Gender Bender

The X-Files episode
“Gender Bender”
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 14
Writer(s)
Director
Production no.
Original airdate	Jan. 21, 1994
Episode chronology
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"Beyond the Sea"	"Lazarus"
List of X-Files episodes

"Gender Bender" is the fourteenth episode of The X-Files (the thirteenth regular episode, not counting the pilot). The story focuses on an unexplained series of mysterious deaths, that appear to be connected with an Amish-like religious group in the northeast.

Gender commentary

The killer, Marty, turns out to be from an Amish-like sect or cult, composed of people who can exude a powerful amount of pheromones, which can effectively act as a rape drug on a normal human, and who are able to physically transform their bodies' sexual appearance. (Of course, they are all aliens, who vanish by the end of the episode, leaving behind a crop circle.) Scully experiences the effects of those pheromones herself, simply by shaking hands with one of the (male) cult members. He later uses them in a sexual attack on her.

Marty defied the rules of their community by going into the outside world, in order to have "liberated" sexual encounters with humans, who are vulnerable to Marty's pheromones. The hapless victims die from an overdose of pheromone after having sex, except for one, Michel, who survives because the sex is interrupted, and who is horrified to see Marty transform from a woman into a man.

Marty was played as a male by Peter Stebbings, and as a female by Kate Twa. Michel was played by Nicholas Lea, who would later return in a different role on The X-Files as Alex Krycek.