Celestial Bodies - Flipbook - Page 14
BODY ART: A GATEWAY TO GENDER EXPLORATION
“I remember I was doing a tattoo on myself
that was going to touch my leg, so I shaved
that area for it. And I was like, Ooh, that's
kind of nice. I kind of like that. Maybe I
should try shaving my whole legs. But that
still felt like a step too far... And then, over
the next year, I started exclusively getting
tattoos from trans people or genderqueer
people, and really feeling like I was gaining
some ownership of my body through
tattooing myself as well. And just having
that thought like, I’m not cis. Every single
bit of like exposure to another trans person
was like, Wait, that's like me.” [Jed]
“When I got my gauges, I was 17 or 18. And it
was a time where I felt really weird about my
gender. I just was like, I want to be able to see myself
more. So when I started to put the gauges in and
stretch my ears out more and more, I just felt
masculine in my own way.My third tattoo, I got a
chest piece across my collarbone from shoulder to
shoulder, and for the first time could like look in
the mirror and tolerate seeing my chest. This was
before top surgery, and I really liked it…Also, in a
weird way, being able to tolerate a certain amount
of pain made me realize that I am like capable of a
surgery. And then all of a sudden, if I like wore
like a shirt where [my chest piece] was like kind
of peeking people were like, That's really sexy. And
I was like, Whoa, like other people find my chest, my
masculine chest sexy. That's really cool. And I think
that led me to like, just being like, you know
what, I gotta get get top surgery. Like, I just
know, this is the next step...[Getting tattoos]
made me feel like playful, and it made me feel like
I had more autonomy over my body and I could
like start to shape the way I wanted to look to the
world. Because I felt out of control of how I was
being perceived. Like I was being perceived as
like a butch dyke, and this was one way for me
to take that back for myself. And then when I
looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw more
and more often.” [Izzy]
l would say getting tattoos and top surgery have
been pretty parallel experiences, at least
socially. My mom was hysterically upset about
both so it's been an exercise in learning how to
stand my ground in how l want my body to look.
Kind of learning how to be ‘a disappointment’
and transgress one family norm with my first
tattoo helped me keep going and was very
liberating in retrospect. The tattoos also help
manage dysphoria. Pre-transition tattoos were an
escalation of trying to get rid of the gnawing
awful feeling that I needed to change something
right this moment...I feel more confident and
comfortable with all my modifications.
Physically it's weird that I frequently forget I
even had boobs before and l'll regularly forget
tattoos I don't see all the time.”[Gabby]
“When I was first coming out, thinking about things
like medical transition is something that felt really
far off and felt really like unattainable. And I honestly
at points I didn't even, like consciously desire those
things that can my kind of outlet was tattoos and
piercings. So I was like, at that time, like years ago, I was
like, Top surgery is not for me, I don't think I'm ever gonna
consider like hormones. but that's changed. It was a way to
kind of, I guess, still feel validated in my trans identity
without feeling like I have to like rush to medically
transitioning...You know, it's hard, I guess, when you first
come out as queer or trans, and then you see all these
other representations around you, you're like, Oh, I should
be like that, in order to be valid. But then, like, I think
through tattoos and piercings, I was like, Oh, this is just a
different kind of valid way of expressing that queerness and
that transness. And so I feel like, for a lot of people, it might
be like a gateway to just kind of reclaiming some kind of
autonomy that maybe they didn't have, like, in
adolescence.” [Jacke]
“I got my nose ring shortly before coming out to even
my partner. It felt like I guess dipping my toe in the
water. I had started painting my nails a couple months
earlier but this felt like a bigger step because it was
more permanent...I think my nose ring became
something I could latch onto as a symbol of my secret
identity even if other people wouldn't know it. I got my
belly button pierced about a year later this past
October and at that point was out as non-binary to my
partner and a handful of friends.... Plenty of cis guys
have nose rings but I don't think many have belly button
rings! And if I wear a crop top where it shows then I
feel like it really makes a statement. Obviously any kind
of gender affirming surgery or hormone treatment is a
bigger step, which I'm not ready for, so piercings have
felt like a good way to test my comfort with altering my
body and expressing my gender queerness.” [Max]
