How to Gender Bend

Co-authored by Trudi Griffin, LPC, MS

Last Updated: April 25, 2024

It might seem like some gender rules are set in stone—but that actually just makes it more fun to play around with expected gender norms! We've got the tips for how to mix up your style to create a gender-fluid look that's totally your own.

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Method 1 of 3:

Bending Your Gendered Appearance

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Dress the part. The goal is not necessarily to change your look so much that a stranger on the street would think that you are a sex that you are totally male or female. Instead, gender bending is about presenting both masculinity and femininity together at the same time. Someone that is successfully gender bending may make a stranger do a double take because the stranger can't figure out the person's sex with just a quick glance.
- This means that bending your gender can be as simple as wearing a dress if you are a man or wearing a men's suit if you are a woman.
- It could also mean wearing a mixture of feminine and masculine clothing at the same time. For example, a men's shirt and tie paired with a skirt.
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Style your hair in a way that is unusual for your sex. This could include a buzz cut for a woman, or past shoulder length hair for a man. This could include a haircut or just the way that your hair is styled.
- There are some hairstyles that work well for traditionally gendered men and women, such as a short pixie cut.^{[1]
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  Research source} These hairstyles may be a good idea for someone who likes to play with gender, as you can use simple style changes to play with masculinity and femininity.
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Experiment with accessories. Contrast can be a lot of fun. Wearing a feminine dress with a thick leather belt and combat boots, or wearing a conventionally masculine outfit with feminine jewelry is classic gender bending.
- Wear shoes that those of your same sex would not usually wear. Clearly, the most obvious example would be a man wearing high heels.
- You can also try wearing feminine hair accessories if you are a man.
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Play with other forms of appearance. If you identify as a man but want to bend your gender, try wearing makeup. If you identify as a woman but want to play with gender, try growing out your body hair, whether it be your legs, armpits, or facial hair.
- Facial hair, in particular, on an otherwise feminine presenting person, can really give "mixed" gender signals.
- Makeup can be used in a wide variety of ways. Traditionally, many people highlight their eyes with eye shadow, their lips with lipstick, and their cheeks with rouge, however you can also use it in totally untraditional ways if you like. You can use small amounts or you can cover your face in it!

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Changing Your Gendered Behavior

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Explore hobbies usually taken up by the other sex. There are a wide variety of ways that our behaviors are shaped by gendered expectations. You can switch these behaviors up, just in the same way you can change your appearance. Begin by exploring interests or hobbies that are gendered in a way that doesn't align with your sex.
- Perhaps you have always wanted to play a sport that most people of your sex don't play. Search online for teams that will let you play or recruit some friends to play with you.
- Take a class about something you have always wanted to know but didn't learn about because of your sex. For example, you could take a carpentry class, a sewing class, or a robotics class.
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Change up the gender roles in your relationships. Bending gender can be about appearance but it is also about the way you interact with other people in society. In order to change these gendered interactions, you will need to understand how your previous interactions and relationships were gendered. Once you understand some of the ways these relationships were gendered, you can begin to change them.^{[2]
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- For example, perhaps you do traditionally gendered chores around the house. Try doing something that would normally not be in your purview, whether it be washing dishes, fixing the car, or grocery shopping.
- This can also mean that you change the way you interact with people. Maybe your sex is female and you only hang out with other females when you go to family gatherings. Perhaps you could try to spend some more time with the men in your family.
- It may be that you already do things that are not traditionally associated with your sex. This means that you were already gender bending without knowing it!
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Take a job that is not traditionally done by your sex. You can take gender bending to a more extreme level by developing a career outside of those usually associated with your sex. This can be difficult to accomplish, as there tend to be barriers to getting non-traditional jobs, but those barriers are getting weaker all of the time.^{[3]
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- Perhaps you are female and you would like to become a carpenter. By becoming a carpenter you are bending the gendered expectations placed on you and you are transforming the gendered expectations of that trade at the same time.

Method 3

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Bending the Gender of a Character

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Pick a cosplay character. Sometimes becoming someone else allows you to play with gender more easily. You can go outside of yourself and explore other identities. Those that enjoy cosplay, the term for dressing up in costume as a character from fiction, gender bend routinely.^{[4]
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- The first step is to simply pick a character you love, regardless of their sex. For example, this could be a character from your favorite TV show, comic, book, or movie.
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Imagine how the character's gender may be changed. When doing cosplay, you have the ability to change the character in a variety of ways. Along with changing the character's time period or clothing, you can also change their gender.
- For example, who says that Darth Vader has to be male? Try making a cosplay outfit where Darth Vader will be read as a woman.
- Another example could be Snow White. How could you make an outfit that gets read as male but also as Snow White?
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Decide to change your gender instead of the character's gender. You don't always have to change the character's gender to gender bend in cosplay. Instead, you could choose a character that is a sex that you are not.
- For instance, if you identify as a woman, you could choose to dress up as a male Luke Skywalker. Basically, you would be gender bending by dressing in drag.

Break Out of Gender Norms with this Expert Series

You have the right to dress however you like, and, if you're looking to dress as a man or just look more masculine, we have an expert series just for you. These articles will help you crossdress, present as male, and generally look more masculine.

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Crossdress As a Man (for Women)

Pass As a Male (For FTMs)

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Tips

"Gender-bender" can be a box just as much as "male" and "female" can. Wear what you want. If you want to wear something "conventional" one day, do so. What matters is what you want.

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Enjoy yourself! Don't overthink whether what you're doing or saying or wearing is right. Just be yourself and do what you want to.

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Warnings

There can be some risk involved in gender bending, depending on where you are and who you interact with. Gender norms are so engrained in some people that transgressing them can cause an angry or violent reaction. This reaction is not right or ok but you should know that it could happen.

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