media – GenderTerror

Nyx Fears: Horror, Cats, and Skeletons!

Started in 2013, May (also known as Nyx Fears), has covered many topics but mostly focused on horror movies. May has made several lists that could be classified as doing us all a favor and watching some of the most baffling, absurd, and grotesque the horror genre has to offer. With elaborate set-ups, a few drinks, and a few inside jokes, May has set-up her own section of horror YouTube that is a wonderful balance of review, opinion, and honesty.

GenderTerror was able to interview May about her YouTube channel, her very public transition, her cat, and a little bit about her creative process.

GenderTerror: What made you decide to start making YouTube videos, especially horror movie reviews?

May: I’ve always been interested in horror stuff so it was obviously what I was gonna do if I ever did YouTube. I think I got the motivation because it was snowing one day in Texas and I just decided to go for it. There’s this sorta wall people run into where it seems too hard and weird to coordinate so they give up without ever actually trying. So I basically felt bored enough to give it a try. I had a microphone from when I was in a failed high school band so I just plugged it into my computer and started recording without editing and putting it online. Thank God I learned to edit but ya gotta start somewhere. And being online very quickly changed my life and I figured out how to actually make quality videos. Haha.

GT: What does horror mean to you?

Wet Wings

When I’m drawing, I’m thinking about the skeletons within the bodies i draw, the separation of them all and making sure everything is clear. This didn’t feel like the right way to go in a piece about blurriness AS physical mass, so instead of taking out my sketchbook i went to the kitchen and made play dough. I wanted to have to focus on the exterior, on the blurry lumpiness that could only come from drawing something from its exterior. This also freed me up to do some cool angle stuff and play with lighting. I made some models, mashed them together, and ran with it until the piece felt complete.

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Monsters Out of the Closet: An Interview with the Producers Shriya and Nicole

Monsters Out of the Closet is a horror podcast that focuses on fiction by LGBTQ+ creators. Songs, poems, stories, Monsters covers it all. A wide variety of voice actors and some creative effects add that atmosphere and tension that written word alone may not be able to add.

Executive producers Nicole Calande (who’s over audio production) and Shriya Venkatesh, (who’s over content production) talked to GenderTerror about their trials, tribulations, inspirations, and overall goals with the podcast during its first year.

GenderTerror: How did the team all get to know each other?

Shriya: Nicole and I met as first-year counselors at a summer science and tech camp in the San Francisco Bay Area. We became really good friends that first year, and we clicked even more once we both figured out the other was not-straight the year after.

Nicole: After getting to know each other at camp, our friendship deepened by sharing and exchanging books, movies, and even fanfiction. In one of our first ever collaborations a few years back, Shriya actually beta-read some of my fanfic.

Continue reading “Monsters Out of the Closet: An Interview with the Producers Shriya and Nicole”

Creator Spotlight: Holly Bones

Holly Bones is a UK-based EDM artist with an interest in making things sound dark, spooky and aggressive. She loves horror in many mediums but considers herself kind of a horror film buff. She has even made numerous scrapped attempts at creating her own horror narrative, the only surviving evidence being a video teaser for a single she released. GenderTerror had a chance to interview her about her music, her style, and her inspirations. As always, interviews are unedited from the answers the interviewee gives us.

GT: What inspires you? Is there anything specific you really feel you vibe with?

HB: Oh well god there’s lots of stuff that inspires me and pushes me to be better. I see a lot of musicians doing really well for themselves around me every day, I see my wonderful girlfriend doing better and better and most of all I see that people enjoy my music and want to hear more. That’s what really pushes me forward and in to better things, but if we were just gonna talk about like, influences on my work I’d say the three biggest things I draw from are the Castlevania series, the metal I grew up listening to and horror films! Hopefully if I’m doing my job right it should be easy to pick up on those in my music. I love the metal growl and those big sweeping symphonic arpeggios and just the general vibe of sampling like, hammer horror films or demons laughing or whatever. It’s just good!

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Happy One Year Anniversary!

Art by Tsi-bi, who has also done The “Thing”!

In the beginning of August in 2016, I began to rebrand my personal blog into a queer horror community. As someone who has always loved horror, I felt there was a significant lacking in queer horror coverage as well as in showcasing queer horror creators and their particular works, some new, some old. I wanted to create a place for people to be able to share their love of horror, discuss their love of horror, as well as support the uniquely queer type of horror created by artists and writers.

Thus, on August 28 2016, I re-launched the site with Monsters Of Our Own, a piece on trans identity and monsters that continues to be extremely popular to this day. GenderTerror became it’s own special place in the queer horror world that is continuing to grow and expand.

In one year we’ve had:

27 unique contributors
15 exclusive art pieces
20 exclusive short stories/interviews/reviews
37,530 views
25,081 visitors
all from all over the world from every continent (except Antarctica).

The following are the top 3 posts in each category. This does not mean there is not other fantastic work on the site! Please use these as a stepping stone if you are new here and wish to explore the wonderful area of queer horror!

Antiviral: A Transgender Take on Body Horror

TW for discussions of: abuse, sexual violence, forced institutionalization.

As I entered into adulthood, I didn’t have a way to name my dysphoria. I had three queer friends, one of whom came out as trans my senior year of high school. I remember feeling a little envious, wondering why I couldn’t be trans too. I spent hours trying to find information about medical transition, reading everything I could. Unfortunately a lot of what I found were trans-exclusionary blogs that assured me I’d want to detransition, and that I would be much happier as a cis butch lesbian. That, and bodybuilding forums. Even the supportive, useful resources I found scared me off. They often greatly exaggerated testosterone’s effects. Puberty sucked the first time. I didn’t want to go through it again. But I did know my body didn’t feel right, so I kept looking.

That was about the time that I discovered the body horror genre. It was inevitable that I’d run into it. I loved cult horror, I loved anything psychological and atmospheric, and I loved special effects. The genre scratched my itch for weird, unforgettable movies. In retrospect, my fascination made a lot of sense. The creeping horror of watching your body mutate, transforming into something improper, inhuman, and wrong is something I think a lot of people with dysphoria can relate to. I knew that horror from my own adolescence. And I was afraid I’d know it again if I transitioned. What if hormones and surgeries only made me hate my body more?

Continue reading “Antiviral: A Transgender Take on Body Horror”

Implied and Rarely Said: Queer Sexualities and Genders in Media

Kung Jin is the name of Mortal Kombat’s first gay character. After numerous games, adaptions, and so forth, Mortal Kombat has its first gay character. However, you have to be pretty observant to catch the reference. During a flashback he is talking about the gods accepting him.

“I can’t… They won’t accept…” He says, only to have Raiden respond with They care about only what is in your heart; not whom your heart desires.” And that’s it. That sole line. It’s subtle. It’s nice. But it is far from perfect.

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Righteously Mad

This originally appeared on In Our Words Blog. The website is no longer available so I am posting this previously published piece here. It has been edited slightly to fit into my more recent words and writing style (such as an added paragraph) but 95% of the post remains the same as it was when it was posted to IOWB.

Why do trans people act so sensitive when you discuss trans identities? Why do they get so uptight and righteous when you start talking about the obviously fake trans people and not them? Why do they get so upset when you misgender someone out of spite? It’s not like you were talking about them! You’re just talking about the bad trans people who give queer people a bad name! People shouldn’t get so upset about that!

When you talk about people as a collective, you are talking about them. You are telling people it is ok to do these things as long as someone sees them as bad, wrong, or incorrect. You are telling others and setting an example of behaviors that are never OK to do to anyone. You are tone and identity policing people.

Continue reading “Righteously Mad”

GamerGate: Ethics? What Ethics?

Content/Trigger warning for links: Miosgyny, violent threats, sexism, racism, antisemitism and slurs.

GamerGate has been covered as a hate movement by various places from Kotaku, to the New York Times, to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the BBC News. However, they often decry that these are a few people in their vast movement which is “actually about ethics in gaming journalism”. However…

You cannot claim to be about ethics in journalism when you break literally every journalistic code in the book. Ethics is defined by “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior”. This is obviously a very broad and subjective term. However, GamerGate is specifically about journalistic ethics in gaming journalism. Interesting considering that gaming and reviews are something subjective, as with all arts.

So let’s look at ethical standards already in place for journalists. According to the Society of Professional Journalists there are four main points an ethical journalist should follow. These points are broken down into smaller points, almost all which are broken by GamerGate as well. However, this article will stick to the four main points.

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The Assumed Male Default: Misogynist

None of my coworkers or customers know I spent the first 20 years of my life being assumed to be a woman. They have no need to. It’s never come up and unless it is relevant, it is strictly irrelevant information. So, when it comes to how they treat me, I am treated just like every other guy, which has led to some insight when it comes to men interacting with one another.

Customers and coworkers alike have stated blatantly misogynistic things to me and expected me to agree. They automatically assume that I am misogynistic. This has come from anyone from teenagers to the elderly, both in words and actions. For example, I recently had a customer come in and begin complaining about a female employee from another store. He expected me to agree. He attempted to get me to agree. I was silent. I shrugged and listened. Then he left. I was baffled.

I had a coworker show me photos of a woman who had apparently slept with five guys (who were Black, cause apparently that just adds to the shock) and quoted Chris Brown “these hoes ain’t loyal”, I flat out told him maybe if he stopped beating women and calling them hoes, they’d be more inclined to stay. He seemed taken aback. I didn’t agree with his racist and misogynistic comments? What?

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An Open Letter to XSEED: Words Above People

This is the letter I sent to both XSEED and their parent company Marvelous Games about the transmisogyny in the game Akiba’s Trip and their defense of it.

Cut for discussion of transmisogyny and slurs, as well as mention of rape, violence, and assault. Continue reading “An Open Letter to XSEED: Words Above People”

How Much Do You Hate Yourself, @RuPaul?

CW: Discussion of slurs, homophobia, and transmisogyny.

“Derogatory slurs are always an outward projection of a person’s own poisonous self-loathing” – RuPaul Charles on Twitter, June 2, 2013 in response to Amanda Bynes using the f-slur.

So I must ask you, how much do you hate yourself to loudly proclaim you love a derogatory slur aimed at trans women and trans feminine people? How much poisonous self-loathing are you harboring to proclaim this on a national level, and repeatedly? For someone who proclaims words don’t hurt you, you seemed to take personal offense when Amanda Bynes said the f-slur. How can you love yourself, when you spew these derogatory slurs from a position of self-loathing? Clearly, RuPaul, you cannot uphold your own catchy phrases.

You tell people to get stronger, that words are just words, but if words are just words, something with no meaning, why are you defending them so vehemently? Let it go. If it has no meaning and no value, you can just simply let it go. Of course, that wouldn’t happen because words have power. They have meaning and strength behind them. They have such power, that queer people rally behind boycotting companies who state anti-gay sentiments. They boycott and speak out against people using homophobic slurs, as you did with Amanda Bynes. However, if trans women do the same, requesting you remove a singular word from your vocabulary, it becomes a problem. These women are suddenly causing the end of the gay community for requesting to not be addressed in slurs, these very women who started the Gay Rights Movement, but have you forgot your mothers of Sylvia Riveria and Marsha P Johnson?

Continue reading “How Much Do You Hate Yourself, @RuPaul?”