Trans son insists that mom remove her tattoo of his dead name.
When this son is conflicted about his mother's tattoo, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my mom to remove/change a tattoo?'
I (17ftm) am trans and came out to my family a few months ago. All in all, everyone has been supportive, although I believe my mom was a tiny bit bummed. She said she would always support me, though. She just needs time to process all of this. Which is honestly painful. But not the reason why I'm here.
My mom got a tattoo with my sister's name and my dead name after I was born. It's a huge tattoo with a unique design that incorporates her and my dead name. It covers most of her arm, and she is really proud of it because my old sister designed it and gifted it to her for her birthday.
Obviously, constantly seeing my dead name is kind of triggering to me. Therefore, I told her she needs to remove it. She seemed shocked and told me she's too old for longer tattoo sessions. She hasn't gotten a tattoo in years, bc of that.
She also was diagnosed with depression and such and uses it as an excuse for not having the energy to change it anymore. I don't really believe her, but whatever.
Now she is often trying to cover it up with clothes, but I feel like it's not enough. Just the knowledge that that... name is still there, it haunts me. But she refuses to change it.
We had a lot of fights because of it, and she said that she is really trying to hide it, but it's a part of her body that she is in love with, bc there is so much history and love for her children in that tattoo. I can't really relate, because I don't have any particularly significant tattoos.
Now, my birthday was a few days ago and some family came over, and the issue came up, bc my cousin was showing off her new tattoo and someone asked about the dead name tattoo. My mom got uncomfortably silent and excused herself and went to the kitchen.
So, everyone started asking me what that was about, and I told them that I wanted her to remove the tattoo, but she doesn't want to. My sister also doesn't want her to, bc she believes it would look really awful, since the entire design is attached to the names and the only way to cover it would be to just make her entire arm black.
Anyway, I didn't actually plan for that reaction, but my cousin (who can relate a bit bc she's queer) for some reason got furious and went after my mom and screamed at her for being so unsupportive and accused her of being transphobic.
Which I don't believe, although it was nice to see someone get angry about the tattoo, bc my cousin was finally saying some things I was feeling, but I didn't want to put into words. My mom then had a panic attack and left the house.
She is now staying with my grandpa, and my dad and my sister are angry at me for making some of my family gang up on her. AITA?
Let's find out.
trchrs writes:
YTA. She was dead name’s mother for 17 years. You can’t erase all traces of the child she loved your entire life.
You can change anything you want to about yourself, but you have no right to demand that of anyone else. You’re being epically unreasonable and incredibly immature about this. It’s not a good look for you.
tastygarage writes:
NTA. People who haven’t changed their name because of dysphoria attached to it can’t tell you not to be triggered by something they don’t deal with so I’d like to take the time to remind you a lot of people on Reddit have their own queerphobic values and you really shouldn’t listen to a lot of people who are here to take the opp to spread them.
valenova writes:
YTA. I do understand your feelings, I really do, but in the end: it's your mothers body, her choice. You have no voice in whatever she does with it. She is trying very hard and covers the tattoo up when you're around. That's all you can ask for.