gender bender

gender bender

1. One who dresses or behaves in a manner or style associated with another gender. Tom works as an accountant during the week, but he has a performance routine as a gender bender on the weekend. This novel's protagonist is a gender bender who, at various stages in the story, moves between gender identities. I love my time on stage as a drag queen. I find it positively exhilarating to be a gender bender!

2. One who challenges, denies, or explores the borders or limitations of gender identity by various means. Some of the leading academic gender benders are gathering this week for a summit on transgender rights. That politician has long been a gender bender, openly disputing the notion that gender is a strict binary. Why are there no gender benders on this panel? The world doesn't solely consist of heterosexual cis men, you know.

3. In electronics, an adapter that has either two male or two female connectors and is used to change the gender of a plug. If that's a male connector, we'll need to get a gender bender to finish this job. You need to use a female connector, but you don't have one? That's fine, I'm pretty sure I have a gender bender somewhere in my toolbox. Well, I guess I'm going to the store because that part requires a male connector, and I don't have any more—or a gender bender.

See also: bender, gender

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

gender-bender

1. n. a device that changes electrical plugs or sockets to the opposite gender—male to female, female to male. You need what’s called a gender-bender to match those plugs.

2. mod. having to do with something that obscures male/female distinctions. Those gender-bender hairstyles can be confusing.

McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.