Queer Horror: Understanding Gender as Body Horror 

Yeeeeeah 🌊🐴

It's incredible because I actually described gender dysphoria as similar to body horror to my brother just a couple weeks ago to try to get it across, and now I get recommended this video lol.

i’m so surprised that nobody ever talks about how pregnancy can absolutely be seen as terrifying body horror

​@@xioyz some dude once asked me, while I was pregnant, what it felt like. I get annoyed with the saccharine, sentimental descriptions of pregnancy that wash away all the mess, anxiety, and horror of complications (that can sometimes be life-threatening), so I described to him in terms of horror films. "Well, it feels like I have something growing and crawling around under my skin, feeding on the nutrients I take in." He recoiled, exclaiming "Why'd you say it like that?!" The more you delve into the biology of pregnancy, the more it reveals itself to be body horror, an intruder that your body tries to fight against, that manipulates your immune system to be less responsive overall, that demands nutrients from the host (in the case of calcium, some women even experience an increase of cavities and loss of bone density as the fetus leeches calcium from the woman's very bones when it doesn't receive enough for itself). Pregnancy is the oldest body horror.

@@Nightriser271828 you’re so hardcore for this omg i respect you so much for that. i understand pregnancy can be horrifying but sweet and worth it for many, but it’s true that the more i know about how it works the more i never want to go through it.

I feel this very much

just FYI, and also as an autistic person, this is a very autistic thing to say :)

Same. I work as a gardener, which is male dominated. I walk 5 days of the week as a dude bro with other dudes doing hard work in working attire. When I put on makeup at the weekend, stick on nails and wear feminine clothes because I want it also kind of feels like I’m just putting on an other uniform. Which is of course is more aesthetically pleasing to me but it still feels like „cosplaying as the idea of myself“

I've found cosplay to be a fantastic way to try different gender expressions as well.

FYI nobody feels like a woman or a man. Either it's socialization or trying hard to adhere to gender stereotypes What is gender without stereotypes? It's bullshit

COMRADE

@@cowboylikedans YIPPEE MOMENT

It sounds like the title to an awful, very conservative book. You know the ones.

@@miggle2784 oh god, it does

@@CoolestSwordFighter you've made me a step closer into being chronically online by making me google what ywnbaw stands for

It sure as hell feels like it! 😂

It me! Oh gosh it is body horror.

yeah. i’m trans and my earliest memories are of thinking about body horror because of my innate discomfort with my body.

Literally.

@@choccockeris that fucking gumball sans

i believe that would be body dysmorphia, rather than dysphoria, as the latter relates to feeling uncomfortable in your body due to your sex, while the former refers to an irrational focus on some sort of bodily flaw, whether real or imagined. there are some key differences, which i say as someone who has experienced both, but i completely agree that most people these days can relate to hating their own body, no matter the specifics. edit: oh god this is so old. i don't care. i know people use body dysphoria (which i only knew of as relating to gender) to refer to dysmorphia.

@@Leo-gq1yiactually body dysphoria is any discomfort with your body. gender dysphoria is the one that is specifically related to sex. Meanwhile body dysmorphia is seeing your body differently than it actually is for example people with anorexia may see themselves as fat no matter how skinny they get that is body dysmorphia

@@cold5529 while what you said does align with the definition of dysphoria, body dysphoria is used almost exclusively to refer to a subtype of gender dysphoria

​@@Leo-gq1yi​​​​Cis people have a gender too, and are perfectly capable of feeling dysphoria, when their bodies aren't in alignment

@@Kelly_Jane The definition of a cis person is someone whose gender and body are in alignment. While I wouldn’t deny anyone the right to call themself cis if they do experience gender dysphoria, as they may not feel that transition is the right solution for them, I don’t think that’s what the original commenter was talking about.

I wish I could detach and view my body as someone else. I wish I could dress it up nicely the way the average person wants to see it without feeling disgusted. I wish I could appreciate it for how it is now without the incessant need to change it. However...

The good thing is that the body you inhabit is always changing regardless. Bodies are tools that are meant to be used to interact with the world around them. They pick up scars, moles, wrinkles, and creaky joints over time because that’s what they are there for-to be used. Some women (or other folks with uteruses) take their young, fairly pristine bodies and undergo pregnancy knowing that afterwards they might always have some stretch marks, loose skin, and pee a little when they laugh. Might not be “pristine” anymore, but the reward of life was worth it. Many people wear out their bodies doing sports they love, exploring the world, protecting those they love, or working hard to build a life. That’s fine-a well-loved tool will show some wear. Even if you are very careful, we all feel the effects of age as our skin sags and wrinkles and our joints make weird crunching noises. Entropy will get us all in old age eventually. Some see their bodies as a canvas to decorate with piercings, tattoos, or accidental scars that make good stories of a life well lived. That’s fine too. You get to do whatever you want with your body, because it’s yours and no one else’s. Your body exists to be used for living your life. Whatever you choose to do with it, you aren’t ruining it or tarnishing it. You’re using your body to live the life you want. If you decide to medically transition at some point in the future, that’s just another way of using your body to serve its purpose as the connection between your mind and the world so that you can interact with the outside in a way that feels right and comfortable for you. It’s interesting that you characterize “her” as someone you are trying to protect, when it could also be seen the other way around. Even if you want to make your body more physically masculine, you can still feel gratitude to your former feminine body for serving you in the meantime; she served her purpose of taking care of you until you got the chance to be your true self. She did her job and held you and kept you as safe as she could until it was time for her to retire and for him to take up the role of your body instead. I hope this makes sense, I got a bit too poetic there with the allegory.

Same honestly, it’s not that I hate my body it’s just that i feel weird looking at it because it feels like I’m looking at a different person

See this is why you need to adopt a baby trans femme and dress her up in all your pretty clothes. It's way more fun that way

Absolutely no behavior or clothing is intrinsically feminine or masculine. Being a girl and having """masculine""" attitudes does not make you stop being a girl. That's just the opinion of others about how a woman should behave, but there really isn't any standard or restriction on how people of any gender should behave. It's okay to """behave like a man""" being a girl. You are not letting anyone down and if someone is disappointed with that then it is a douchebag who puts their expectations of how woman "should" act on you

Thank you for the book recommendation- this is a fantastic read!

Aw thank you, I’ve rewritten We’ve Been Trying to Reach you multiple times since in anticipation of making a collection of my short stories. I felt that the silliness I tried to inject didn’t hit right and that the interaction with the cop needed a bit more fear. Also Rain and I are pals now and this comment is going to our heads.

Do you think that there are levels to dysphoria? By that, I mean, does it vary in how extreme it is?

@@Reed5016 different levels, different causes, different remedies. Nothing in this world is homogenous.

​@@Reed5016as stated, nothing in this world is homogenous. I'll describe my own experience as an example for how gender dysphoria can vary. I'm nonbinary and sometimes I'm lucky and don't have gender dysphoria at all, most times I have some level of gender dysphoria but I can handle it by making changes to how I dress or change how my face looks like with makeup, sometimes rarely it gets so bad I can't look at myself in the mirror without wanting to mutilate my own body. For me, my gender doesn't change but my gender expression does, and with that the level of gender dysphoria I experience changes. I feel most at home with my own body when I think I look gender ambiguous on some level, and it has taken a long time for me to get to the point where I can comfortably say my own definitions for femininity and masculinity are enough, that I don't have to conform to what other people say I should look like as a nonbinary person.

I get that.. I used to wear sport bras from when I was 12. Two of them. It didn’t even flatten my chest, just made me unable to breathe

ngl I'm so happy that I have had a proper binder for a few years now, but I think I still have minor rib damage from middleschool when I would makeshift my own binders. lmao- I remember cutting apart and stitching together some denim pants with a shoelace into a makeshift binder all the way back in 7th. eventually I stopped for a few years until i started again in HS with leg wraps (MANY REGRETS) and a dumb unbreathable cosplay binder I got from amazon for $14. (even MORE regrets.) finally got a GC2B binder when I was 17, and although I definitely need to get a bigger size- it is a much better difference that actually works and doesn't hurt 24/7.. All my little trans guys- please be careful how you go about binding!! Dysphoria sucks but not as bad as permanent rib damage that follows you for years

@@jerminator420 the struggle is real, I get that. You’d try to stack as much as you can, hoping that it’ll flatten it out..only for it to become more prominent.

I've only started trying to bind in the last year since I didn't come out until I was 18 and am taking things slow. (I'm 21 now) The only thing that has worked for me so far is chest tape since I'm a size 5X H E F T Y boyo. Chest tape doesn't always want to stick to itself. When I first started using chest tape, I didn't know that super glue has a thermal reaction with fabrics, especially cotton. I ended up with an (un)healthy mix of tension blisters, skin tears, and burns for the first few months.

@@Adamant_Adam Kinda envy you, ngl. Born and raised in a country where getting a binder is basically impossible. (Hell; coming out is gonna lead to a possible death penalty!) Very anti LGTBQ+ family, and the general public opinion is the same. Currently 17, so I’ll be using these dangerous binders for a while yet, until I get on my own feet. Don’t worry; I limit my use for as much as I can! Currently using them once a month. Baggy clothes go a long way.

pffffffft hahaha

Somebody's mother must be really proud!

Now this is top tier reference humour

they don't care about the damage they cause when they're kneeling on your neck! fuck conciliating to a bunch of mansplaining fascists who only want to tell us what we can't do and how they're only protecting us from what we know is right for us, because they know better

This is a really good perspective omg❤

As an ex-incel, your description of "used to be more conservative (read:stupid, and cruel)" is very relatable I think that the source of that fear from the top down is Top: a trans person is a small enough demographic that it can't be individually marketed to but big enough to put into question why people are divided into categories in the first place, what is a man if a woman can become one too? What is a woman if a man can be one too? What is either if one can be both or neither? This would be the executives and investors, they fear the questions that trans existence inherently brings to the mainstream if they choose to not be properly assimilated into society From the bottom it's a lot more stupid If you ask around it's usually very surface level stuff: "I think it's weird, I think it's gross, it's way too in my face" but if you even hint at the idea of trying to understand it abit deeper they try to back out immediately or say it's because someone else told them, the more avid bigots are usually unaware soldiers of a bigger cause, they fight and bitch and moan because someone else told them to and would change tactics and targets at the drop of a hat if ordered to

"We need to find a way to make the body horror of being trapped in the wrong body more scary".... Or, and hear me out here, we need to be ok with coming up with a treatment that makes trans people no longer feel like they're trapped in the wrong body.

⁠@@RyokoRHMwe already have treatment. It just has a tendency to be outright banned

Fushimoto has a surprising amount of queer rep considering how few works he has written and where he's from

i saw your xipe pfp and the "disability always returning as a natural state" point immediately made me think of dan shu lol

togata MENTION !!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUE !!!!!!!!!!!

Christ you’re brilliant for that concept. I almost shuddered reading your comment

​@@airplanes_aren.t_real I still love how in chainsaw man he _ahem_ introduced 5 characters and at the same time showed the relations between them in one panel lol Sorry for being so unserious, don't worry I can appreciate Fujimoto from other-than-ironic sides too

same, shapeshifting is the ultimate superpower I wish I had it so badly

when i was little i read allll of the goosebumps books and my favourite ones all had transformation - also roald dahl's the witches and ofc animorphs reading turned me trans and furry smhh

Same here, and it never really went away for me… my favourite heroes were always those who somehow transformed into a new form, I read all the goosebumps books where they transformed into something new, you get the point. Maybe obsession with transformation is more of a queer thing than i thought!

@@Eosinophyllis yes!! Link from twilight princess, Sonic Unleashed, etc. I only read "my friends call me monster" as far as goosebumps stories go, but I was obsessed with it.

@@doukzu far too relatable! I was obsessed with this one goosebumps book where a guy was actually a dog and had been given some sort of medication to keep him in a human form and read almost none of the other ones (I’m pretty sure there was one about a doll too). While most would find that horrifying, there was a certain sort of odd comfort in that for me.

I don't know if you've played it but there is a short-ish VN that hits a lot of the same notes from a sci-fi perspective called Heaven Will Be Mine. It might be something you'd be interested in

@@RickiHirsch will check out!!

​@@KatieAndCatburgersteam is having a VN sale so now's a really good time to pick it up !!!

Sadly, that's also destiny of anyone who is getting old. To observe, how your body less and less become capable to suit you.

This kind of analysis made me think of Tusk, Frankenstein, and The Thing. Becoming soemthing you're not, becoming a monster, and not being able to do anything about it

This puts my feelings perfectly. Thank you.

or chronic illness and disability@@user-uc2qy1ff2z

​@@user-uc2qy1ff2zOH MY GOD NO

fuck thanks i thought i was alone in experiencing this lol

As someone who isn't asexual but aromantic, I'm afraid I don't know the feeling but I would like to try wrapping my head around it- are you saying that when you experience... "arousal reactions", for lack of a more clinical way to word it, it causes dysphoria and disgust in you because of the disconnect in what the body / nerves / sensory system etc is feeling versus what your brain is feeling / going through at the moment? That what the body experiences is so mismatched with what your brain experiences that the disconnect feels really really bad?

As someone who is both trans nonbinary and aroace, I understand both of those. My body is wrong bc its shape isn't me and its reactions are different to my emotions. That disconnect is terrible and sucks. I've mostly made peace with the ace stuff as I'm AFAB and it's not outwardly noticeable. I still hate it, but for me it's the lesser of two evils right now Being sex adverse and having a low (but not zero) libido is both a curse and a blessing. I'm glad that my libido isn't high, but I hate that I have any at all

Oh my god hearing someone else have this experience helps so much because I legitimately thought I was the only one I’m asexual and everytime my body reacts in a way I don’t want it to, I really start spiraling into body horror territory because I really want to remove certain “parts” But I’ve been getting better about not feeling as much shame about (still there, but it’s improving) and I really wish the best for you ❤ you’re not alone in this

Oh I get you so much I'm probably not 100% ace but still kind of grey-sexual-grey-asexual, from what you described our experiences are still soo simillar though

Huh, I've felt the same way about manhood while talking about it with transmasc people in my life. Manhood always felt disempowering and restrictive to me. Mentally, I can understand the appeal but could never connect with it emotionally.

Was it "holy" or "wholly"? The transcript is auto-generated and can't tell

@@k.k.9378 Probably "wholly". I don't recall reading "holy" anywhere in this one

Trans-mascs Trans-fems Mutual 🤝incomprehension

@@iiiiitsmagreta1240I don’t understand why anyone would want to be a man, but apparently, people do (/lh)

I'm sorry if this is a strange thing to say, but you are not a monster and your father is not God. Your father was wrong, warped by the culture he was trained in to see people who are different as threats to the intensely heteronormative, exclusive form of Christianity he felt safe in. But God is for everybody, not just the fascists who think only people that look and act like them deserve to be considered human. Coming from a queer Christian, let me just say that God loves you and wants you to be yourself. He couldn't create the world without you in it because to leave you out would have been an act of vandalism, making the world worse by omission. I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're you. Thank you. I hope your terrible experience growing up didn't ruin God for you. Believe me, I know what that's like.

@@samuelcorbett8167 thank you, I need this, I’m not Christian for the sake of staying away from reminders if I am to heal. I know Christianity isn’t evil and I’m glad you were able to reconcile with your faith, my path to healing in diffrent. I’m turning 17 a few days from writting this, so thank you.

@@E3AloeLi It's a long road, but it gets better. I'm proud of you.

@@samuelcorbett8167 thank u 🥹

I simply cannot stop cooking

@@RickiHirsch And the videos you cook are 5-stars!

@@RickiHirschPlease keep cooking 🙏🏼

@@NemuDAlt I will do my best

Ricki sweep

I loved it when I played it and still think about it often. I probably should have included something in here about both it and Heaven Will Be Mine.

@@RickiHirsch it didn't immediately come to mind that hwbm would share the themes but that's like totally right. Glad to see you've played them though. On a side note, do you have any recommendations for media that has a similar feel and similar themes? I've been looking for stuff for ages.

@@haggisllama2630 Unfortunately, I don't. I've been looking but haven't found anything either :(

@@haggisllama2630 After looking for actual years since I played We Know The Devil I actually have a handful of similar games i've found. Ascension is a fan made spiritual successor to WKTD and it goes into the body horror side more explicitly. Another would be If Found witch has next to no body horror but deals with similar themes and has a much more 'grounded' feel to it - its pretty heartbreaking though. :)

YES! WktD was fantastic, some of Jupiter's dialogue still lives rent-free in my skull!!

Welcome home, friend. ❤

I remember having such a “not like other girls” phase when I was 14, only to realize later I was actually just not a girl

🥲🫂💗

I still think about it often

This was an interesting comment to read particularly for the Resident Evil-reference as that really got me thinking on how body horror is read differently from a "cishet" perspective, for a loss of better ways to word it, as a cishet dude myself. I'm not denying that body horror that depicts such changes as unnatural or awful have undertones of "retvrn to tradition" bullshit, but with RE in particular so much of the horror and transformations feel like it's meant to be in service of capital. When the Umbrella corporation turns people into zombies and turns them away from "what they are", it is for the purpose of making them tools in the plans of Umbrellas rich asshole bosses and their own schemes. To be transformed in RE is to LOSE control and autonomy- to surrender and become a cog to the biological warfare / medical industries schemes and be made into an obedient, mindless form that follows the directives of those on top. It is to become dehumanized- Dr Birkin becomes so lost in his work and in his own issues, that the G-creature he becomes turns into a danger to his very own family. Like, he metaphorically impregnates his own daughter because he can't control himself anymore (and ooooh LORD is there a ton of shit we can read into THAT that I am not equipped to handle). And the one individual who DOES benefit from all the weird virus-juice he injects himself with? Wesker, the man whose wealth and priviledge has put him at the tippy top of the "foodchain" (or Alexa if we're going even deeper even if it feels like Capcom doesn't wanna remember her anymore), he can afford to shoot up the GOOD stuff that was tested on the poor unfortunate souls who became test subjects for his benefit. This is most likely the reigning perspective or the one that is closest to most cishet people when we encounter bodyhorror, because while we may not have experience with gender dysphoria, I think the VAST majority of us have experiences with the horrors of existing under capitalism and being made lesser / mindless by it, so that perspective becomes the closest to our hearts when we think of body horror. Of course, this perspective that all body transformative stuff is just for the rich and just serves to diminish the average person... IS ableist and transphobic if you take it to it's logical conclusion that change always bad, because people with chronic illnesses and people who are trans, as you say, would be all about that Virus-juice if it could help them with their issues, and treating the "original" body as always sacrosanct is not right because it doesn't take those people into consideration... but I also can't say that perspective is entirely WRONG when any advancements in medicine and technology sure as hell always seems to be used and mastered by the rich for the benefit of the rich and their continued profit first, actually useful to the majority of humanity maaaybe a distant second. And as long as that revolutionary science will be used as a tool for profit and control, stories that demonize and fear it will always have at least a kernel of validity. So maybe we can summarize it all as- we could ALL have dope-ass tentacle-tooth growths and do sick Matrix flips with glowing eyelasers as we conscioualy mold our bodies into the shapes we wish for them to have rather than what the genetic lottery gave us, if we could only overthrow capitalism so that instead of rich people hoarding the good stuff and only allowing the common working stiff to be a zombie, and not even something COOL like a Hunter or Tyrant, it could be available to all and sundry. Fully Automated Super-Viral Communism is the way, I guess.

❤💋

I read welcome back Alice and wow… i wish i were born a girl, (also it has a lot of sexual harassment but i feel like it has a purpose we’ll just have to wait and find out)

@@immkk1125 yeah i get that and if you were uncomfortable i completely get it, in my opinion it had a point. I may also be wrong though

@@astora1584nevermind sorry for my dumb comment

@@immkk1125 no it wasnt dumb you have a really good point cause i also feel kind of mixed on it, it just has a lot of staying power in my brain

Tokyo ghoul: re had a trans masc? Character that basically was a compilation of all of the fears of trans men and the horror this character went through reflected these fears. It made for a blood chilling story that left me dysphoric after reading it. The irony is that the writer wasn’t intending on making super accurate horror for trans people-he just doesn’t seem to particularly like LGBT people 😂

I hope you enjoy the read. It's a lot but I still think about it often

I know this is serious but if I may make a corny joke: it's time for you to kick the bi/pan/omni fence and pick someone that falls off of it. You can't fail if there's no fail condition!

I think I would love to be bisexual if men didn’t stop seeing me as a girl. aside from the general and unending discomfort that causes, there’s also the intersection of them believing they have more power over me because of how i look.

@@wren_. GOD FORREAL. honestly, you probably are bisexual, or t4t when it comes to men?? (or, perhaps, t4t in general), i think that's how it is for me too because honestly it's more difficult trying to explain trans thoughts and issues to cis people

@@idiotrat2698 i’m like 90% sure i’m bi, but the problem is i would only want to date a man if i didn’t have to look like a girl while doing it. until i get top surgery i’m probably gonna be exclusively dating women for a while

I don't think your gender is the issue. I think the issue is that you, a man, are dating another man who isn't into men. That's not a great situation. I believe in you and I know you have the ability to find someone who will fully accept you for who you are.

gods okay this has been my experience like, almost to a t (just minus the pcos or endometriosis..as far as ik lol) but just like. yeah. wow. honestly though, if you can swing it financially and like, think its right for you, binding has been really good for me with regards to this specifically? like, its not perfect, ofc, but its genuinely been so much better

@@brennan911 Hey, I just wanted to say I appreciate your reply and I'm so sorry you also experienced these feelings. I am... quite large so I can't really bind, haha. But I was able to find some plus sized sports bras on Torrid that sort of... keep everything in place and eliminate a lot of the natural movement, and they at least help immensely with the whole... "Ah yes, must wrangle these for the day" frustrations that can come with getting dressed as a female. Like just removing the frustration of the hooks and wires at least makes the process less... Everything. And I don't have to adjust these bras constantly like all past ones, and I feel less bothered overall. So I guess this is close to binding for me...? I am at least not as stressed getting ready for the day. I hope you continue to find things that assist you and wish you the best of fortune in life.

women experience a lot of body horror from a young age, huh 🥹 for me it was realizing my body could be seen as “dirty” or perceived sexually from the age of 8 (at least consciously from that age, i probably sensed it even earlier). my mom would ask w to “cover up” and “always sit with my legs crossed and pull my skirt down” whenever the older uncles came around (and ive had a traumatic experience with one of them too). i remember feeling hyper conscious of my body and wanting to escape from it whenever i was looked at for too long by men. getting my period was awful too, and then being hyper conscious of the way id sit, stand and move even more than before. i would have very heavy and painful periods too, though these days it’s a bit more bearable. but the worst was definitely my boobs growing out. just like you said, ive often thought about how nice it would be if we could customise our frames and the size of our boobs like we would a video game character. whenever im on a character customisation screen in video games i play out my fantasies of having a flat chested and androgynous body. it hurts to say but i dont like my boobs. i dont want to be “feminine”. yet im resigned to this body. it’s horrifying. sorry for word vomiting under your comment. i hope i can be comfortable in my body one day. but ive felt detached and isolated from it for so long that trying to reconnect with it will take a lot of work. ive been trying and its been difficult. im really happy for you though, i hope i can love myself and my body one day too. ❤ ;-;

@@angel_0132 Just replying to you, to give you empathy and love, and to let you know that I am 200% cheering for you to find love for yourself and find the solutions that help you love your body, whatever those solutions might be. It does indeed take time, for so many of us. Please do not give up, and definitely find people to help your mind on the worst of days. Ask a gynecologist about your options to help with periods, as getting some relief from that can help the mind start to heal from some of these things we have gone through and still go through. Again, much love.

​@@angel_0132and here I am feeling not feminine enough because my boobs are not big. I feel like women with more voluptuous chest are more female than I am, like am pretending to be a woman, I even feel like my genitals not as pretty and womanly as it in other more attractive girls. It's irrational but feels so real, I'm envious of other feminine women because I feel insuperior, feel like am a awkward guy beside them.

omg thought that was a confederate flag in ur pfp i was so confused

It's interesting you mention the Metamorphosis. I read that as a young teen and loved it. I didnt even have vocabulary about body horror, but I had chronic pain and mental illness that made me feel useless and powerless. The story made me feel less alone. But maybe that's why, as a cis woman, I have always had strong empathy for the trans experience in our culture. I know what it's like to feel utterly powerless over my body, and to feel like an alien, and to feel hated for something I can't control. I once asked my doctor, "Why does this keep happening to me? What am I doing wrong?" And she replied, "You aren't doing anything. You were BORN like this." It was such a gift to be told that. It was the first step in not blaming myself for the parts of my body that felt wrong. Anyway, this was longer than it needed to be and now I'm crying lol. But just wanted to say, I understand. Obviously I can't feel what it's like to be trans, but feeling trapped in a body that feels wrong is a hellish experience, and I understand that much. More cis folks need to realize that the trans experience (without gender affirming care) is (similar to) any other chronic health issue.

Wow, thank you for writing this down. I do agree one doesn't neccessarily have to be trans to understand it better, I wish people were just a bit more kind towards us and realize that there are some things we just can't control. And once again, I really appreciate your comment and I hear you.

I loved kimi no na wa, my favourite movie for sure

You forgot to add the part where they are gas lighted by perverts online

@@OHHHHUSBANT what?

You could read a more lighthearted one, if i may suggest. "Boys run the riot" has a fashion motif but is a rather interesting story about finding yourself. It hits close to home in a few spots, but everyone's story and life is different. It might give you a little insight into queer joy, not just queer struggles.

Genre, not genera Normally I wouldn't correct a spelling error, but you spelled it as my name so I couldn't resist, sorry lol

@@CoolestSwordFighter What??

I read it based off your comment, It was a great read, and it turned my gut a few times.

I recently read "Boys run the Riot" which is about a trans kid, representative of the author who is a trans man in Japan. It's not a horror but more heartfelt kind of finding yourself story and how he lives in an area(country) where transness isn't well understood but he manages to find true friends who try to understand who he truly is and the story uses Fashion as a motif.

Okay now I’ve finished the video, and I’m gonna cry this video was amazing. Thank you for this.

Honestly, totally understandable

I did the exact same thing haha

It's a fascinating history. That DNA even carried over into film with lots of gay actors, directors and screen writers having worked on many of the most famous early horror films. Horror really is just for the gays.

@@RickiHirsch yes! One of my favorite bits of information, which inspired the essay, was when I read Carmilla, edited by Carmen Maria Machado, and on page 69 (yes, really), she added a footnote to the description of Laura getting her blood sucked. The note simply read: "If this isn't an org[**]m, nothing is." (Censored so it will not get blocked by RU-vid.) I thought it was really funny so I wrote my essay on it, and ended up enjoying writing it more than I expected.

It comes with some CWs but I hope you enjoy it

Thank you. Hoping the best for ya

I do think it's getting better but it is bummer to look back and see how the trans experience has been represented and misrepresented.

The Missing is incredible. I was crying for the last hour or so of the game.

I was completely fine with girlhood until my boobs started growing. now, I have two unwieldy balls of flesh strapped my chest and i will never be a girl again.

Thank you and well said

Yeah there was something called the Hayes code that stipulated to movie makers that immoral people could never be portrayed in a sympathetic light. The list of immoralities consisted of things like murder, adultery, not respecting authority figures like police officers, and in the same breath, stuff like any "deviant" sexual acts which included homosexuality, women seducing men (not the other way around), as well as portrayals of effeminate men and masculine women. Thankfully it ended but it set back filmmaking by decades and it's a big reason why we even today we have so many queercoded villians and ambiguous gays in media.

@@Keepcalmandcupcakes that's interesting.

It’s called power of darkness if you want to read it. It’s the Icelandic translation, but it’s not the translator fan fic it’s believed to be the original draft of Dracula or the version he wanted to use but couldn’t due to censorship laws.

@@kayleejazz1669 cool, thank you.

That's complete fantasy. Bram Stoker's Dracula is the original and in it, Dracula is not gay. There's no mistranslation, as the original is very much in English.

Wandering Son is phenomenal at getting that point across. I love the story but it's hard to go revisit because it gets too close to home.

this happens in the film too, but it's Hannibal that clarifies that bill is not trans

Well, to be fair, the author didn’t seem to understand what being trans really meant anyway. But sure…

> Says the villain isn't trans > Heavily codes the villain as trans anyway > His work fuels transphobic propaganda for decades What did he mean by this?

@@Cr33pysku11 back in the day, writers used to make certain characters lgbtq to increase shock value, because gay people are scaaaary! blame Psycho (1960, dir. Alfred Hitchcock), that movie is the one that kinda started the whole trend

hope you can get the help and support that you need to navigate all of it, you got this!

I can relate to this so hard despite being a cis 26 year old woman. I just... Don't feel like being a woman some days. I don't wanna be treated as one, I don't wanna be seen as one. I don't want to have the body problems a woman has. Not really wanting to be treated as "male" per se either, or be one, but just... I wanna be human? Not sure if it's society's inherent mysoginy or something deeper inside me, but even online I sometimes just pretend to be a guy just to be treated as one. It's not physical though, it has nothing to do with my body, even if I hate it sometimes (more out of societal pressure to look better and be better for people to look at, but sometimes period makes me hate my body too). Im not particularly feminine in the way I present, I don't wear make up almost ever except maybe 3 times a year, and that's just how often I'll wear a skirt too. Just wearing hoodies and jeans all day, baggy clothes, all that. Gender is an odd thing, and it's weird when society gets its hands on it (because, after all, it is inherently social). After all, what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? What makes one or the other beyond the physical? Does it really matter all that much? It's just so odd and confusing

demiboy time let's gooooo

I had no idea either and I've been admiring the phrase "tousey-mousey" ever since

@@RickiHirschwe have to bring it back. we have to start saying “she makes me feel so tousey mousy 🥺”

​@@crowwithaknife1312 I'm doing my part!

It's down to the last chapter iirc. It wasn't what I expected. It kinda feels more like Oshimi deconstructing a lot of the ideas that show up in Inside Mari. If you like his other work, it's a strong recommend.

I absolutely agree The Skin I Live In is a horror film. So many of those scenes went from odd to terrifying during my rewatch. I'm having a hard time thinking of movies that do a better job of portraying the feeling of being trapped in your body.

It's so good!

@@CoolestSwordFighter -snerk- nice try, asshole. Maybe figure out what someone identifies as before you go around trying to insult them. Also 51% isn’t even a thing, the statistic you’re trying to quote is 41% and is on binary trans people, a group I’m not actually a part of. I know you lot are trying to get the number to rise, but you can’t just decide it’s higher because you want it to be. That’s not how statistics work. So you literally could not be more wrong. It might be impressive if it wasn’t so pathetic

Thank you. I think I'm gonna go back through and do another Oshimi exclusive video once Alice wraps in the next chapter

I am gonna watch this video and have it on my watch later, just not in a place to do it right now (mentally, not Indiana) but as genderfluid person with all but unconventional gender expression that I do not hide in public, this is a very interesting topic

I hope you can get to a better place soon.

Thank you. I'm moved that something I made could have that kind of impact. I firmly believe that fiction can help people find perspective and motivation. I've also found emotional fulfillment in painful stories including some that also helped me come to the decision to transition. It might be scary but I used to tell myself maybe it would be weirder if it wasn't at least a little intimidating. Wishing nothing but the best for you.

I actually had Ginger Snaps in an earlier cut of the video. It totally fits the bill here.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Wishing you nothing but the best

I had to stop keeping up with it during publication but it still stuck with me until I eventually came back to finishing it in the past year or two. It do be hitting and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it for years to come.

I'm glad that came across. I was trying to make a watchlist through the clips I picked out.

If you think about, most things based off of gender dysphoria are body horror to a degree