User:Drygionus/LGBT themes in horror fiction

Frankenstein and Gender
Gender studies scholar Judith Butler asserts that Frankenstein's creature exists in a gray area of gender, tying his monstrosity to his subversion of gendered expectations. Professor of English Jolene Zigarovich expands Butler's binary lens, bringing in Susan Stryker's explicitly transgender analysis of the creature. Stryker likens the creature's construction with the process of medically transitioning, and draws parallels between the subsequent ostracism the creature faced with experience of marginalization faced by transgender individuals. Zigarovich credits Stryker's work as a catalyst for further queer and trans approaches to Gothic literary analysis, particularly amongst those seeking to reappropriate the maligned imagery of the "unnatural" and variant with regards to gender.

Contemporary horror fiction with LGBT themes
A plethora of more recent horror fiction incorporates LGBT themes, as the genre's focus on the body, desire, and fear places it in a prime position to tackle issues of normativity and social identity. José Luis Zárate's groundbreaking 1998 retelling of the voyage of the Demeter in Dracula, The Route of Ice and Salt, brings the subtextual queerness of the novel to the surface, boldly making such themes explicit in his depiction of the ship's captain as gay. Author Billy Martin is known for writing horror novels and short stories (under the pseudonym Poppy Z. Brite) featuring gay male characters, and incorporates his own experiences as a gay trans man into the themes of his work.