Cisgender people don’t know the meaning behind my matching tattoo with my wife

I found that a lot of stereotypical manly stuff could be ways to explore my own masculinity (Picture: William Cuthbert / METROGRAB)

My latest tattoo is one I can’t see without the help of two mirrors. That is, unless I’m looking at an identical one on my wife. 

Still, I find myself bringing my shaving mirror in front of the full-length. Using one to look at the back of my neck in the other, I can admire the inked-in image of a ‘headjack’ from The Matrix. 

The headjack itself is a data port, seen on the back of the head of characters who’ve chosen to face the real world. It’s a sign of their former captivity, but also a way back into the Matrix simulation, to fight its tyrannical agents at their source.  

Conceived, written and directed by two trans women, Lilly and Lana Wachowski, The Matrix movies are about wrenching free of societal lies and embracing our identities, gaining control of our own bodies, chosen names and lives. 

But none of these readings were clear to me when I first saw the original film on the big screen for a 20th anniversary showing in 2019 when I was 27. 

In fact, I just didn’t get it. I could see it was a cool movie (the cartwheeling fight sequences still in a league of their own) but I resisted action films because I thought they were a ‘guy thing’. 

Within a couple of days, my wife and I found the basis of our tattoo design online (Picture: William Cuthbert)

I wouldn’t start to twig my transness for another two years at the age of 29. Lockdown gave me the space I needed away from rigidly coded societal ideas of gender, allowing me to come to terms with the reality of who I was. 

After coming out, a lot changed. I began to cut unhelpful attitudes out of my life. Over time, I found that a lot of stereotypical manly stuff – like action flicks – could be ways to explore my own masculinity. 

It’s only revisiting The Matrix in May this year – with context on how it can be read to reflect being trans – that I saw the story in a new way. I decided to rewatch it after I read Tilly Bridges’ Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix and was intrigued to see if I could find new meaning from the stories. 

Parts of the trans reading of the films are closer to ‘male-to-female’ or transfeminine experiences. For one, it denotes Neo allegorically as a trans woman. As for Trinity, she signifies Neo’s fully actualised womanhood. 

But when Neo wakes to the real world – naked, dazed and frightened, but breathing on his own, seeing his real form for the first time – that moment is close to many of us no matter our gender. As is his love for Trinity translating to the self-love it takes to be out and proud in a world that’s systemically against you. 

Trans folks who medically transition after puberty are often trying to undo the damage it did. But these marks of an old, discarded life are represented by the jack. They’re signs of a journey towards truth. Realising that through the world the Wachowskis created made me proud of the journey I’ve been on.  

Watching with my wife healed and defended us against the pressure that surrounds transition, the longing to be seen as your true gender, if only to hide from being perceived as an anomaly. In these rare stories that show us fighting back, we felt the thrill of getting to live through these times when our community needs us visible.  

Listen to more of what William has to say on our My Platform podcast

Visibility would become part of the reason we wanted our headjacks, but at first my wife suggested it as something that would look cool and striking. As soon as she did, I fell in love with the idea.

We’d talked about getting matching tattoos for years, each of us already bearing body art from before and after we got together. But this was the first time we’d landed on a concept that felt right and true to us.  

Within a couple of days, my wife and I found the basis of our tattoo design online – an image of a realistically distressed and rusted plug for cosplay – and knew we had to have it. 

We spent months seeking out the right artist. He loved the movies and had snuck in to see the original on release when he was 15, his experience unmatched by anything else, a sentiment echoed by legions of fans. My wife modelled the first stencil in fine ink like a blueprint, intricate even before any needlework. 

I talked to another artist about the nature of reality while I waited for my session. Getting my stencil and feeling it cold at the top of my spine spiked my nerves as I realised how much it was going to hurt.  

The needle seared like a tiny branding iron, but we found ourselves smiling all the same. 

I remember thinking through the pain that we’d been brought here by everything that had come before. Dysphoria disguised under gender expectations, going along with a prescribed narrative. Feeling wrong. Not understanding why. 

My headjack is a way of being visible while keeping myself safe (Picture: William Cuthbert)

These matching tattoos were our first as out trans people. Being able to bear a mark of pride was worth that splinter we’d carried in our minds. 

When we saw the finished tats for the first time – raw, dark and shimmering with fresh ink – those open wounds were everything we’d hoped for. The pain had been worth every moment. 

This is something The Matrix reassures me of too. Despite the system trying to suppress them at every turn, Neo and Trinity give it boots to the face and fly away. 

They soar hand in hand through a boundless sky at the end of Resurrections, free to make what they want of their reality. To be free and to be awake as who we truly are is the dream for me and so many other trans people.  

As our fresh, hard-to-reach headjacks healed, my wife and I washed and cared for each other’s in a way that added an extra loving dimension to getting them together. In whatever small way is needed, we look out for each other. I’m her Neo, and she’s my Trinity. 

As a symbol of transness that won’t be obvious to everyone, my headjack is a way of being visible while keeping myself safe. 

That need for safety is still all too common. But I’ll never let that stop me from displaying my pride, or the act of defiance that is my body and my life.

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My headjack is a way of being visible while keeping myself safe.