Are you tired of searching for works that describe transgender experiences accurately, let alone with complexity or compelling messiness? Want to read some horror stories that were written by and/or for trans people? Curious about this newfangled term “trans horror” and wondering where to start? Hopefully, this brief primer will be useful to you.

The experience of being trans, of realizing one’s identity is not what it was declared at birth and undergoing a social or medical transition, unquestionably alters how a person views the world around them. Stryker’s focus on transgender rage is one example of how scholars address the hardships of trans life, but there are also positive aspects of transness to be explored using this same metaphor. The transcendence of boundaries features heavily in the expression of trans monstrosity.