Queer tattooing: archives of spatial belonging, bodily autonomy, resistance and community

This article examines queer tattooing as both a historical and a contemporary practice of resistance, belonging and community formation. Bringing together three archives – oral history interviews and portraits of queer elders, historical medical records documenting tattooed queer women engaged in sex work at the turn of the twentieth century and a dialogue with queer tattoo artist Sara Swanson – we consider what queer tattooing reveals across generations, bodies and spaces. Our interdisciplinary approach combines archival research, oral history, artistic practice and activist perspectives to trace the ways in which tattoos have functioned as bodily inscriptions of intimacy, queer identification and resistance. The first part of the article explores spatial practices of queer tattooing as sites of visibility, intimacy, belonging and community. The second part addresses bodily autonomy and resistance, demonstrating how queer tattooing enacts what Mona Lilja terms constructive resistance. Such resistance is not merely a refusal of systems of control (e.g., medical authorities), but a means of generating new narratives, subjectivities and communities. Across time and place – from hospital wards at the turn of the twentieth century to contemporary queer tattoo studios – tattooing emerges as a spatial, embodied and relational practice through which queerness is marked and reclaimed. By foregrounding diverse stories of queer tattooing across memory, archives and affect, this article contributes to the generation of more nuanced and inclusive queer histories and demonstrates how interwoven archives can collectively render queer tattooing visible across time.