48 pages • 1 hour read
Andrew Joseph WhiteHell Followed With Us
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Social Context: Anti-Transgender Bias
Content Warning: This section discusses anti-trans bias.
In the United States today, a cultural divide exists between those who see diversity and inclusion as positive progress and those who do not. Anti-trans bias has always been an issue, but as trans people find their voices and no longer hide who they are, people who are made uncomfortable by these identities speak and act out against them. At the same time, acceptance of trans people is increasing but is being held back by intolerance and, in many cases, religious extremism. In these cases, religion is used to justify violence against trans people and diminish their worth as human beings. Through a wider lens, trans people (and LGBTQ+ people more broadly) are often shamed, hated, ostracized, and attacked, sometimes even by their own family and friends.
In recent years, many states have passed anti-trans legislation. These laws target anything from trans participation in sports, to bathroom access, to gender-affirming care. According to NPR and The Trevor Project, “states that passed anti-transgender laws aimed at minors saw suicide attempts by transgender and gender nonconforming teenagers increase by as much as 72% in the following years” (Simmons-Duffin, Selena. “More Trans Teens Attempted Suicide After States Passed Anti-Trans Laws, a Study Shows.” NPR, 26 Sept. 2024). Furthermore, a 2023 yearly report by the Human Rights Campaign noted nearly 500 hate crimes targeted at others because of gender identity the previous year:
And this number is an undercount, given that FBI data reporting does not capture all hate crimes, as not all jurisdictions track anti-trans hate crimes, nor do all jurisdictions report hate crimes to FBI databases. In addition to the FBI-reported hate crime incidents, between the beginning of 2022 and late April 2023 GLAAD recorded 161 different attacks against drag events, including bomb threats, vandalization, armed and violent protests, and in one instance the firebombing of venues that hosted Drag Story Hour and other all-age drag events. These attacks were part of the more than 350 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents across 46 states, recorded by GLAAD and the ADL over the same period. June 2023 saw 145 additional anti-LGBTQ+ extremism incidents recorded at Pride events across the country (“The Epidemic of Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in the United States.” Human Rights Campaign, Nov. 2023).
Hell Followed With Us is an allegorical example of this current social conflict and what it means for trans people. Benji was assigned female at birth but identifies as a boy. For this, he is shamed by the cult that he grew up in, and his mother refuses to acknowledge his chosen name and identity. Benji’s journey speaks to the utter frustration and anger that many trans individuals feel as their needs and identities continue to be ignored or shamed.
Genre Context: Queer Horror
Hell Followed With Us is part of a current trend in literature that combines horror with contemporary social issues, particularly LGBTQ+ rights. Carmen Maria Machado’s short story collection Her Body and Other Parties (2017), Claire Legrand’s Sawkill Girls (2018), and Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (2022) are prominent examples of this trend. Common tropes within this genre include the transformation of a human being into a non-human creature, the dystopian world, and religious cults. Further, metaphors for gayness and oppression are often used, such as the green ribbon around the main character’s neck in Machado’s “The Husband Stitch,” which symbolizes female autonomy versus the patriarchal standard. White’s Seraph transformation fulfills a similar type of metaphor in Hell Followed With Us, symbolizing the trans experience.
White leans heavily into this genre, using gore and body horror to disturb readers, causing them to reflect, and to emphasize the need for compassion and good will toward people in the LGBTQ+ community. Each of White’s three titles to date, including Hell Followed With Us, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Compound Fracture, feature trans protagonists who rebel against the world that raised and attempts to control them. The idea of Staying True to One’s Identity in a world that tries to mold one the way it wants to is a consistent theme in White’s novels. Additionally, White’s use of neopronouns and the inclusion of a deuteragonist on the autism spectrum show that White is raising the bar for storytelling in the LGBTQ+ community and reaching beyond having the trans experience act as the entire source of plot. Instead, he places trans protagonists in his YA world of fantasy and horror, creating intrigue and drawing in a wider base of readers.
