Identity, Inked
A collaborative feature by Tui Lou Christie and Cameron Taylor
Tattoos are one way that people choose to express themselves, and reflect, reinforce, and shape individual identity much like clothing or makeup might. They’re also (obviously) deeply connected to your body and can be informed by and majorly impact your relationship with it. There is power in recognising this about tattoos. Viewing tattoos in this way can foster connection and understanding of other people and helps us to celebrate each other’s unique ways of moving through the world. Perhaps most importantly, it can free us to be able to celebrate, expand, and take part in creating ourselves, which is especially powerful to marginalised groups who have not always been afforded the opportunity for those things.
Tattoos and fatness
Cameron: I’m fat. And I see it as a neutral adjective, sucking the power out of the hurt that word used to cause me in the past. However, I can’t deny how deeply fatphobia entrenched how I viewed my body for the majority of my life. I beat myself up for so many years because I didn’t fit the ideal male gaze, cursing myself for looking this way and envisioning a future where one day, I would change into the woman that men would “finally want to be with”.
All of this meant I felt an innate pressure to turn my femininity to the highest level, overanalysing every outfit I wore and obsessing over its perfection to ‘prove' that I could be beautiful. Tattoos were not part of that picture of femininity for me. The book Tattoo Philosophy for Everyone speaks to this, with their section ‘Nothing Ladylike About Being Tattooed’ that discusses the masculine aesthetics that have often dominated tattoos and how unblemished skin is still seen as the beauty standard for women. Not only does my body simply existing cause people to go absolutely ballistic, but adding tattoos is just a cherry on top. I didn’t know if I was brave enough to face even more unruly opinions on my body, but I did it anyway. Best choice ever.
Although I love getting tattoos and I will probably never stop until I die, there’s no denying that fatphobia greatly exists within the tattooing industry and there’s still stigma around being inked as a fat person. Cameron Alexander’s article Fatphobia in The Tattoo Industry touches on issues such as tattoo artists not wanting to tattoo certain parts of fat people, in case it ‘ruins their work’. I can’t say this has ever happened to me, but I’m not surprised that this issue comes up. In fact, I’ve always wanted a stomach tattoo but have hesitated, due to being worried about what it would turn out to look like. Another tip that was brought up in the article is checking a tattoo artist’s portfolio first to see if they have experience tattooing fat people, and if you see a lack of, this may be a red flag.
Seeing representation of fat people with tattoos, such as the Instagram account @fatandtattooed, plays a huge role in ensuring that we are not only normalised, we are GLORIFIED. It shows tattoos on all parts of the fat body, making me think “Fuck it, of course I can get a stomach tattoo”, no matter what anyone tells me. The account also includes a highlight reel bringing up other tips and tricks such as:
How to cover up if you feel uncomfortable with your body being exposed
Reaching out to your tattoo artist in advance about the weight limit of their equipment
Stretch marks - not often a problem but if you feel they might be, communicate with the tattoo artist!
Having a great tattoo experience involves finding a tattoo artist you can openly communicate with before and during the process, and someone who celebrates your body and doesn’t make you feel like a burden. Like I said above, if tattooists aren’t comfortable tattooing you due to a lack of experience, this isn’t your fault nor a criticism of your body. Tattoo artists should be equipped to tattoo ALL bodies, and I’m so grateful to have come across some incredible artists in my life, such as @bykaysey in Papamoa, and @marth.tattoo and @_mel_tattoos in Dunedin who made me feel so empowered and welcome as a fat person.
The pressure to be feminine and beautiful as a fat person in the male gaze hasn’t completely faded over time, but it’s definitely lost a lot of its control over how I live my life. Each time I get a new tattoo, especially places I would have never dreamed of having ink, I feel my self-confidence kicking up a notch. One of my most powerful experiences was getting my thigh tattoo, with my thighs having been a gigantic insecurity for as long as I could remember. Covering a part of myself I’d hated for so long in such beautiful art was transforming, and I even added two more pieces to the mix since then.
Tui: Fat is not a dirty word, it’s not a bad word, it’s an adjective. I have red hair; I’m red-headed. I have English heritage and pale skin; I’m white. And when I sit down on a bus, my ass is wider than the seat; I’m fat. I’m also tall, blue-eyed, and freckled. The power of words is in how we choose to interpret them, and all of these descriptions of me are accurate and neutral. None of them are bad words and none of them prevent me from being kind, beautiful, helpful, and funny.
Getting tattoos, for me, wasn’t really a conscious effort to help my insecurities. That was more a side effect. I never felt the urge to wear dresses with thin straps that showed my broad shoulders and wide upper arms, until I got tattoos in those areas. Now, I love to show them off! Occasionally I would feel weird about having hairy legs, but now my cool tattoos are on display! Being able to have a say in how my body looks
Māoritanga
Cameron: Not only have tattoos positively impacted my presence as a fat person, but it’s strengthened my cultural identity as Māori. My tattoo haerenga started off simple; just wanting one meaningful tattoo to celebrate someone I love. Māori Mermaid, one of my favourite artists of all time, put up an Instagram post selling ‘tattoo tickets’, meaning you could buy one of her designs as a tattoo. One design she was selling for Mother’s Day was a mama holding her pēpi, and I instantly fell in love. I can never put into words just how incredible my mother is, and I wanted my first tattoo to be in honour of her and all she has done for me. I never pictured myself being covered in ink. It took so much courage just to get ONE tattoo. But now, at 23 years old, I have 20 tattoos and counting.
At the time of getting my first tattoo, it felt like an unusual choice for me. A girl who grew up in te ao Pākeha with ink of the culture she barely knows anything about? It felt unnatural, like I wasn’t worthy. But every time I looked at that design, I felt such a strong connection. I felt aroha for my mum and for all our Māori māmā who have raised our tamariki; the aroha of a Māori wahine is such a beautiful thing to experience and I’m grateful to have felt that my whole life.
A few months after this tattoo, my younger brother asked me if I wanted to get my tā moko done with him. This thought had never crossed my mind, with only a couple of our whānau members having theirs done. I compared myself to my whānau who were fluent in te reo Māori and had grown up in te ao Māori who hadn’t had theirs done. If they don’t have theirs done, what makes me think I can get mine done? Those feelings of inadequacy bubbling up again and again, thinking that I had to get to a certain stage in my Māoritanga to earn the right to my tā moko. But I looked to my brother, who had the exact same upbringing as me. Despite being younger, he was so self-assured and confident in his decision, and I knew he would do it whether it was with or without me. If he could do it, so could I. We wouldn’t be alone.
To stand strong in my decision, I had to come to terms with the fact that tā moko is a birthright and an ode to our divine whakapapa. In Michaela Ngaropaki Teresa Hart’s thesis Tā moko: Marked Histories and Identities, she talks about how whilst tā moko used to be compulsory, it is now an individual decision. Tā moko often represents a “link through to the past, as descendants and other iwi members look once again to placing these tā moko on their own skin, to honour their ancestors, and thereby celebrate their survival” (Ellis, 2018). My tā moko represents two of my iwi and my immediate whānau, as that’s the only whakapapa I felt confident in acknowledging through tattoo at that time due to uncertainty on how my wider whānau would react. I now plan to get another tā moko that represents other parts of my whakapapa I have learnt since then, as well as commemorating my wider whānau.
I’ve had a few people in my life tell me they had dreams or visions of me with a moko kauae. This took me aback every time, those familiar feelings of Māori insufficiency rising to the surface. I’d grown up only thinking only the most “Māori” wāhine, whatever that means, were “allowed” to have moko kauae. However, it all goes back to whakapapa. Moko kauae is a BIRTHRIGHT. A participant in Michaela’s thesis put it like this - “It is colonised behaviour to make any excuse to not receive facial moko. When Māori put up these types of barriers, we are acting colonised. These barriers stop us from embracing an important and beautiful aspect of our culture.”
You don’t have to be fluent in te reo or know everything about te ao Māori to have it done, although society would like to tell us that’s the case in order to prohibit many of us from pursuing that path. In recent times, I’ve begun feeling that pull towards getting it done. I’ve never felt more secure in my Māori identity, although I recognise there’s still a long way for me to go in my journey. But every time I feel that pull, I talk myself out of it and convince myself that I’m not worthy. In all honesty, I’m scared of what others would think. I’m afraid to bring it up to my wider whānau, of which no one has a moko kauae, in case they affirm that indeed, I’m not deserving of receiving it. Receiving a tā moko should have never come with this much whakamā for Māori, but it’s unfortunately where we’re at. I deeply admire every wahine who has pursued their moko kauae, regardless of what anyone says. I hold faith that one day, I’ll get to that staunch, unwavering place in my cultural journey to go through with it.
Despite the whakamā that has come with this journey, in hindsight, the decision for my first ever tattoo to be a contemporary Māori design was not coincidental; it was fate. I truly believe it was a sign of what was to come, a way to ease me in to my difficult but tremendous journey with my Māoritanga. Small steps built up into bigger strides - learning te reo Māori, doing kapa haka on stage for the first time, working in a Māori-based career field. Now when I go to plan what tattoos I’d like to receive next, Māoritanga is frequently at the heart of it and I can’t imagine it any other way. I see my existence as a fat, Māori tattooed wahine as a giant FUCK YOU to anyone who thinks I don’t deserve to be on this earth fully as I am.
Queer identity
Tui: There’s a lot of things around our bodies that you can’t always control easily, like your height or how broad your shoulders are. These things affect the way you want to be perceived and see yourself, for everyone but especially those who are trans or gender diverse. I have a feminine frame, and that doesn’t always feel comfortable for me. However, there are things we can control about our bodies; we can dress them the way we want, we can cut our hair, we can wear makeup and accessories, and we can get tattoos. I embrace, construct, and embody my gender diversity through my presentation, all the way down to my skin and how I choose to decorate it.
Tattoos have been a part of queer culture for a long time, for many reasons. Partly, it’s this sense of control over your body that isn’t always granted to queer people, in particular those who constantly find their bodies a politicised subject, like our beautiful transgender whanau. Emma Spectre, writing for Vogue, explores some of their affirming tattoo experiences in the article ‘How a New Generation of Queer Artists and Patrons Are Redefining Tattoo Culture on Their Own Terms’. Spectre writes that within a heavy mix of emotions, taking control of your physical body is grounding and empowering. “Those are just two of the times tattooing has briefly saved me,” they explain, “providing me with an alternate script for how I saw my identity, my body, and my physical and spiritual presence in the world.” We take part in the construction of our own bodies, taking ownership, strengthening that connection into a positive relationship.
Sometimes, queer people are the subject as well as the canvas in queer tattooing. Lots of queer people who have tattoos have symbols that either overtly or subtly show their pride. From the ‘50s, lesbians began getting nautical stars tattooed onto their wrists, as a subtle code meant to indicate that section of their identity to other lesbians. There are many others that last on to today that subtly or overtly hint at the wearer’s identity; queer-coded flowers like lavender, lilacs, and carnations; gender-related symbolism like the double mars, double venus, or gender diverse symbols; and, of course, rainbows, scissors, and much more.
One common queer-themed tattoo, mainly for gay men, is the pink triangle. An upside-down pink triangle was a nazi symbol used to single out and shame gay men in concentration camps during the second world war. An estimated 5,000-15,000 gay men were killed or died in horrific and sometimes torturous conditions in these concentration camps, bearing these triangles on their clothes or uniforms. From the 1970s and onwards, gay activist groups began reclaiming the symbol, flipping it up the other way and taking back the power of it. It’s commonly tied to the slogan Silence = Death, from a New York-based activism project of the same name in the late ‘80s, aiming to raise national awareness of the then-ongoing AIDS epidemic. Nick McGlynn, a gay man, got a pink triangle tattoo after the tragic Pulse nightclub mass shooting in 2016 (Gay Star News, 2018). The event was a harsh reminder for the wider queer community that violence directed at queer people still proliferates. “I was angry and I wanted to have my queerness permanently written on my body as a “fuck you” to the fear of being visibly queer in public,” he said. Pride saves lives; queer people are beautiful and deserving of wearing their history and pride on their skin.
Tattoos can also create an incredible sense of community. I’m up to twenty-something tattoos, and I’m grateful to the amazing queer artists who made me feel both incredibly safe and completely seen through these intimate acts. One studio that I admire and frequent is Studio Seaweed on Dixon St., where I have had the privilege of being tattooed by Hana (@r.atbag) and Ti Ko (@__ti.rex). I’ve also got small collections from other amazing queer artists like Theo (@teddytattoos) and @noveltygroanstickinc. These artists create safe spaces and build relationships and connections between members of the community who might not have otherwise met. Additionally, the most common dedicated queer spaces, gay bars, revolve around alcohol; queer tattoo shops create community hubs that don’t involve drinking, which can make them more accessible to more members of our community.
In conclusion, getting tattoos and tattooing can both reinforce your belonging to a community and create or expand that community. They both create a sense of self and disseminate that to the world. They are for everyone, and we hope any tattoos you have or intend to have make you feel secure in your identity and safe in your body, and create a sense of belonging within your communities. Or at the very least, they’re cool as fuck!
Arohanui,
Cameron and Tui Lou xx