Having silicone injections is like playing Russian Roulette or having unprotected sex while doing street sex work. It is extremely high risk behavior that eventually turns out badly.
I remember when the craze of getting pumped started in the mid-1970s and I am ever so thankful I was a feminist hippie at that point and quite satisfied with my appearance. I was also naturally full hipped.
I had distanced myself from the Hollywood TS/TG crowd after coming out as lesbian due to the negative reactions I received from some sisters, who looked upon my lack of interest in men as some sort of negation of their rigid ideas of sex and gender roles.
I watched as my sisters who were more attracted to glamor and being sex objects got their faces and asses pumped full of what was supposedly medical grade silicone.
One day my girl friend and I ran into a sister I knew from San Francisco when I worked in the center. She looked as though she had been severely beaten. She was African-American of medium dark complexion which might have hid some of the bruising, nonetheless there were darker patches as well as open sores on her face and one eye was swollen shut. She told us she hadn’t been beaten up, that it was the result of having had silicone injections and that if it migrated into her eye sockets she could be blinded. I ran into her years later, fortunately she had received care that saved her vision as well as preventing major damage.
Another friend had massive amounts of silicone injections in her hips and buttocks. Along with tissue necrosis over the years the silicone shifted downwards coming to rest in her ankles and leaving her with a deeply pitted ass where scarring and tissue necrosis had done its damage.
I have heard the arguments regarding how it is classist on my part to argue against a procedure used by those to poor to afford the extremely high prices charged by legitimate plastic surgeons.
To that I say, that quacks and criminals should not be given license to exploit and maim people simply because they are poor. Criminals who practice medicine without license or who abuse their license in order to pump industrial silicone and other questionable substances into people should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and if found guilty should be subjected to the longest and harshest penalties permitted. They should also face the maximum penalties permitted in civil courts.
Further the dangers of silicone injections should merit the same level of concern within the various TS and TG communities as is shown to crimes of violence and unprotected sex.
While this article is not specifically about the dangers to TS/TG folks it is about the dangers of silicone injections.
From Philly.com: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110208_HED_TOO_LONG__Buttocks-enhancement_procedure_in_airport_hotel_results_in_womans_dea.html?c=r
Woman dead after buttocks-enhancement procedure
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News
A British woman who came to Philadelphia to enhance her buttocks met an untimely end when the illegal injections she received at an airport hotel room this week caused complications that led to her death Tuesday, according to police.
Now, local and federal authorities are looking for the two young women who administered the injections at a room in the Hampton Inn on Bartram Avenue. Authorities don’t yet know who they are, let alone if they were licensed, said Southwest Detectives Lt. John Walker.
Felmont Eaves III, president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, said it’s highly unlikely that they were.
“No physician that cared about being safe and providing care would do a procedure in a hotel room,” he said. “That is just a huge red flag.”
The victim, identified by a source as Claudia Adusei, traveled to America Saturday with three friends from England, all of whom are in their early 20s, Walker said.
Continue reading: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20110208_HED_TOO_LONG__Buttocks-enhancement_procedure_in_airport_hotel_results_in_womans_dea.html?c=r
Women Born Transsexual 
February 9, 2011 at 3:00 pm
As another old hippie, I agree that it is a big mistake to make your body or any part of it non-biodegradable. I suppose it is one thing if your fortune is based on your looks. It’s like the horrid things ballet dancers and professional athletes do to their bodies. But to take similar risks for mere vanity seems the height of irrationality to me.
Like my cousin said to me: “You’re a surgeon and you can make $800,000 doing this thing but you have no idea what it will do to your patients in 20 years. Are you going to do it? You have 800,000 reasons for concluding that the bad things that might happen won’t happen. This is why doctors kill so many people unnecessarily.”
February 9, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Injection of industrial-grade silicone is one of the most horrific things that was done in the name of “facial feminization”. I had a friend who had this done some 36 years ago and it puffed out her cheeks– so much that some called her then “chipmunk cheeks”.
But all those years later the silicone migrated in strange bizarre ways and when viewed from certain angles– her jawline from chin to eyes had shown some degree of concavity inward and her eyes sockets had bulged creating this pale-complexion “zombie” look.
One can only pray that that is the worst complication for her and that does not suffer any of the catastrophic health consequences.
February 9, 2011 at 3:26 pm
In the Philly News article Felmont Eaves says that this can be done safely… so how is that done?
February 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
The only “safe” silicone injections that I have heard of are the ones used in very tiny amounts to fill acne scars, where a drop of silicone is placed in the scar pocket and levels the surface.
I think that statement was strictly CYA on the part of the legal staff.
February 10, 2011 at 2:30 am
You mentioned the 70s, which reminded me: Linda Lovelace (R.I.P.) also had really awful migration of silicone breast injections.
February 10, 2011 at 1:33 pm
@ Suzan & Angela,
They can’t be done safely. They eventually migrate.
In Europe they use ordinary fillers such as collagen to plump up scars. Silicon in any form has never passed any form of medical testing in liquid form, that is not encapsulated (ie breast implants).