![]() ![]() The im fine save me tattoo has grown in popularity as a powerful message on mental health, representing a struggle against despair and a call for solidarity. Then he told me: “For my gay son.Im fine save me tattoo – Ink aficionados, how are you doing today? Tattoos in the present day are more than just a creative expression they can communicate profound ideas. I could not fathom why he, of all people, would choose to mark his skin with that. I’m reminded of the empty space he’s kept for his next tattoo. ![]() On the left, tā moko, a symbol of his indigeneity as a Māori man. On the right, his post-colonial identity, pop culture icons, and the things he enjoys. The feeling it gave me should be immortalized, which is exactly why I got it.”īeing queer myself, when I think of tattoos, I’m reminded of my dad and his tattoo sleeves. “It was like I was flying, a big sense of liberty and pride. “It was unlike any of my other tattoos where it stung,” he says. To the uninitiated, it’s a smiley, but in a more discreet “IYKYK” fashion, it’s also a physical marker of his queerness. While Sam’s digital artworks detail the galaxy in Pat’s eyes and the proportions of Pran’s waist, his tattoo tells the same story in fewer strokes. “This type of queer euphoria took over me,” Sam says of getting the smiley tattoo, his fifth so far. Through his consumption of queer media like Bad Buddy, Sam feels a stirring freedom in witnessing a love like Pat and Pran’s, knowing it was made with people like him in mind. Their mom hated them and was “big mad” when Pepper got their first ink, but they don’t care about people’s opinions these days. Tattoos were stigmatized where Pepper grew up. “These are the colors of the agender flag, minus grey because I wanted to stick to three colors,” Pepper tells Teen Vogue. Aside from their tattoo of a literal pepper, it’s the black, white, and green squiggly lines in the shape of a square that symbolizes their identity. Tanis reflects on what’s next: “I’m going to make the future bright for all of us.”įor 29-year-old Pepper from Austin, Texas, tattoos are a way for them to state their identity as an agender person. Coming up on four years of being a trans woman, Tanis has learned that rooting herself in the strength of who she is will be the best way to rebel against rising transphobia, that nothing can make her surrender. “In the end, this tattoo represents a new era for myself, free to be myself unapologetically,” Tanis says, after listening to her family’s concerns that the tattoo would be unprofessional and result in misgendering - she got it anyway. It’s an icon of her pride, calling it a part of her that is “unchangeable and inerasable.” The permanence of a tattoo seems to echo Tanis’s joy in fully relishing her truth: “I felt anxious to have this done, but I knew I wanted this as a way of saying that I'm my true self now, and nothing can change that no matter what.” “It’s a way I show my transfemme pride in a creative way,” she tells Teen Vogue. She had the tattoo done around the time of her two-and-a-half-year anniversary of starting HRT. He is his younger self’s wildest dream.ġ9-year-old Tanis, from Vancouver, Canada, wears the chemical structure of estrogen on her arm. Dylan always wanted to fit in, but now he delights in his unique self. As long as I did this or that and acted a certain way I could put up with the facade forever,” he says. “When I was younger I really had it engrained in my mind that I would never ever say the words ‘I’m gay’ out loud. These days, Dylan invests his time in an array of queer media, each one facilitating the healing he’s always deserved. “The two people in the tattoo being girls expressed my sexuality that didn't need to be explained in words, and their dancing symbolized an intimacy and softness that I hope to find with someone one day.” “My queerness has always been a big part of my life and had been something I was proud of,” Annette explains. Streaks of purple run through, giving it life and spirit. Pride is on display through the tattoos of young people, each with their own story, just like Annette’s.Īnnette’s tattoo is a fine line design of two girls, dancing closely together, faces turned toward one another. In recent times, with the emergence of the QTTR tag, queer people can find artists who are also queer, who can take a more lived-in and sensitive approach to working with clients, especially those who may live with body-associated traumas. When people connect the art of tattooing with the concept of queerness, they might conjure the work of Samuel Steward, who tattooed the Hells Angels and kept track of his sexual encounters, or the reclamation of the pink triangle, a badge once used by Nazis to brand gay people. Historically, tattoos have faced a fierce stigma in many communities.
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