Queer Voices In Our Community
This Pride Month, we invited our LGBTQIA+ clients and team members to share personal stories about body piercing, identity, and self-expression.
WE ASKED TWO QUESTIONS:
1. How have body piercings contributed to your life and self-expression as someone in the LGBTQIA+ community?
2. What future piercings do you have planned, and what impact do you hope they’ll have on your life and identity?
To those that shared, thank you for trusting us with your stories. Your voices shape our studios and our community every day.
Read their stories below.
Jordan
SHE/HER • CLIENT
The history of the modern body piercing industry has its roots in queer culture. To me, getting pierced is not only a form of self expression but also a way to honor this rich and beautiful history. Body piercing has helped me reclaim my bodily autonomy and affirm my identity as a queer person, making me feel beautiful and confident.
I’m planning to get more genital piercings - an HCH or triangle, and maybe inner labia to compliment my VCH. Genital piercings have provided me so much freedom and gender affirmation. I’m also in the process of stretching my septum, and would love to pair my nostrils.
Aleks
HE/HIM • JEWELRY PROFESSIONAL EVOLUTION BODY PIERCING
It wasn’t too long after I began my body piercing journey that I began medically transitioning. At the time, body piercing was a way for me to reclaim autonomy. I’d always loved the look of septum rings, but there was something very masculine (to me) about having a larger gauge and diameter ring in my septum, so that’s what I wore for years. I’ve been out now for half my life, and with a decade of medical transition under my belt I feel as if body piercing has evolved into a way for me to celebrate and honor a body that once brought me great discomfort
I have a handful of piercing projects in the works, but the one I’m most excited about right now is a surface project on my chest that I’ve been discussing with one of our piercers. I have taken to wearing a lot of button up shirts and things that show off my chest, and I want to put jewelry there!
Tara
THEY/THEM • CLIENT
As someone who came out as nonbinary/asexual just a couple of years ago, my piercings and a FABULOUS piercer (Syndesi) I feel empowered and beautiful and strong in my skin as I am not what others expect or demand me to be. I feel like I’m my most authentic self.
I would like a right tragus and a left anti tragus
Aliyah
SHE/HER • CLIENT
My piercings have made me much more confident and I feel like they make me look and feel much more me. My friends have said the facial piercings make me look “gay” (in a good uplifting way) and it just makes me feel sorta euphoric to know that my piercings help shape such a vital part of my identity.
Too many to count! I have lots of ear piercings planned and I just feel like they’ll add to what makes me feel unique.
Ellis
HE/HIM • CLIENT
Body piercings have helped me reclaim my body from all the awful messages I got about body image growing up. My first body piercing was a revelation. I finally connected to my body and I loved it. My piercings let me be more authentically myself. The pain grounds me. Being gentle with my piercings helps me slow down and be gentle with the rest of me. Choosing jewelry activates my creative side. Getting into piercings has also helped me connect with other LGBTQ+ people who share the same love for body mods. I love talking to others for whom piercings have a whole extra layer of meaning. I especially love seeing other trans folks use piercings for gender affirmation. I don't know if I have words for all the ways body piercings have impacted my life.
I've been dreaming of a gay ear project for a while. Rainbows and lesbian iconography. I also want to get some gender affirming genital piercings. I'm not comfortable with where bottom surgery is right now, so piercings are going to be the next step in my transition.
Kat
SHE/HER • SHIFT LEADER AT EVOLUTION BODY PIERCING
The first pride was a riot. Without getting in to the whole history of body piercing, I will say queer people and pierced people stand hand in hand being hated on for the way they express themselves. Piercings are such an important way of making yourself feel more like you. Being a lesbian and being in the piercing industry are two very important parts of my life. I choose every day to wake up as a proud queer woman with piercings. It brings me pride to be connected to the people who make up the history of my two worlds. I believe in learning to love who you are and taking control of the parts of your life that you can change and being proud of them. Piercings are an incredible and important part of self love.
Too many plans for me to write them all down. Continuing to express myself through body modification and lesbian audacity.
And if you’re in the New Mexico area, be sure to check out some of these incredible LGBTQ+ resources!
