TRANS COSMETIC INJECTABLES
Trans women in Mexico City are suffering from ‘ modelants disease’ – the devastating result of injecting oils and silicones into their bodies to achieve feminine curves
Trans women reveal the shock results of oil injections for feminine curves
“`` iT WAS CHEAP AND THE EFFECTS WERE IMMEDIATE. IN JUST A MOMENT, YOU WERE
GETTING THE BODY YOU DREAMED OF ´ ”
Using just a few strong movements of her arms, Palmira Bothi gets into the back seat of the taxi and folds her wheelchair. This 50- yearold trans woman lives with this extension of herself since losing the use of her legs — the consequence of a decision she made at the age of 17. In order to achieve a more feminine shape, she had a friend inject a litre of mineral oil into her buttocks.
“It was such a big thing,” she recalls later, sitting in a café close to the Institute for the Disabled in Mexico City, where she works. “Everybody was doing it. It was cheap and the effects were immediate. In just a moment, you were getting the body you dreamed of.”
Today, Palmira tilts her head coyly and smiles at her ingenuity. She looks over her glasses:
“At the time, I didn’t even know what mineral oil was. I was seeing others doing it and I wanted the same. Now we are all sick.”
Mineral or vegetable oils, silicones and biopolymers: these are the poisons that Mexican women have been injecting into their bodies for a very long time, including many trans women. Yet the consequences of these lower- cost, surgery- free treatments only became apparent years later.
The practice of injecting these substances has multiplied over the past two decades in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela, Colombia
and Mexico. ‘ Death has a peachy bubble butt’ was the headline of Colombian newspaper
El Espectador in a 2017 feature revealing the damage caused by injecting these products.
Palmira’s symptoms developed gradually: first came the inflammation, followed by acute pain that gradually spread across her legs after the mineral oil migrated, thanks to the natural pull of gravity. Next, the skin on her legs became hard and red. Twenty years ago, several ulcers appeared.
“At the hospital, they wanted to amputate my leg at first. I spent six months with that infection but I kept my leg,” recalls Palmira.
When Palmira’s legs became stuck at a right angle with necrosis on her skin, this serious, hard- working woman had to give up her job as a hairdresser. The nerves had been damaged by the foreign substance. “Doctors don’t know much about this disease and they don’t know how to treat us,” she says.
Once a month, she travels across Mexico City to the Manuel Gea González Hospital. For some years now, surgeon Dr Adriana Lozano has been treating the ulcers on Palmira’s legs to avoid further infections. These wounds have already confined her to a hospital bed on several occasions.
“The oil bonded within Palmira’s tissues,” explains Dr Lozano. “When a wound heals, another one opens. It will keep going like that for the rest of her life. It’s a very difficult disease. I never blame these patients for having certain consequences from their actions, because the situation is already really hard for them.”
Lozano sees a lot of trans patients. “Some
`` Doctors” don ´ t know much about this disease and they don ´ t know
how to treat us ´
doctors are refusing to treat them, which is contrary to any kind of ethics,” she says sadly.
Tingling, hypersensitivity to the cold, to the air, to touch: oil infiltration causes a whole range of weird sensations. And there’s no possible cure. It’s frustrating for both patient and doctor.
“I’d like to find injectables that are safe,” says Dr Lozano, as Palmira looks on. The surgeon believes that attempting to prevent trans women from having these procedures has certain limitations. “They’re going to keep doing it because they need it; it is important to them.”
Across town, another doctor, Dr Gabriel Medrano, a rheumatologist from the city’s General Hospital of Mexico, says these cases are not uncommon. Medrano is one of the leading experts on ‘ modelants disease’ ( enfermedad por modelantes), as it has been christened. Since the early 2000s, together with some of his colleagues who work in plastic surgery, he has specialised in studying the disease after many years of seeing patients with the symptoms.
“In general, the clinical manifestations are showing at quite a late stage,” explains Dr Medrano. “Patients don’t make the connection with what they had injected into their bodies ten or 15 years ago. They say they’re coming for something else. And most of them don’t even know exactly what they were injected with.”
He explains that symptoms may vary from one patient to another, and that they depend on a person’s genetic makeup, or their own immunity. Some can develop an autoimmune
“`` patients don’ ´ t make the connection with what they had injected into their bodies ten or 15 years ago ´ ”
disease, with the body fighting against itself. Others, according to Medrano, may experience only mild effects. “Since doctors didn’t know how to treat those patients, they sent most of them to the General Hospital. Hence we gained a lot of experience.”
The rheumatologist usually prescribes a cortisone treatment to limit the inflammation. Some people can’t have the injected substance removed in an operation because their skin is too damaged due to inflammation or ulcers.
“These patients are in limbo because the disease is not curable and the psychological consequences are devastating,” says Medrano. After seeing hundreds of these patients come through his door, many of whom are trans women as well as some gay men, the surgeon laments that medicine has its limits and is unable to save them.
MIGUEL MORENO, KNOWN AS “MICKY”, sought salvation in religion. A slim and gentle
58- year- old man with smooth facial features, he says that all his friends died because of cosmetic injections or Aids- related illnesses, including the man who injected him with mineral oil back in 1986.
At the time, Micky was performing in drag shows in Mexico City. He says he has now burned all his photos from that period. Today, as a Jehovah’s Witness, he frequently quotes the Bible, which he says gives him solace for the physical pain that has been burdening him for more than ten years. The mineral oil injected into his buttocks travelled down to his legs, causing repeated ulcers.
After a few minutes of conversation, Micky stands up: it’s impossible for him to sit still for more than a few minutes. Leaning on his cane, he prefers to talk while walking. He is lucid about his situation. “At first, I was very affected when I saw my body deteriorate. Today, less so. Still, ulcers are depressing. They get worse day by day, you never see the end of it. Doctors don’t give me any kind of hope. Only palliative care, to control the pain.” Micky says he has managed to control the anger he felt towards the person who made him believe that he was injecting him with collagen — which his body would have naturally assimilated.
“PEPLO... PEPLOPSCORO... LEDERTRAZATE...
Coloikin...” Toña Ascensio tries to decipher the complex names of the drugs prescribed her by Dr Medrano. “It’s some cortisone and methotrexate,” she says. Toña, a 56- year- old trans woman, underwent several injections of silicone mixed with oil to shape her hips, buttocks, legs and breasts. She says a fake doctor was offering these treatments to the trans community.
“At first, I was happy with the results,” she says. For 25 years afterwards, Toña observed no consequences of these injections. Then, two years ago, her skin hardened and became covered in blisters. She owned a hair salon and had to cut back on her working hours and returned to live with her 90- year- old mother in the suburbs of Mexico City.
“I feel extremely guilty about it. If there had been any other solution rather than these injections, I wouldn’t have done it,” she says.
From time to time, Toña meets younger trans women and warns them about the dangers of injections. “They don’t listen to me... they say they want to make the most of their bodies.”
``“doctors don ´ ’ t give me any kind of hope. only palliative care, to
control the pain” ´
SAT ON THE TERRACE of a café on Chapultepec Avenue, one of Mexico City’s most chaotic streets, Kenya Cuevas stands up and smirks, making the shape of a rounded buttock with her hands.
Kenya is an icon in her community. The charismatic 46- year- old trans activist raised public awareness against the killing of trans women after witnessing the murder of her friend Paola by a client in 2016. She founded an organisation to defend her sisters. Today, she also teaches Mexico City’s public officials about the rights of minorities.
And yet Kenya desperately wanted a nice butt. It had become a matter of life or death. “I was losing my self- confidence,” she admits.
In July 2018, she was injected with one litre of biopolymers. “I was aware of the risks,” says Kenya, who was making a living as a sex worker until very recently and could not afford surgery to enhance her curves. “I could see clients were not calling me as much, so I decided, in full awareness, to get some injections. It was mandatory.
“I know I made a mistake by injecting myself. But I’ve been so close to death so many times that I’m not afraid of it.”
Through her broad smile, Kenya attacks Mexican society, which she accuses of keeping trans women marginalised and in dangerous situations. “Even though there has been progress made, we still don’t have real opportunities in this country.” Injecting herself, according to the activist, is an SOS message to society and political decision- makers.
SABRINA IS AN “INJECTOR”. This 32- year- old trans woman is nervous during our meeting. “You’re going to be scared, but I don’t want you to judge me,” she says. For the past 12 years, she’s been regularly injecting silicone- based polymers into other trans women. “They are all thrilled with my work. I love doing it! I love making them look gorgeous. But I’m aware that I’m also endangering the lives of others.”
Sitting nonchalantly on the giant leopardprint duvet that covers her bed, Sabrina shows photographs of her injection sessions. On her dressing table are the products she uses: large bottles of Bio- Silik, covered in ‘ fragile’ labels. According to doctors, these are counterfeit products that are being smuggled into Mexico.
Sabrina charges 9,000 pesos ( around
£ 317) for a one- litre injection. She works on her clients’ legs, hips or buttocks, but never on their breasts as she has suffered the consequences of mineral oil infiltrating into her own breasts. She claims that no one has been ill as a result of her treatments. “But they know what they’re getting into,” she concludes.
BETY WAS AN INJECTOR during the ‘ fiebre del mineral’, the mineral oil fever that plagued Mexico City’s trans community in the 1980s and 1990s. She also worked in the sex trade. Tall, thin and cheerful, Bety, 54, is at ease talking about her past experience. She received gifts in exchange for injecting others. “I’ve always done it as a favour, never for the money,” she says.
“When a friend injected me in my legs, it seemed easy, so I started doing it too, first on myself. Friends saw me and said, ‘ I want the same body, and I don’t care if I have to die from it.’” Word spread and all of Bety’s friends begged her to inject them. They have since become ill, but Bety insists they don’t blame her.
She recalls how, one day, a woman died moments after the injection — the oil had seeped into her lungs. Her family arrived and immediately forgave Bety, saying, “‘ God took her away. We have nothing against you. We knew she wanted to inject herself with modelants [ fillers],’” reveals Bety.
Bety continued to help other trans people to inject, before she too became ill a few years ago. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘ Did I do the right thing? Did I do wrong?”
These questions remain unanswered.
``“i love making them look gorgeous, but i’ ´ m aware i’ ´ m also endangering
the lives of others ´ ”