Often, [[parody]] and exaggeration are used to [[transgression|transgress]] [[gender roles]], usually to expose them as artificial.<ref>Wilkinson, Sue and Celia Kitzinger (1996). "The Queer Backlash". In {{cite book |last=Bell |first=Diane |authorlink= |coauthors=Renate Klein (eds) |title=Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed |publisher=Zed Books |year=1996 |location=London |pages=375–382 }} Quoted in {{cite book |last=Weedon |first=Chris |title=Feminism, Theory, and the Politics of Difference |publisher=Blackwell Publishers |location=Cambridge, MA |year=1999 |pages=74–75 |isbn=0-631-19824-5 | oclc = |doi=}}</ref> For example, a person who engages in genderfucking may purposefully exaggerate conventional notions of [[femininity]], or [[masculinity]]. Genderfucking can also be achieved through [[cross-dressing]] and [[androgyny]], both of which challenge and contribute to dismantling the gender binary by separating expression or performance of gender from perceptions of [[biological]] or [[physiological]] sex. Thus, genderfucking protests gender [[essentialism]]. This concept is protested not only through non-normative appearance, but by challenging normative gender roles, characteristics, or behaviors as well – for example, a female-bodied individual who is purposefully assertive and nondomestic in order to challenge the notion of essential femininity.Genderfucking is based in [[gender performativity]]: the concept of gender as a performance. It can be achieved through physical presentation (e.g. clothing, hair, make-up, and secondary sex characteristics), as well as behavior. Because much of gender performance is expressed through clothing, in societies where a [[gender binary]] can be observed, there is an established, widespread notion that some clothes are “masculine” and should be worn only by male-bodied individuals, and others are “feminine” and should be worn only by female-bodied individuals. Hawkes, sociologist and author, addresses this “dress code” and the opportunity for a resistance: “The universality of [dress] codes and their meanings allows for the [subversion of] the mainstream ‘messages’ they convey and through this to illuminate the existence of alternative [gender] identities.”<ref>Hawkes, G. (1995). “Dressing-up – cross-dressing and sexual dissonance”. Journal of Gender Studies 4(3): 261-270.</ref>
