“You don’t see a lot of gay people in tattoo shops, especially transgender people, so it was a big deal to me,” said Abel Killian, leaning on a stool in Lucky 13 Tattoo’s back office space. He stands out in a shop filled with burly dudes with massive beards – he’s short and his midnight-black mop top is stuffed under a red Phillies baseball cap. He couldn’t be over 130 lbs. He’s got chin stubble brought on by testosterone therapy.
The internal struggle with gender identity is hard to describe for a lot of people, but for Killian, it was a life or death situation. “It was either come out or kill yourself,” he said with a surprisingly positive look in his eyes. Killian knew he had made the right moves to become what he always knew he was.
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GayRVA: A Life or Death Situation: The Transformation of a Tattoo Artist
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