Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I say this to say that a lot of people, you know, in the history of our world have rolled the dice for their freedom. And for trans people, when you can't match the way you look on the outside with the way you feel and think, and your essence is from the inside, so match your outside with your inside, it really does become a matter of life and death.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to skin deep. I'm Dr. Ana Chacon, and today we have a very special guest joining us.
Get ready for some expert insights you won't want to miss.
Tell me a little bit where you're from, your background, because you have a very interesting name.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: So I was born in New York, Brooklyn, New York. I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I am multiracial. My father was South Asian Indian.
That's where my name is from. It's an Indian name from Trinidad, from the country of Trinidad, because there's a big South Asian Indian population there. It was all with the British, and that's a whole nother show.
And then my mother is American and my mom is a mix. My mom is a mix of African American, French Polynesian and Native American.
So the way I explain myself is that, like, I'm a mod.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's funny. That's like a lot of people here. And you. Do you have any ties to South Florida? Because I. I think when I first read about you, the story was. Was a South Florida story, a news story. But what is your connection to South Florida?
[00:01:44] Speaker A: When I was 21, it was time for me to leave home, to leave and nest. I was coming more into myself, and my dad and I, we were starting to clash more, and I knew it was time for me to go. So at the time, I had an aunt that lived in Miami, and it was between Miami or going out to St. Louis.
I had a friend that was living there at the time. So my mom was like, why are you going to go to St. Louis?
You always said growing up you wanted. When you grew up, you wanted to move to a warm climate. And she says, I feel better because, you know, your aunt is in Miami. So, long story short, I ended up in Miami and I've been here ever since. Well, South Florida, because I live in Fort Lauderdale now. But I've been in South Florida for many years. It's basically home now.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: And you live here now?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yes, I live here now. I'm actually in Victoria Park. It's like off of Sunrise Boulevard, going east towards the beaches. It's a pretty nice neighborhood. I like it here. I've been here a Few years in this neighborhood.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Okay, excellent. We started initially focusing on patients, really. I had some very interesting cases because I work all over the country. You know, I'm licensed in all 50 states. I'm in California now.
And I just was getting a lot of interesting cases, mostly online and then going out to see people. But then it became more physician focused, so more focused on doctors who were either entrepreneurs or solo practitioners like me, and then became mostly focused on entrepreneurs and just, you know, people with a unique edge or that are passionate about something. And I would say that you're definitely in that category because you've made really, the best out of a bad situation. And I. As I was mentioning to you, you know, I want to say, before things became very digital, it was hard to identify these situations, hard to identify these people, hard to track these things down. And now, as we've become more digitalized, it's harder to, I want to say, get away with this. Right. But we still see it. As I was, you know, discussing with you today, there's a lot of. Of compliance. Too many compliance things on physicians now that it's hard to do these things. You know, we have to. We can get dinged for so many things. And it's a privilege to be able to see patients. I always think that, you know, to. It's a privilege. It's not a right as a physician. And you have to hold that privilege to the utmost importance. You know, and so we have a lot of fees, a lot of tests you can't even imagine requirements, background checks, all these other things that are in place that, you know, if people go to someone who evades that, they're probably evading other things. And so you want to always make sure anybody can check if their doctor's board certified, where they went to school, if they've been sued before, if they've had public complaints. And in medicine, it's. It's a very harsh environment for that because you are treated differently from other professionals. And it's something that I hold to extreme value. So I was very hurt when I heard your story, because this should never happen to anybody. And tell me a little bit, kind of how you landed in that situation in the first place.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Well, I'm a transgender human being, and because of that, when I was transitioning a number of years ago, there were very little resources for us. We had no rights.
Many of us were rubbing two nickels together to live our authenticity. And, I mean, it's not much better today, actually. There's backlash going on. So we're losing the rights that we fought so hard for. But back in the day, a lot of doctors weren't open to treating us. And again, many of us were living, like, on the fringes of society and just didn't have the resources to go to a certified doctor because, you know, of finances. And so it was a lot of things that played into it, but it became almost a rite of passage for us transgender women.
There was the peer pressure, because when you're coming out, you know, you're seeing the other trans women looking so beautiful and voluptuous.
And that played into it, the peer pressure. But then there's also the safety factor, and that basically boils down to the less you look like a man in a dress when you're out and about in society, the less you'll be scrutinized and picked on and a target.
No offense to men in dresses, but basically. So those were the two major reasons that I went down the road of black market injections. It was well known in our community by word of mouth. And I heard about this person in the community that were doing. They were doing. A lot of the girls, we call her the Duchess or Duchess.
I connected with her. And basically, I started with my face because I figured it's the first thing that people see when you go out in public, at least here in this part of the world.
I met in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, so I started with my face, and then I worked my way down, and I did my breasts, I did my hips, my buttocks. And about a year and a half in is when I had the horrible reaction, and I was like, oh, my God, I know something is wrong. You know, you get that gut feeling inside where, oh, my God, I effed up, basically. But I say this to say that a lot of people, you know, in the history of our world have rolled the dice for their freedom. And for trans people, when you can't match the way you look on the outside with the way you feel and think, and your essence is from the inside. So match your outside with your inside. It really does become a matter of life and death in the sense that you're not living your authentic truth, and you feel like you're in a social prison, basically, because you know of many different reasons. Like, some people don't transition because of fear, being rejected from their family, society, their friends, all the discrimination that we go through, because it's not just in the medical world, but housing and employment and just maneuvering through society.
So initially, I look beautiful, and then I had the horrible Reaction. And it just. Over time, it just got worse. And I ended up walking around with, like, really huge nodules all over my face.
And I always say this. It's hard enough being a multiracial, transgender woman of color. It's even harder when you're that and you have a disfigured face. So I went through a lot.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I. I understand, because we're both minorities, and it's. You definitely have to try harder.
Sometimes feels that way. You know, I definitely feel for you doing that. And a couple of things just out of curiosity. So things initially felt and looked fine?
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Okay. So you could not tell, you know, that anything would go wrong. You know, one of the things I like to do in the office, for example, when I'm injecting patients or when I'm doing cosmetic dermatology or fillers, trust is something that takes a really long time to build with a patient. It's very subjective. Right. You can sign a bunch of papers and still not trust somebody. You can look about, you know, on them online and still feel like you can't trust them. But it's built really on a personal level with a patient in the office. I like to show patients that my items are high quality, you know, that they are. For example, from Allergan, you're going to see Botox directly from Allergan in the Botox vial. If you get fillers, you. You know, I use a lot of Juvederm from Allergan. You're going to see a box and Allergan with the name of the product.
So I'm just curious, when you were with this individual, did you ever see the items and what they look like?
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Okay. So, you know, hopefully you live and you learn. And a lot of stuff is, like, in retrospect, when I decided to get the injections, I did proceed with somewhat of a cautionary mode, because I asked her, I said, are you sure this is medical grade silicone? And she assured me that it was. But to answer your question, no, I did not see the labels.
And when I first initially got connected with Dr. Martin and Coral Gables, he was the first doctor to help me. He told me, he said, raji, medical grade silicone comes, like, in small bottles. When I was going, she would have, like, these big glass containers.
And if I knew that, that would have been. If I knew that, then that would have been a red flag. But I didn't.
So it looked like medical grade silicone because of, you know, the mixture she had used, because she used mineral oil. She mixed it with mineral oil to, I guess, give it that look, you know. And so I know a lot of people have gone through this, and I think there's a shame that comes with it. You know, people don't want to talk about it. They're embarrassed that they. They went for black market procedures.
For me, it's almost been like, I've made my mess. My message.
And I was so basically thrust into the world media overnight.
So it was not almost. It was me taking a bad thing, quote, unquote, a bad thing, and using it to do good. Because initially I didn't know that I could get any sort of corrective surgery. I just thought if I could share my story and educate people about it, maybe I would save some people from going down the road that I went and having the, you know, the medical issues and the pain and the, you know, dealing with the emotional stuff. Because, you know, I. I was scared to go out in public. I was. People were very. You know, we live in a very superficial world, so when you look a certain way, people are judging you right away. And, you know, they were saying some mean stuff to. To me. And I became agoraphobic. And I love people, but I was fearful of going out in public for fear of how they were going to react to me. And I got. I went through depression and PTSD and a bunch of things. So it's not only a physical thing that I was affected by, but it also affected me mentally and spiritually.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So is it John Martin and Coral Gables?
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Dr. John Martin? Yeah, he's on, I think, Douglas Road.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Okay. How did you connect with him? I'm actually also in Coral Gables.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Okay. Well, how I connected with him at the time, I was doing a lot of outreach work and activism from my community through the YES Institute. The YES Institute is a really good program. They go out to different venues and they do a presentation on gender and how gender impacts our societies, because every society has their gender rules, the way a man is supposed to act, the way a woman is supposed to act. And so then after they do the presentation, they usually have. And it's a. It's a film strip. And then afterwards, they usually have someone like myself speak and share their story. So I was doing a lot of that.
The director, Martha Fagart, she was the founder and director of YES for a long time. She's retired now. But she called me one day, and I thought it was a business call, like, they wanted me to go speak somewhere. And she said to me, you know, Raji, I'm calling you as a friend.
We all here at YES Are very concerned about what's going on with you, health wise. Your face looks really bad. And you know, were concerned about it. And when I first had the reaction, I went into denial. I didn't go for help. I was embarrassed, you know, ashamed, scared, feeling hopeless. And I was just in this thing, like, oh, hoping and praying that it would go away. And it just got worse.
So she called me and she said, I am there is at the time Dr. Martin was on the board of YES.
And she says, I had a conversation with Dr. John Martin, who's on our board here at YES. And I told him about you and he said that he's willing to see you. And that was the first time I was able to really get help, you know, and I needed that push. And I'll tell you, when I went in, I'm sitting in the exam room and he walks in the room and I, you know, I say hello. And he looks at me and he says, sweetie, what did they do to your face? And I just started crying.
And he examined me and he said to me, he said, listen, I don't know how I'm going to help you, but he said, I can promise you I'm going to try my best to. He said, I heard about all your community work you've been doing and I think it's a great thing. And he says, I really want to try and help you. So that was the beginning of many years of all kind of stuff. It was like trial and error. I told him I felt like his Frankenstein, Stern, Steiner. Because we did an initial surgery. I was supposed to be on the table for an hour, hour and a half, and I ended up on the table for four hours.
And he couldn't cut through it. My face was hard as a rock.
And he actually broke the scalpel during surgery. So he only got like a little piece out. So then after that it was a lot of like catalog injections. Every couple weeks I would go and he did ultrasonic procedures and laser. And over the years, what it did is it made the consistency, consistency like the consistency of like a tire. So you could kind of cut through it better. But initially it was hard as a rock.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: What is. Yes. I didn't understand what that is.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Oh. So YES is an organization where they go out to different venues, schools, universities, libraries, all sorts of venues, and they do a presentation about gender and they explain the biology of gender, the social or sociology of gender.
It's just to, well, the, the Purpose is to advocate for queer kids that feel like they're ostracized and they don't belong and to prevent suicide. Because for trans youth, we have a pretty high suicide rate. It's 40 something percent.
And so it's to educate people. So maybe they're. If they're not fully accepting, they understand it more. And there's some sort of bridge of understanding and tolerance.
And so because, you know, as a doctor, there's not just X and Y and xx. People are more at X, Y, X. They have like extra chromosomes. And so that affects the way you are as a person because you can be born male but have an extra chromosome of X, which gives you the feminine part. There's heterosexual men that come off feminine and there's women, heterosexual women that come off masculine. And so there's a lot of things that play into that. The biology of it, the sociology of it. You know, the person's. That whole thing, nature and nurture. So we explain that in a presentation. And then they bring someone up that's transgender or non binary or gender non conforming to bring the humanness into it. Because you can sit and study all day about a certain demographic of people, but until you meet someone that's living the experience and can share their life, that's when the human connection takes place. And I've seen it where I've walked into a room, the walls were up. And then after sharing my story, like, slowly but surely a lot of the walls came down and people realize, oh, you know, they're human like me. They have a family, they have friends, they have hopes and dreams like I do, you know, because that's what happens when people are ignorant about something.
There's a lack of understanding, which creates fear, which then creates. When you're fearful of something, you either want to run from it or you want to destroy. You want to fight it.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's excellent. And is that Youth and Service organization? Is that what it stands for? Yes.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a YES Institute.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: I definitely want to get involved, especially if they have doctors.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Yeah, you should check them out there. Yeah. And you can tell them that I told referred you. I know everyone there because I spoke for them for many years and actually I just was involved with the workshop that was done about a month ago. That was done through the YES Institute here in Fort Lauderdale.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: You know, we actually learned how to dissolve fillers. In dermatology residency. We use hyaluronidase, we use sometimes ketalog injections, steroid injections and things like that.
I'm just curious because I saw you came out on Botched as well on that show. What did they use exactly?
Dr. Martin and the doctors on Botched to help you and how much? Yeah, if you don't mind.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So Dr. Martin, after the. The surgery that he tried to do that really failed because my face was too hard to cut through anything.
He used Kenalog, a lot of Kenalog injection.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yes. Over many years.
And you know, then my story went viral. I was on a whole. I was basically like all over. I was on Germany, tv, Telemundo, Univision, I was on Greek TV and Good Morning Britain, literally Japanese tv, just literally all over.
Did the talk show circuit. Then I ended up on Botched. And the first season that I was on, they didn't do anything. They just basically featured my story.
And you know what was so beautiful about that? I got messages from like many people around the world that. And I hadn't had any corrective surgery at that point that were saying, raji, but you're beautiful. You're beautiful. Like so what your face is that way. And you know, it just affirmed for me that really. And I know it sounds cliche, but true beauty is really from within. And that's what people were seeing. My, you know, my inner beauty. But season two is when I had the surgeries. They bought me back and they did a number of surgeries. I think it was about seven on my face.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: And they removed a lot of it. But the thing about these injections, like, you know, and from what I hear, it was a mixture of like industrial strength silicone mixed with mineral oil.
And so the thing about it is you're getting it injected into your direct. There's no insult encapsulation. So it's mixing with your tissues and your nerves and. And that sort of thing. And so they literally to go in and just like hack it out, especially in the face, is kind of difficult because Dr. Debreau from Botched, he was worried about affecting some nerves with my. With my lips, where it would get. Would have given me like a twisted lip.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: So they removed a lot. But still I still deal with, I call them flare ups where my body recognizes. And it's basically foreign body rejection syndrome, where I'm okay for a while and then my body recognizes, wait a minute, what is this foreign thing? And we need to do something about it. So then I start with the inflammation and I get like the little nodules and not only in my face.
Last month it was in my left breast. It's started like acting up a bit. So I, I'm basically. Sometimes I feel like a walking time bomb or ticking time bomb because I don't know what's going to happen going forward.
But I just monitor myself. And I notice when I'm very stressed out is when like I'll get like the flare ups oftentimes.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, I definitely have helped patients like that. And actually I did a surgery, I remember when I was an intern at University of Miami where we removed in a transgender patient silicone that was injected into the buttocks. And it was one of the hardest, most bloodiest things that I have seen because everything was tangled. You know, it was kind of tangled in there into the regular tissue and too. And it left a lot of concave depression into this person's buttock. And I just remember thinking I, number one, this is very risky. You know, the. Just removing it is just extremely risky. And it was just kind of rocks of hardened tissue we're just taking out. And I've definitely, thankfully have seen less of that now that everything is digital. And like I mentioned, you can look up some, someone in two seconds and find their background, even doctors and everything about them or most professional things about them.
You can find that out. And did you fly out to California to see these physicians?
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Yes, I did fly out. I went probably about 12 times back and forth to film botched for the three different seasons. And when I on the second season I was on, I was out there for about six weeks when I had like all the surgeries.
But what I was going to say in regards to like things being digital, I also too, a lot of authentic stories are out there now, like including myself. And I would hope that like when I've shared my story on different platforms, there have been people that have heard it and if they were thinking about doing what I did, maybe it changed their mind. And I recommend like people just doing their research, like you were saying, with looking up the doctor, checking credentials, also looking at and hearing the results of patients that have already went to the doctor, that's another thing I, I always recommend.
So yeah, it's good that the information is out there. I think that this beauty thing, especially with women, cisgender women and trans women, it's a thing and it'll continue to be a thing because no matter what culture you live in, every culture has their beauty, their standard of beauty.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Beauty.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, every culture, some cultures want the women more voluptuous, some want. Cultures want Them more skinnier. I mean, it's just all different. And so if you're a woman in a society, oftentimes, I think many women can relate to feeling pressure to be beautiful.
And so, you know, this is something. I still hear this stuff going on and I know that probably because people don't have the resources, the money. So it's like a quick fix. I can afford it, Let me go get it done. But you really do roll the dice and you can die from it. I know people like, you know, I've heard of people, I don't. Didn't know them personally, but I've heard of people that have died from it. I fortunately am still here to do my activism, share my story, and I continue to hopefully touch the world in positive, uplifting ways. But, you know, if you don't die from it, then you can end up being in a situation like me where it's a chronic thing, it's ongoing, and you're dealing with health issues. So. So yeah, it's. It's a dangerous thing. It really is. And you know, if they hit that vein and it goes in your bloodstream, it can go to your lungs. And I think that's like, oftentimes what happens when, when a person dies from it. They hit that vein.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I understand. And we in, in Miami, every so often you'll hear about a death.
Now it's, you know, for a while, the deaths that were being caused were mostly the Brazilian. Yeah, the Brazilian butt, where you just, you know, take fat from somewhere else and inject it in the butt and then you get these enormous butts. And in fact, I was looking at a photo of Duchess the other day. That's what I guess she, she goes by that was online and just the buttock is, was huge. It looks like she has a seat attached to.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: You know, I understand what you're saying with sometimes being female and being self conscious about stuff, because I'm very short, I never considered myself. I knew I couldn't do modeling. I wasn't tall. You know, I didn't have naturally easy to work with qualities like great hair or anything like that. And I wasn't actually.
I used to be obese. So, you know, I recently lost a ton of weight on a. One of these weight loss injections, a semaglutide or Ozempic and.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Great. You look great.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much. But yeah, it's pretty easy to feel self conscious and do something to try to correct it. And sometimes that choice may not be the right choice for that person.
But yeah, in Miami, you still hear about some of these clinics and you know, they offer sometimes very, very low prices and that's what entices people.
But you figure because all of this is costly, right, to have an anesthesiologist there, to be compliant, to undergo all the compliance checks that an operating center needs. And the materials that you have to use, like fillers, are extremely expensive.
They've recently come down and priced the FDA approved ones. But, for example, Botox is the most expensive neurotoxin that you could get injected, and their fillers are the most expensive too. They're great quality, but they're just extremely costly.
So do you still do the advocacy work and do you still keep in touch with, for example, the doctors on Botch? Like, how was your follow up with them?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: I'm an activist at heart. So, yes, to answer your question about the community work, I do a lot. I feel like I'm almost like I'm a. I belong to the community. So I say that to say I've done work with the Pride Center, I've done work with sunserb, I've done work with Trans Inclusive and a number of organizations in different capacities.
Currently I'm with Trans Social, which is a trans led, trans focused organization. So I do a lot of outreach work with them. I'm on the board of directors and I also help with trainings, the sensitivity trainings. We recently did one for Chase bank and we also did one for Kaiser University recently.
So. And I think it's so good because the reality is these are places where, because more and more people are coming out as trans. The likelihood is that you're going to run into someone transgender, maybe in your workplace situation or just in your life in general. And it's good to be able to like, plant seeds and give people the knowledge to understand our community better.
And so as far as the doctors are concerned, I have Dr. Dubrow's personal cell phone number. And I try not to bug up too much.
You know, we'll text like during the holidays or something. I'll send him a text and that sort of thing. And he'll text me back. Yeah. And he told me during the big reveal, my big reveal, he whispered in my ear and he says, I want to tell you something. He says, I care about you.
And he says, this show, yes, we're doing the show. But he says, if you ever need something and you feel the need to reach out to me, do not hesitate, he says, because the way he was Trying to communicate is that, yes, Botch, the show is an important thing. We're here filming and all, but. But to the core of it, it's about you, the patient, the doctor patient relationship. And that meant a lot to me. That meant a whole lot to me.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: That's wonderful. And I'm glad that you still keep in touch with him. And was he the only one that worked on you on the show?
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Okay, so Dr. Debreau and Dr. Nassip, they both treated me. Dr. Debro was the one that spearheaded the major surgeries to remove a lot of it, a lot of the substance.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Okay, okay, I did. I see that.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: So he was the one that, like, operated on me. Dr. Nassif Initially, in the beginning, was involved with, like, the diagnosis and, like, recommending different treatments and stuff. So he was involved.
But when it came down to the surgery, Dr. Debrow did it.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Okay, I see that. And so they actually did. Besides the injections, they actually tried to remove the foreign body.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Yeah, they removed a good bit of it because. I don't know. If you Google me, you'll see, like, some before pictures where my face was humongous. It was pretty big. And, you know, I had, like, the nodules. You could see them. I mean, I had smaller ones now here and there. But, like, I literally. You could see, like, the nodules, and they actually made pictures.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, those would be nice to have to compare because I, you know, we try. I don't know, I, as a dermatologist, try to not operate on the face if I don't have to, you know.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Because of, you know, that patient. I told you where we did the buttock, and I was like, wow. But they actually did an incision and a scalpel because I actually don't see incisions on your face, which is surprising.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: They basically cut me along here and pull my face back.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Like a facelift. Like doing a facelift.
So your incisions are right here.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: They're like. And I think around here, but they faded a lot now.
But yeah. Yeah, that's how they went in because they didn't want to give me scars like here going that way. So they pulled it back and then they went at it. Yeah.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: Wow. Just kind of with. With a scalpel and iris scissors to kind of dissect. Dissect out the adherent tissue. And do you still have aftermath from this today? Does it hurt? Do you still get, you know, flare ups?
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. I do. I get my. And actually, I was just a doctor Martin's A few weeks ago and getting some kettle off. Because recently I. I have had flare ups in my face.
So I have to. I'm scheduled to go back in a couple more weeks to get some more because he told me, he says, no, you need to come. Because I, you know, after botch, my face looks so nice and I didn't have flare ups for a while, so I wasn't going to him that often.
And so this time when I went a few weeks ago, he's like, oh, no, you need to come back within the next, like, month or so. So I'll be going soon.
And. And then like I said, this left breast has been flaring up a bit.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Oh. So, yeah, we didn't talk about your body, actually.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Kind of forgot to bring that up.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah. My breast, this left one, has recently started flaring up a bit, but the right one has been. Okay. And my hips and my buttocks, Fingers crossed for right now are okay.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Okay, see, so you got all three areas injected. Only the buttocks, the breast and the face.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: My hips, my buttocks, my breast and my face.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Actually, I was in the middle of getting my butt done when I had the horrible reaction. And I stopped because I was like, oh, my God, something's wrong. And so I probably would have went bigger, you know, if I hadn't, you know, had the reaction.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And that happened almost a year later.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: From the, like a year and a half.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Okay. Wow. And what have they done for the body? I know the face, you know, is more visible, but for the body. Did you do anything to any corrective procedures on botched or with Dr. Martin or anything like that?
[00:37:41] Speaker A: No, nothing for the body.
The thing is, with my breasts, my skin is so stretched now, if they could, they will probably have to do a mastectomy and I'd have to start over with, like, the tissue expanders. And so, I don't know, you know, like, at this point point, I've been through so much. I'm like, God, could I go through that? Like.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Could you go.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, there's a point where you just try to find some sort of peace.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Some sort of solace, you know, because I could stand up all day and probably pick apart. Pick myself apart. But then I, you know, I remind myself that this is all temporary anyway. You know, we're just passing through. And the important thing is, is how I impact the people around me in my life. Because, you know, when you go to someone's funeral, you don't think about the clothes they wore or the house they lived in or the car that they drove. You think about the way that person made you feel and how they impacted your life. And that's what I've been really focusing on.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Because I know this is all temporary and, you know, time goes so fast and we're just passing through.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And you've made a tremendous difference. And, you know, like I said, you're very courageous with everything that you've been through, and you look great. And there's. You have a very supportive network, you know, that developed over the years. Dr. Martin's a great person. Dr. Dubrow as well.
And now you know me.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Yes, I know you.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: You know, I definitely. You know, I been through this with patients before, and I definitely feel for you. And a couple other questions, just out of curiosity. How did you find out what was even injected?
[00:39:38] Speaker A: When I went to Dr. Martin, initially, they had taken a sample.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Was it a sample?
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Yes, it was a sample that was taken from my face during that first surgery where they could hardly cut through it, but they were able to get, like, a little bit of it out, a piece of it with the tissue and stuff. And that's what they were saying. But it was almost like. I don't know. See, I don't understand how they test these things, really.
But that's what they basically said. It was mo, like 90 so percent. That's what it was. That it was industrial strength silicone, the kind of stuff that you buy at, like, Home Depot.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, there's the medical grade and then there's the industrial, which is used for, like, I guess, corking and stuff like that.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. How did Duchess. How did this come to light in terms of her finally being put away for doing this so she doesn't continue harming people. Because, you know, I have had some patients where, you know, they tell me, oh, somebody came from Colombia. They did this in a hotel in Miami. And they won't tell me who that person is. You know, how did this.
How? She basically get in trouble for it.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: So.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: So, okay, so initially, my mom was down here visiting on vacation. Oh, sorry. My mom was down here visiting on vacation.
And what happened? We were sitting, having dinner, and we were watching the news, and she pops up the store. The story popped up that this person had been arrested for the injecting black market and giving black market injections to somebody. And I forgot their name. They were someone from Miami, too.
They ended up in the hospital and they reported her to the police.
So that's when they went, and I guess they arrested her. So I just nonchalantly said to my mom, I said, oh, mom, that's the girl. The girl that did me. She's like, what?
I said, yeah.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: So she.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: The news reporter said, if there's any victims out there, you know, please contact us. Any other victims. So my mom's like, are you going to call? And I was like, oh, what's the point? Like, you know, like, I'm already botched. And, like, what is this going to do? And. And I said, I can't sue her, like, for money to help me, because she didn't have anything, really. And. And so my mom looked at me and she says, well, if I were you, I would think about it. And so after she told me that, I prayed on it. I thought a lot about it, meditated. And then I said, you know what? If I can share my story, and if my story is going to help other people and just help to educate, you know, the society about this sort of thing, then I've used my story to do a good thing. I've taken this bad thing that's happened to me and used it for good. So that's when I basically contacted them. But I want to say this. I never press charges against Duchess.
She's not in jail, in prison because of me.
Someone died from it.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Really?
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Yeah, they actually.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: I don't remember reading that on the news.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, someone died from it. And she was charged with manslaughter. So she's currently in prison for that case.
The police couldn't understand why I didn't want to press charges. And, you know, I felt like. I know. Okay, so this is the thing. I. It's, like, really complicated, and a lot of people don't understand when I say this, but I was like, you know, I had to take some responsibility. Responsibility for making the decision to go to her. So, you know, as someone that.
Now, granted, I didn't know what she was using, but I did make the decision to go to her. So I felt like I needed to take some sort of responsibility for that. And then I thought, do I even have the strength to go through a trial? And if I'm going to exert my energy, why not do it with, you know, talking about it, going out and doing interviews, and, like, you know, educating people about it? So that's why I decided not to pursue that. And so when people hear that, they're like, oh, you know, I would have did this, and I would have that. But, you know, I think it's hard to say what you would do unless you're in my shoes.
And also, I have to say, too, that I know how hard it is for trans women, for us trans women. And there was a part of me that even kind of felt sorry for her. I don't know why, but I just. I had that part of me that was feeling that way, too.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: You were forget. You were pretty forgiving.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: And just curious. You know, it always amazes me sometimes what people charge for these things that are not even legal, you know, because I know how much I pay for Botox, you know, thousands when I place orders and fillers. And it's. It's actually even hard to make anything because of how expensive it is to get the real, you know, the.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: The real deal. Right.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Exactly.
How much was this lady charging for this stuff that wasn't even, you know, legal?
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it was very reasonable.
I was paying, like $100 a session. 100. Maybe 150.
But she would. This is something she'd do for the trans women. She would she tell us she's going to give us a deal?
She had cisgendered women going to her that I heard she was charging, like, a lot more.
And I think that also made me feel a sisterhood with her because I'm like, oh, you know, we're both trans.
You know, she's looking out for me, that kind of thing. And that made me trust her more. That was like a. I think, a part of it, too, that I felt like we had a sisterhood.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: And that's interesting, because one of the things, for example, I was told when I opened my practice, you know, I got all kinds of advice, is that you can't charge different patients differently, you know? Yeah, can't do that. You can run a special.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: For everybody.
Exactly. You can't be, like, picking and choosing because you're nice or because you're a trans girl. Like, you know, you're going to get 50% off. Because medicine is about trying to do the best job on everybody and treating people as equals, but putting your 100% of your effort and care and, you know, and it just kind of unequalizes things.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: This has been, like, the by far the most interesting podcast I've done. I am so honored, and I feel grateful that you opened up because it's. I know it's very difficult to do, and I'm sorry that you were crying, but just know that you're helping a lot of people, you're educating, and everyone has a bad experience that they go through. And as a physician, I've just learned so much from you. I hope we stay in a lot of touch, and if I can help you in any way, I'm available.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: I also wanted to say this, too. You know, the amazing thing about our. Our life and living in the world is that you hear this a lot. When people I was brutally beaten up to because I'm trans by some guys who targeted me for my femininity, and they beat me up pretty bad. And I kept thinking, oh, my God, like, if I had died that night, would I have died knowing that I tried to stand up and do something about the way things are for trans people? And I was. I say that to say that it's amazing when people go through traumatic situations and they get to the other side. Oftentimes, that is the thing that's the catalyst for them to go do some powerful work in the world. So I feel blessed that I've been able to do that. And thank you for having me on your podcast. It was an absolute pleasure.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Thank you, Raji. But have a wonderful day, and this won't be the last time we talk. I just know you, and I'm very grateful for getting to know you. And, you know, you can counter me as a contact, you know, another physician, someone that can help you. I. You know, my door's always open.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: Thank you so much. Love, peace, and blessings to you.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: Thank you, Raji. Have a great Friday and a great weekend.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: You too, Sam.
