In Defense Of Buffalo Bill: Trans People In Horror

If you, like myself, are a horror junkie, you’ve long been aware of the odd prevalence of transphobia in horror movies. From the bizarre ending of Sleepaway Camp to the badly done Netflix movie the House on the End of The Street, from Terror Train’s twist ending to Norman Bates, the cross-dressing villain in Psycho, trans people always seem to be at the receiving end of horror villain punchlines.

One such example is Buffalo Bill, the antagonist of the classic thriller Silence Of The Lambs. I love Hannibal Lecter as a character and all of his countless spin-offs, the NBC special, the trilogy with Hopkins, and even that one-off prequel film. I love that Hannibal blurs the line of good guy and bad guy because, even though you know he’s a monster, you can’t help but root for him when he’s escaping the lecherous Dr. Chilton. I love that Silence Of The Lambs challenges sexism in the FBI, especially in the movie. But what always upset me, even before my coming out as a trans person, was Buffalo Bill.

In case you’re reading this unaware, Buffalo Bill (born Jame Gumb) was kidnapping young women and torturing them, eventually killing them and using their skin to make a “skin vest.” Why Jame exhibited this behavior catches the interest of many psychologists and activists alike-according to the novel, Jame believed they were transgender (you’ll see why I phrased it that way in a moment). However, throughout the novel, it is stated that Jame is not actually trans. Jame is delusional, you see. Jame cannot be trans and has been rejected multiple times from reassignment surgery because they don’t fit the psychological profile of a trans person.

But, from the perspective of Jame, of course, they’re trans. They feel pride akin to gender euphoria from an increase in breast tissue from the estrogen pills Premarin and diethylstilbestrol, according to the novel (Harris, 136). They have done extensive things to affirm themselves in their own gender. So why is it so heavily argued that a person who clearly wishes to be a woman, who goes out of their way to be perceived as feminine and make themselves feel feminine, simply is not trans?

Here’s the catch: Jame Gumb is totally trans. Now, she is a serial killer, so let’s not rally around her as some sort of icon. Hannibal argues that Jame is not a woman—She simply thinks she is. She is criminally insane and cannot tell if she is a woman. Here’s the problem with that whole theory: Criminally insane people can be trans. Criminal insanity is defined as “a mental defect or disease that makes it impossible for a defendant to understand their actions, or to understand that their actions are wrong.” It says nothing about their own understanding of self or understanding of others.

On top of that, this novel was published in 1988, before a decent understanding of transness and all of its facets was mainstream. The idea of nonbinary genders was practically unheard of in the West. In fact, the first published use of the term “nonbinary” was in 1995, with Riki Anne Wilchins using it in their essay, “In Your Face.”

AND it further reinforces the narrative that to be trans, you must be defective. Jame Gumb had a very abusive childhood, becoming mentally ill and lonely. She was very unstable, yes, and also trans. Those things could have existed separately, but they don’t—A fundamental aspect of her mental illness in the novel is that she “believes” she is trans. They are inseparable and akin to one another, according to her character.

One can argue until the cows come home about the complexities of Buffalo Bill (Billie?) and her gender, and one could possibly even argue that Jame Gumb is not trans—Because that isn’t canon, that the canon is too firm to be interpreted because it is straight-up said that Jame Gumb is not trans. Even the Wikipedia page will tell you that, silly.

But does it matter if she’s actually trans in the scheme of the book? No. it doesn’t. Because all you need to know to understand the book is that Jame Gumb believes herself to be a woman and commits violent acts to further her agenda of transitioning when hospitals would not provide her service. All you need to know is that she’s violent, murderous, and dangerous to society.

She is a wonderful example of unconscious programming. She is a trans woman and the bad guy (gal?). Especially considering that she is a criminal, attempting to satiate her desire to be a woman by means of violence. She, among many other figures in Hollywood, are examples of the way movies program your head to think negatively about GNC people. Trans person does something wrong because they’re trans, or their queerness is seen as somehow disturbing or wrong (see Norman Bates wearing his mother’s clothes being a scene of horror, or the terrifyingly grotesque full body shot of a naked child at the end of Sleepaway Camp). All an audience has to do is put two dots together and make that connection, appealing to the knee-jerk reactionary sentiment against queer people.

That isn’t an accident. So many cis people are terrified of the idea of not being their gender because so many cis people use their gender as a fundamental basis of their personhood. Strip them of it, and they may be left with little about their identity. So how do we scare a group that bases their identity on gender? Simple. Throw in some scary people that just so happen *wink wink nudge nudge* to be trans people.

Gender is a performance, and nobody has perfected it worse than cis people: those dudes that ride around in lifted bed pickups, stickers on their car that say something about fishing and beer; the guys in business suits and briefcases, no matter what the occasion is, even the women who talk badly about other women for the sheer sake of male attention. These are all gender-based performances, a one-act play made into a life.

But these facades are terrible. They crack under the slightest pressure. The guy with the lifted bed has a daughter and suddenly is expected to do reasonable father things—including the ever-dreaded daddy-daughter dance. He feels emasculated. The briefcase dude is outsmarted by a woman, and his image of the infallible man is corrupted. He feels humiliated. The woman talking smack about Brenda in accounting because “she’s totally sleeping around” is called out for her misogynist behavior, and she crumbles.

To a cis person, nothing is scarier than the idea of rejecting the one-act. And the easiest way to fundamentally terrify a cis audience is to rip that from them, take away their comfort, like a child with a special blankie.

Make characters like Jame Gumb get thrown under the bus. In defense of Buffalo Bill, she deserves to be treated as she wanted in life: as a woman. She deserves to be spoken of with she/her pronouns, even if nobody did in her life. Even if she wasn’t a real human, even if she was a serial killer, we owe all trans people that respect of proper gendering.

Trans people are not the monsters in the story. It is not our job to make cisgender feel comfortable in their own skin; it is our job to live our lives to the very fullest extent.

In defense of trans people everywhere: We were never the bad guys.