Liquid silicone, another variable of social transvesticide
The death of Silvina Luna sparked several necessary debates. However, these debates paid little to no attention to the suffering of the trans and travesti community as a result of these interventions.
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Last Thursday, Silvina Luna, the actress and television host, passed away. She had been battling for her life due to complications from a type of acrylic called methacrylate . This caused her to develop hypercalcemia and kidney failure. In 2011, she underwent surgery performed by plastic surgeon Aníbal Lotocki, who faces several malpractice lawsuits and is currently under house arrest.
Acrylic and liquid silicone are very popular among trans women. For decades, they've been used to sculpt bodies, creating breasts, hips, buttocks, cheekbones, foreheads, chins, and even calves. They come in all sizes, from a quarter to a half to liters, in pursuit of the dream figure. Whether it's to be the hottest trans woman or simply to achieve what we so deeply desire.
There are trans women who go years without any significant problems. But the foreign body migrates, becomes inflamed, causes pain in winter, changes color, often with irreversible damage to organs, tissues, and arteries. It affects health forever, and sometimes, it's always too soon. Because what follows is death.
Trans women know about exclusion, and that's how we came to know silicone. It's another facet of social transvesticide: exclusion from the institutions that should guarantee basic rights: the right to grow and develop without violence, education, health, and housing. Popular iconography demands perfect bodies , objects that can give pleasure, no matter the cost. And real life, the trans woman who loves, the lesbian who cares for you, the diverse queer person, stands in opposition to this short-sighted view.
Silvina's death was added to a list where trans women are not a minority, the deaths are preventable.
Patriarchy promotes these hegemonic body ideals and stereotypes, which directly result in violence against our bodies. We invite you to question, analyze, and demand specific policies for a comprehensive approach to the use of silicone, methacrylate, and other substances. We must also eradicate the binary stereotypes imposed on bodies.
*Pía Ceballos is a transvestite, Afro-indigenous activist from Salta, belonging to MTA, the Argentine trans women's movement.
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