreamwidth.org/93679.html?thread=404207#cmt404207 --Anenko 23:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Rule 63?

I don't know the politics, but I noted that "Rule 63" - which I was given to understand is this concept - isn't mentioned on this page/site. Should it?

I'm not savvy regarding this topic, but I think if you feel it should be on the page, then it should be added. --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 15:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I added rule 63 with a TV tropes link to the infobox.--æþel (talk) 03:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

genderswap cosplay

I'm not sure what the prevalence of genderswapped cosplay is, but I saw multiple girl Lokis at Arisia. Plus endless tumblr reblogs. I'm not sure if/how many we want to include as examples. Someone who knows anime is needed. [1] [2][3][4]

Apparently it is called crossplay. [5] We don't have a page for this yet (hint hint).--æþel (talk) 03:50, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Lady Loki is actually a canon genderswap from the comics and cosplayers have kind of jumped on this after MCU rose in popularity - so it's not fans who made that particular switch.

I'm not sure crossplay is really the same as genderswap. Around the conventions I frequent it's just a common term that says someone is cosplaying a charachter of different gender - female cosplaying a male character or male cosplaying female character - but the characters gender remains the same as in canon. For most female cosplayers I know cosplaying male characters is not an unusual thing. There are genderswap cosplays were the gender of the character is switched, though. Not sure there is a term for it.--Fantomas (talk) 12:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I found an interview that distinguishes between crossplay and femme cosplay (with emphasis on Doctor Who fandom, where both seem quite popular): "Crossplay is where female cosplayers alter their bodies to "pass" as a male character. [...] Femme cosplay takes a male costume/character and reinvents it as femme, which is not merely female, but feminine." We should definitely have a page for this. --Tiyire (talk) 16:13, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree that there should be a page for crossplay. It's pretty common in cosplay. I'm just not sure if it's connectged with genderswapas the characters gender isn't changed. Actually femme cosplay sounds more like it's genderswaped cosplay to me and should probably be mentioned here, maybe with a link to crossplay? --Fantomas (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

clarifying number of subtropes

The second paragraph contains this phrase-- can include several different scenarios--but then only describes one scenario. I am aware of two main ones: the character transforms within the story (unqualified genderswap) or the character has always been X gender.

I am also confused about why genderswap fic is a type of genderfuck, but genderswap art isn't. Is it trying to say that in-story transformations are genderfuck, but always-been-x are not?--aethel (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I rephrased that paragraph to try to address this. According to the genderfuck page, as well as comments above, both in-story transformations and always-been-x are considered types of genderfuck. This page does still say "several" even though there are only two scenarios addressed, not sure if there are more that could be added. --sparc 06:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

spectrumslide

The criticism section includes this sentence: For this reason, others have suggested the term 'spectrum slide' be used instead. The reference shows that one person in 2014 proposed this. Has the term caught on? Have any other alternatives been discussed? --aethel (talk) 01:26, 5 December 2017 (UTC) P.S. I just noticed that terminology criticism is split between the Criticism section and the Terminology section, which are nowhere near each other.--aethel (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

making the examples easier to read

I find the way the examples are written right now extremely hard to read at a glance. I think the bulleted list works for simple lists of fanworks that are just the title and author plus maybe a one line explanation, but for longer annotations like this I think we could do better. Maybe a sortable table or using the definition formatting. Below I've made examples of both using the first four examples.

Title	Author	Fandom	Date	Notes
My Fair Jeanne	Ruth Gifford	Star Trek: TNG	1995	An influential early genderswap story in which Jean-Luc Picard is turned into a woman by Q. Winner in the 1995 ASC Awards Best Next Generation Story category.
BJ Sandburg	Gillian	The Sentinel	1999	Blair switches sexes for a year on his thirtieth birthday. Blair/Jim. Quite unusual at the time, certainly for the fandom, and won over a lot of fans.
The Same Inside	helenish	popslash	2000	An important step; the viewpoint character has fun being female, and delivers non-didactic feminist smackdowns on his teammates when they get gender essentialist on him. The story is famous for not explaining the switch at all. Characters simply 'waking up a girl' became thereafter quite common.
And Now For Something Completely Different	Silvia Kundera	Harry Potter	2003	Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione one-shot humor fic. "Harry Potter wakes up as a girl."

My Fair Jeanne by Ruth Gifford — Star Trek: TNG — 1995

An influential early genderswap story in which Jean-Luc Picard is turned into a woman by Q. Winner in the 1995 ASC Awards Best Next Generation Story category.

BJ Sandburg by Gillian — The Sentinel — 1999

Blair switches sexes for a year on his thirtieth birthday. Blair/Jim. Quite unusual at the time, certainly for the fandom, and won over a lot of fans.

The Same Inside by helenish — popslash— 2000

An important step; the viewpoint character has fun being female, and delivers non-didactic feminist smackdowns on his teammates when they get gender essentialist on him. The story is famous for not explaining the switch at all. Characters simply 'waking up a girl' became thereafter quite common.

And Now For Something Completely Different by Silvia Kundera — Harry Potter — 2003

Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione one-shot humor fic. "Harry Potter wakes up as a girl."

I think there are pros and cons to both but either would be easier to read than the bullet points. - Hoopla (talk) 23:03, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I like tables - I think that would be a cool way to visually organize the data on this page (and I agree with you re: its current readability). Let me know if you want a hand reformatting this, whichever way you end up going. I'm also dropping Wikipedia's how-to guide for accessibility in data tables here; I hadn't read it before! - Fandomgeographies (talk) 00:04, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

There, I did the fic! The fanart probably should be like... a gallery or something? I dunno the whole page needs more work. I also think some of the fic that are currently listed should be removed until we can get further annotations for them that explain why they're noteable because some of them are just a summary and that's not enough + we should seek out new fic because the list is kind of out of date. Also maybe try to cut down the number of times fandoms are repeated and/or get more fandom variety? What's our definition/criteria for "noteable" here, anyway?

(whoops apparently I forgot to sign this like two weeks ago - Hoopla (talk) 19:57, 5 October 2018 (UTC) )

Table replaced with annotated fanworks template

Sometime in last few edits, the table has been replaced with annotated fanworks, and I can't see any discussion of that here. As there was originally a consensus to change to using a table, I wanted to open this discussion back up. Are editors happy with the annotated fanworks or would you prefer to change back to using table?--Auntags (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to move to "Genderbend"

Right now genderbend redirects to genderfuck, but I think that this page should be called genderbend and genderswap should redirect to genderbend. Because:

• "genderfuck" is the overarching term for the genre of AUs that involves all kinds of explorations of gender and sex, and thus includes crossdressing and transfic
• "genderbending" is a replacement term for "genderswap" and specifically only involves the changing of sex/gender as described in this article.
  • The August 2017 discussion that MPH was asking about like a year ago on the genderfuck talk page defines the term: "Originally, it was called ‘genderswap’ or ‘genderswitch’, which was rightfully criticized for reinforcing a binary view of gender. Hence why it is now ‘genderbend‘. Things can bend in many directions."
• This is also in line with my own fannish experience, such that editing this page involved a lot of going back and fixing where I had written "genderbend" accidentally in place of "genderswap"
  • Also, MPH, if you read this, I'll try to get around to incorporating it on that page as soon as I'm done putting it into this page and maybe making a meta essay article for it.
• TV Tropes also uses the term "gender bender" and I know TVT isn't the boss of us, but still.
  • (Also they claim that maybe the term came from an X-Files episode of the same name so if anyone knows anything about the history of genderbending in the X-Files fandom it'd be sweet to know about that.)

I could probably just change the redirect to direct back here myself but since I want the article moved anyway... - Hoopla (talk) 23:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Regarding X-Files and gender bending and that episode, the zine Sympathy for the Devil seems to deal with this topic, and that page has much discussion. User:WhatAreFrogs? may know more about the history of the topic and that ep. --MPH (talk) 12:31, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

That'd be so great! I still really would like to see this page moved — it's just so uncomfortable to use the term 'genderswap' to talk about it when I know all the fandoms I've been in have switched to 'genderbend' to remove the implication of binary genders. Should I look for more meta or something to prove the term has switched? - Hoopla (talk) 19:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I think this is a PPOV issue akin to multimedia vs. multifandom; using genderbend to mean genderswap may be the latest usage, but plenty of older fans are likely going to be confused by a page entitled genderbend that describes a trope they know as genderswap when genderbend means something else. I think we should have separate glossary pages for genderbend and genderswap to explain their various definitions in different communities. Note that AO3 has separate canonical tags for Genderswap and Genderbending. They are both in the Gender Related tag tree but are otherwise unconnected. Based on the subtags under Genderbending, it looks like using the term Genderbending to describe the trope also known as Genderswap is popular in kpop fandoms.--aethel (talk) 22:14, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I don't really understand what you mean by multimedia vs multifandom nor do I know of any other meaning for "genderbend" and... well, nevermind, I guess I misunderstood PPOV? Sorry for wasting gardener time with the attn gardener tag. I've reverted my edits on the page and will create a genderbend page soon. I hope you'll stop by and add, um, whatever genderbend meaning you seem to know that I don't. - Hoopla (talk) 18:01, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, here are the links: Multimedia was the term for multifandom in I think the media fanzine era, and is very different from the general definition of multimedia. You're not wasting gardener time! Documenting conflicting meanings and uses in different parts of fandom is a great addition to Fanlore. I got a few answers on my dreamwidth here regarding the meaning of genderbending being broader or covering less-clearcut gender revisions. Some examples of not-genderswap genderbending would help, if someone can find them. I remember reading an SGA fic where John Sheppard was sometimes a woman and sometimes a man and no one really noticed and John didn't care. (The page on Gimli uses genderbending to refer to fanfic that explores Dwarves' relationship to gender given that canonically Dwarf women are indistinguishable from men. I also see a comm from 2010, merlin benders, where they seem to be using genderbending to mean genderswap: Also: in the case of genderbending, it counts if a character that is traditionally one gender CHANGES gender IN the story OR is ALWAYS considered the opposite gender for the purpose of the story. But that is a small comm in a large fandom; merlin finders uses the tag genderswap.)

I added a list of terms to the Terminology section to hopefully build upon.--aethel (talk) 20:33, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh... I didn't understand that all information about this trope was to be kept under the name genderswap, even if it was called by a different name. I hope someone who uses genderbend the way you're describing comes along and makes a page about it, because that sounds very interesting. I'm not really sure how it would be best to work in all the research I've done or even if it would be appropriate, and you seem to have done your own research and would prefer to use that... I'll just scrap what I was working on. You've made your point very clear that my understanding of the term and trope are just not notable enough for Fanlore and its audience, so I'll stay in my lane from now on to keep from confusing anyone. - Hoopla (talk) 23:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

What aethel said: "Documenting conflicting meanings and uses in different parts of fandom is a great addition to Fanlore," and this discussion is part of figuring out how to do that; not what is "right" and what is "wrong." Notability has nothing to do with it, nor has time been wasted.

We need to be creative and figure out a way to incorporate all these points of view, changes in language and understanding, and fan/fandom viewpoints. I can see no reason why a separate page called Genderbend can't be created that includes these points: how it's used now, how it was used in the past, reasons why meanings have changed, when changes happened, examples of fan comments and examples of fanworks, and how it is related to other similar terms. That's the entire point of Fanlore. Even if it's a messy work-in-progress. --MPH (talk) 15:15, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

After my comment in September, I spent a month on and off researching this and pulling together quotes and archiving pages, and I worked harder at it after aethel's first response to me, hoping to find something about the further meaning of genderbend. I didn't find anything but it didn't seem worth it to argue with a gardener who'd made up their mind already, so I was all set to make a genderbend page. I even started writing it after reversing my edits to this page.

Then aethel comes back for their second comment and I learn that their first comment was based on one response on a discussion post they made on their personal dreamwidth — there are two comments there now, but only one was made before aethel's response shutting me down. Did aethel even look up the AO3 tag thing themself? It seems the comment provided that. Further, aethel says in that post that the most recent fic using this trope they read "was in 1D fandom circa 2014, but it was always-a-girl" and they "don't remember how it was labeled."

I could pull out all my research, I could disagree about aethel's interpretation of the Gimli page, I could edit this page more, but why bother? Two "BOFQs" — one of whom doesn't read this trope — already know what genderbend means and doesn't mean and AO3 is the sole arbiter of terms and synonyms, and at no point was this actually a discussion about my point of view, my understanding of the term, or my viewpoint. The discussion happened on aethel's personal dreamwidth before their first comment, and then aethel, a gardener, came and told me how things were for a fandom term they don't apparently ever even use.

So, you know, A) it's actually my time that's been wasted, now that I think about it, and B) this page can be someone else's work in progress. I'll focus on things older fans hopefully won't have a stake in. - Hoopla (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Hoopla, I am so sorry. I forwarded this issue to the gardeners' list.--aethel (talk) 00:21, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Fic Tropes and Art

I'd like to suggest new pages for Genderbending in Fanfiction and Genderbending in Fanart because they're areas with different practices and controversies. For the first page I'm thinking genderbending fic tropes, like how people tag fics "always a girl!character" and write trans issue fic that may or may not be well-informed, or there are lots of mainly fic tropes that rethink the gender binary. For the second the controversy around genderbent art is more about physical presentation and social norms. – caes (talk) 22:28, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Problems With Saving Edits

Hi, I did some work on the Always a Girl (or Boy)-section. Everything was fine in the preview, but when I saved the page the whole table just disappeared. So I decided to undo my edit. I'm sorry to trouble you but I have no clue what went wrong. Could someone help me out please? Should I just try again? SecurityBreach (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I found the mistake. Sorry! SecurityBreach (talk) 17:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

definition cited in dissertation

Director, Elliot, "Something Queer in His Make-Up: Genderbending, Omegaverses, and Fandom's Discontents" (2017). American Culture Studies Ph.D. Dissertations. 95. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/acs_diss/95

Definitions for Ficlet and Fluff were also cited. MMMSwap (talk) 02:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)