Guest Post: Secret Confession: I’m Not a Woman in Horror #WiHM8

“Why did you pretend to be a man?”

The question, posed after the release of my Gothic novel Verland: The Transformation https://www.amazon.com/Verland-Transformation-BE-Scully/dp/1460907000 , thrilled me. After all, I’d gone to the trouble of choosing a cryptic social media “author” picture; I pretzel-twisted my bio and write-ups to avoid the Great “Her-She-Ms.-Ma-am” Pronoun giveaway; I’d written a pretty muscular novel. Okay, a transgender novel with some muscle, perhaps.

It’s not that I didn’t want to be a Woman in Horror. Sure, I thought being a dude https://bescully.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/some-thoughts-on-the-recent-sfwa-genre-gender-controversy-or-being-the-dude/ might help sales and all that. But who can say in this day and age when a straight white man isn’t even allowed a voice by some people? All of these long-silenced voices silencing other voices.

Strange times, when a man can be a woman, a woman can be a raccoon, and a raccoon can…well, I think raccoons may still wish to be raccoons. But I wouldn’t want to assume.

I am a biological woman. Our inner body battles, which go on and on throughout the years, are definitely not fought by the “Y” chromosome crowd.

There just ain’t no changin’ that yet.

But even biology ain’t what it used to be. Or never really was in the first place. For who doesn’t know men who seem like women (sometimes), or women who seem like men (sometimes), or—the very best combo—men and women who seem like men/women/something-in-between, pretty much whenever it suits them.

That’s the most natural state for some of us. Yin/Yang; Male/Female; Dark/Light; Masculine/Feminine.

Because we all know by now, don’t we, that masculine doesn’t always mean Man, and feminine doesn’t always mean Woman?

Hell, man doesn’t even mean man, etc.

Make no mistake: it’s critical, and amazing, and ongoing, for the spotlight to be spread wider, for voices to finally be heard, for faces to be included at the round-table. For the sword to come out of the stone for a girl, once in a while. For Tony Iommi’s daughter to be in the band, for a change http://www.talesfromtheredhouse.com/youve-got-devils-daughter-heavy-metal-unics/ . It’s been a long four-fucking-thousand-years of top-down written history. If that primal roar vibrates a little too loudly right now, a little too fiercely, roar along or cover your ears.

I’d prefer roaring along. And roaring your own tune, too. The Debil’s Circus Show has a lot of rings, a lot of caravans, a lot of lost highways to travel.

So speaking of secrets: there are many Women in Horror I’d like to say “THANK YOU!” to this month, artists who have touched me in the past few years with the masculine, the feminine, the in-between. Some of them are even women.

And otherwise.

Me?

Secret Confession: I’m a Woman in Horror.

Website: https://bescully.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bescully
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/BE-Scully/e/B0052MMUUY

AUTHOR BIO:

B.E. Scully lives in a haunted red house that lacks a foundation in the misty woods of Oregon with a variety of human and animal companions.