Pumping Parties in the Heartland
Filed by: Austen Crowder
July 23, 2009 6:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/07/pumping_parties_in_the_heartland.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2009/07/pumping_parties_in_the_heartland.php)
Let's talk about pumping for a moment, shall we?
Imagine it this way: your neighbor Ted buys a tube of silicone caulk, squeezes it into a dirty coffee cup, pulls a smidge of it into a dirty needle, and jabs it into your breast. One misstep by Ted sends silicone straight into your heart - bam! dead - or to the pulmonary system, where the silicone leads to a slow death by suffocation. If that isn't the case, within ten years the silicone fuses to living tissue, often clogging blood vessels and leading to its own slow, painful death. The price we must pay for beauty, mercy me!
The trans community as a whole is often targeted by these illegal silicone pumping rings. One of the most frequent conversations I have as a transgender woman is the dangers of pumping; dozens of friends have begged, pleaded, and even promised beatdowns if I even considered attending one of these illegal parties. The persistent nature of their warnings really caught my attention; I didn't really see pumping as a problem in Indianapolis, little bastion of metropolitan chic it was. I asked, "Why so serious? It's not like we have people running pumping parties in little ol' Indiana!"