Gender Swapping

About

Gender Swapping refers to the act of assuming a different sex or gender role than one's original identity in virtual settings, as well as the fandom practice of altering a popular character's gender identity against its canon through works of fanfiction and fan art.

Origin

Gender swapping originated through male players in online gaming communities such as virtual Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) posing as female players in order for other male players to favor them. Such prevalence of gender swapped deception in MUDs was first noted in 1993 by American sociologist Amy Bruckman in her research paper "Gender Swapping on the Internet":

. "Many people, both male and female, enjoy the attention paid to female characters. Male players will often log on as female characters and behave suggestively, further encouraging sexual advances. Pavel Curtis has noted that the most promiscuous and sexually aggressive women are usually played by men. If you meet a character named "FabulousHotBabe," she is almost certainly a he in real life."

Spread

On January 4th, 2007, Urban Dictionary^[2] user Velvet Mace submitted an entry for genderswitch, which defined it as:

"1. A type of "what if" fanfic where one (or more) of the characters is the opposite gender from canon but otherwise has the same personality and back-story. This can either happen as a part of the plot, or simply be a given. Most often it is a male character that is turned female, in which he is referred to as femme!character or girl!character. The female equivalent is male!character.

2. Fanart where the character is the opposite gender from canon."

Rule 63

Rule 63 is an internet adage which states that for every fictional character, there exists an opposite-gender counterpart. It is considered a notable tenet of the anonymously-written Rules of the Internet, next to Rules 1 & 2 and Rule 34.

For every given male character, there is a female version of that character.
For every given female character, there is a male version of that character.

Rule 63 was first introduced as part of the expanded edition of Anonymous' Rules of the Internet, most likely published in the summer of 2007, based on Google Insights. The Urban Dictionary entry for "Rule 63" was first submitted by user InternetHateMachine on August 8th, 2007.

LiveJournal

On May 19th, 2007, LiveJournal^[9] user musesfool published a list of fan fiction titled "Recs: Genderswap (Wincest, het, gen)." On June 15th, 2008, LiveJournal^[10] user chelseafrew published a request titled "Request for Stories: Genderswap." On March 21st, 2010, LiveJournal^[11] user marlowe78 published a post titled "Longer Genderswap." On August 3rd, 2013, LiveJournal^[12] user wcstoryfinder published a post titled "Genderswap AUs?"

Tumblr

On November 9th, 2011, the Tumblr account fuckyeahgenderswap^[5] was created. There are also several fandom specific gender swap Tumblr blogs including disneygenderbender^[6], which was created on February 16th, 2014, and sherlockgenderswap^[7], which was created on August 3rd, 2011.

DeviantArt

On July 22nd, 2011, the DeviantArt group genderbender-lovers^[4] was created, as of October 2014, the group has gained over 600 members and over 70,000 page views. Other gender swap groups on the site include mlpgenderswap^[13] and startrek-genderswap.^[14] As of October 2014, DeviantArt^[3] has over 19,000 pieces of fan art tagged gender swap.

Media Coverage

On May 18th, 2011, Buzzfeed^[8] published a fan art collection titled "Strange Gender Swap Fan-Art." On October 2nd, 2012, Femininemiss Geek^[16] published a post titled "Your Gender Swap Fan Art of the Day." On April 9th, 2014, Geeky Tyrant^[15] published a post titled "Daring and Delightful Genderswap Art Series."

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References