An essential element in southern US fiction writing. No good southern fiction is complete without a dead mule. Academics and every day readers acknowledge this literary truth. The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature demonstrates on this premise and features stories with dead mules as elements as well as other fiction, poetry, and essays.

A person who doesn't realize they are transgender yet, or is in denial; an undeveloped transgender person. When they realize, it's referred to as the "egg cracking."