Tattoos showing...can't wear female tops :(

[Brenda E]

Anyone else suffering from having visible tattoos now that areas once hidden by usual male clothing - primarily the shoulders/upper arms for me - are now no longer hidden?

I'm running into a weird dilemma: either hide the tattoos on my upper arms with regular male t-shirts and end up looking more masculine but presentable, or wear t-shirts that are cut for a female and end up flashing some ugly, male-ish arm tattoos in the process?  I want to be able to wear girl's tops, but I don't want to be limited to things with long sleeves.

Removing the ink isn't an option.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Everyone told me that I'd regret getting tattooed, but I was (once) young and thought I knew it all...

(Although a big part of me finds moderately-discrete tattoos sexy on middle-aged women, especially when they can normally keep them hidden, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with a "don't really care what you think" badass transgirl attitude.  Not that I'm a sexy middle-aged woman, nor cool enough to be a badass transgirl.  Mine just make me look like sadass weird dude.)

[MyKa]

Can they possibly be covered with something else. I had two covered last year

[Brenda E]

As in a cover-up tattoo?

That's not a bad idea.

[Stephanie2]

Luckily my tatts are around the nipple (aureola) area, so they wouldn't show even if I did wear low cut feminine apparel. Unless extremely low cut.

[Michaela Whimsy]

I have the same problem.  I thought about covering them up but the symbology that they represented when I got them is the same as it is now.  I now want to just add to or modify them into what I might have had done if I were living as female at the time they were done.  More color here, some pretty vines there...  I'm not sure how well this applies to some of the tattoo work I have seen though.

[angie]

I have the same problem it really sucks, I got sleeves when I was younger trying to be as manly as I could, to try to hide my dysphoria now that I'm transitioning I don't know what to do either! pretty effing crappy but what do you do!

[Sheila Grace]

I have one upper arm tatt that is going to be taken off as what it honored is no longer an issue in my life. I have a LARGE back tatt that is just not an image that I want to reveal to the world with the clothes I intend to wear when FT. I am thinking of having it partially removed so that a "do over" could be beautifully constructed. I do not mind the one over my right breast that shows with lower hung tops. Soooooo, bottom line, is I have some tatts that I want redone or removed, but the redo will be something completely feminine or an elegant Phoenix Rising.

[Eevee]

Oh yeah. I know this problem. I made my own thread about exactly this a few months ago. I have a tattoo on my upper arm that is a bit on the masculine side, and I was wondering what to do about it. The tattoo still has meaning to me, but I just don't like the current appearance. I've decided that I'm going to add to it and possibly modify it a bit until it properly presents what I want it to.

[StevieAK]

Go to a good artist or two and let them give you some ideas. Im sure they can do a cover. Ive seen some awesome work at cover at my artist.

[adrian]

You know, we had a similar thread over at the ftm section -- maybe we can trade
But seriously: embrace them if you can. Many of us (me included) on the ftm or mtf side of things are concerned with how masculine or feminine something is. But tattoos aren't gendered. They make you special!