What does "genderbending" mean?

The changing of a character's gender within a story.

What is a synonym for "genderbending"?

Common synonyms include: genderswap, genderswap.

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The changing of a character's gender within a story. uncountable
"There is one episode in the novel, however, where questions of racial masquerade intrude on the freewheeling genderbending of the main characters."

Verb

1
present participle and gerund of genderbend form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1
Confounding attempts to identity one's gender, especially by dressing in the clothes of another sex or in a way that makes one's gender identity ambiguous. not-comparable
"When the band broke up, Reed reinvented himself as a genderbending gutter poet and earned the nickname “The Godfather of Punk”, mostly by going out his way to subvert his fans' expectations on albums […]"

"There is one episode in the novel, however, where questions of racial masquerade intrude on the freewheeling genderbending of the main characters."

From gender + bending.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.