Mom Transforms Her Tattoo of Transgender Son to Reflect His 'New Awesome Life'
A mother whose son is a transgender teen is publicly showing her support for his new identity by altering a tattoo she got a decade ago.
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Lindsay and Steve Peace are the parents of three kids: Elliot, Hamish, and Ace. About 10 years ago, Steve, a Canadian tattoo artist, inked images of all three of children on Lindsay’s arm. But a year ago, Ace, 15, the couple’s oldest child, came out as transgender, so the image tattooed on Lindsay’s arm — of a young girl with pigtails in a pink dress and a purple bow — no longer fit. “I felt it didn’t reflect me very much,” Ace told Global News. “It wasn’t so much our family because that person didn’t exist anymore.”
The Peace family, including 15-year-old son, Ace, top right. (Photo: Facebook/Steve Peace Tattoos)
So Lindsay had Steve touch up the tattoo, turning the little girl into a little boy — with short hair, a blue shirt, shorts, and a slingshot where the bow used to be. In a before-and-after photo he posted on Facebook, Steve wrote that the new ink was necessary “to fully represent who [Ace] is in his happy new awesome life.” As he told Buzzfeed News: “A lot of trans people don’t like pictures of themselves from their past. That’s one that sort of walked around with us, as a family.”
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The tattoo transformation, which took about an hour to complete, was a symbol of the parents’ blessing of their son’s new life. “You have to support your kids,” Steve told HuffPost Alberta. “I mean, it’s tough when you hear that [your child is transgender], as a parent, but you have to be strong for your kids. You have to come to terms with it yourself, on your own time, and just have to offer 100 percent support.”
Lindsay told Global News that she doesn’t miss her daughter. “I would never wish for him to be anybody else,” she said. “He’s just so brave.”
The updated tattoo came as a surprise to Ace, who said he was thrilled at his mother’s new ink. “It made me really happy. I didn’t realize how much she believed me,” he said. “It finally fits.”
(Top photo: Facebook/Steve Peace Tattoos)
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