Unlocked doors: the trans glitch in Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy

Abstract

This article explores the glitch as a trans mechanic of speculation in Kitty Horrorshow’s (2016) video game Anatomy. Through the glitch, Anatomy rewrites the “walking simulator” in favor of a non-linear form of movement that relies on gaps and breaks in the structure of the game. Drawing on scholarship in trans studies including Eva Hayward’s work on the scar as a site of trans possibility and Lucas Crawford’s examination of the relationship between architecture and trans subjectivity, I read Anatomy as one ludic form of trans worldmaking which unsettles the relationship between the trans body and the space of the house, and the relationship between the player and the act of play, invoking a trans ethos of indeterminacy that rejects coherent narratives of progression and legibility in favor of the refusal and possibility of the glitch.