‘I got 3D nipple tattoos after top surgery – now I can take my top off, it’s been a massive confidence boost’

A 29-year-old man from South Wales who had his nipples reconstructed with tattoos after top surgery says it has made “a massive, massive difference to how I feel about taking my top off… It’s a massive confidence boost”.

Lenny Bowden, who is from Manchester but now lives in South Wales, discovered he was transgender when he was a teenager.

“It almost kind of felt like (my gender) was a T-shirt that I’d been given, and everyone else had been given a T-shirt, but mine never really fit the way it did for everybody else,” he explained.

“Everybody else seemed to be fine in their T-shirt, but mine was just too tight, it was too small, it was uncomfortable.

“That got worse as I went through puberty the first time, the wrong puberty.”

When he was 17, Lenny realised that he was a man, and when he moved out at 18 he felt he had the “freedom to make that decision for myself” and began to pursue medical transition. Many transgender people decide to undergo medical transition, whether that’s through hormone therapy, surgery, voice therapy, or a combination, and for Lenny, the first step was to start taking testosterone.

At 19, Lenny consulted his GP about starting on testosterone, which helps masculinise the body due to the additional hormones. However, there is often a long waiting list to access gender-affirming care on the NHS, and after two years of waiting, Lenny decided to pursue care privately through a London-based clinic, which started him on the pathway to be prescribed testosterone.

Meanwhile, Lenny knew he would like to have surgery to adapt his body to the gender he knew he was.

“I was blessed/cursed with a massive chest,” he told PA Real Life.

“And obviously, I didn’t enjoy that as a child, because I had my first puberty when I was nine. So I was literally a child… When you then start getting attention for those assets, when you’re gender diverse, that’s even worse than what it would be if I identified with the gender I was given.

“So I always knew that I wanted that sorted out.”

Lenny started taking testosterone in March 2020, when he was 24. By May 2023, he’d made it to the top of the waiting list for top surgery – a gender-affirming chest surgery that alters the chest to align with the person’s gender identity – and travelled to Torquay, Devon, for his procedure.

The last time he wore a bra, Lenny wore a size 46F, and he was delighted to be assigned a surgeon that specialised in larger busts shortly before the surgeon retired. Lenny described the surgeon’s work as “absolutely amazing”, giving him the masculine chest he’d always dreamed of.

Lenny had nipple grafts, meaning his nipples were stapled back onto his chest after his breasts were removed. Unfortunately, due to an infection – acute colitis caused by the antibiotics he was given post-surgery, which affected his good gut bacteria – he contracted sepsis which prolonged his recovery and affected his healing, causing him to lose some of one of the nipple grafts.

While Lenny describes himself as a self-confident man, he wanted more natural-looking nipples, and decided to explore getting 3D nipple tattoos – a form of medical tattooing that helps restore the appearance of the areola post-surgery.

Lenny has lots of tattoos, including a large chest piece that was done before his top surgery, and when he visited his traditional tattoo artist to rework his chest piece for his new body, he expressed an interest in nipple tattoos. His artist advised him that while that isn’t something a traditional tattoo artist can do, as it’s a specialist job, she knew Tanya Buxton, an artist based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, who was renowned for her 3D nipple tattoo work.

“I went on her Instagram, and I saw a trans man with a body type like mine – I’m quite broad, I’m quite a big boy… I saw a man with a body type like mine, and I thought, wow, she’s done an amazing job with that. I’m going to message her,” he said.

“So I emailed her, and that was that, then.”

Tanya Buxton, 39, has been doing nipple tattoos for around five years, following a 16-year career through traditional tattooing and cosmetic tattooing which included eyebrows, lips and permanent make-up. She did her first nipple tattoo on a client who had lost her breasts to cancer, and after her work went viral on Twitter, she realised it was something she would like to dedicate her career to.

“Whether it’s a new pair of brows for someone with alopecia, or a normal tattoo design that someone’s worked hard and saved up for, or a tattoo design that’s covered a scar… I’ve always been very aware of how uplifting and empowering tattoos can be for people for many, many reasons,” Tanya said.

“But the medical tattooing in particular, I think, just takes things to a different level. It’s life-changing for people, it really impacts the person’s emotional wellbeing, as well as their physical wellbeing and their confidence… It’s just really rewarding to be part of that moment for people in their journey.”

In the beginning, Tanya’s work was predominantly within the breast cancer community. Then, word spread within the gender-diverse community about her work, particularly as she offers a welcoming space for gender-diverse people at her studio, Paradise Tattoo. Now people travel from across the world – as far as Australia, Mexico and America – for her work.

“Working with the gender diverse community, it’s about helping them along in that journey,” she said.

“They’re trying to feel their authentic selves… So I think these kinds of tattoos are so significant. It really does help promote that body confidence, which, again, improves that emotional wellbeing, when what they see in the mirror physically is how they feel inside as well.”

As for Lenny, his nipples healed smaller than they were originally, and they weren’t as round as they were – “I had one that looked like a nipple and one didn’t”. Following a consultation, Tanya tattooed them both so they’re “a bit more matching”, with a 3D effect to create realistic-looking areolas.

Now, he feels comfortable taking his top off at the beach or the pool on holiday, and while he’s never been to a spa, he feels he could “easily go” for a massage or to a sauna.

“At the end of the day, I’m just a person, I’m just a man,” he said.

“I just want to go to the toilet, I just want to use the right changing rooms, I just want to live my life… I think with something like getting my nipples made to look ‘normal’, and made to look like everybody else, it takes away that abnormality of trans people being (seen as) weird and different.”

“I could go anywhere where I feel like I could take my top off and I feel as though I would look like I belong there,” he added.

“Just that little adjustment to what I already had has made a massive, massive difference to how I feel about taking my top off, for example. It’s a massive confidence boost.”