Construcción corporal y prácticas de cuidado de mujeres transgénero en Cali

Methods: This research used ethnography and addressed the narratives present in the life stories of eleven trans women from Cali, Colombia. Participants were selected using a convenience sampling technique to ensure ease of access and availability of participants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and three workshops on the body’s construction and corporeality. A total of sixty trans women participated in the research. Results: Four related themes were identified: contexts of fear and violence, artisanal body interventions, cultural and symbolic capital of the body, and care networks in constructing the trans body. Conclusions: The trans women of Cali constructed their bodies taking into account a complex web of knowledge and practices (body construction, body care), substances (hormones, polymers, silicones), objects (syringes, rollers), and local cultural factors (‘social cleansing,’ narco-aesthetics, sex work) over a long period. Keywords: Transgender persons; handicraft intervention; care, gender-based violence; narrative; ethnography; pathologization; body ABSTRACT Departing from biologicist and clinical conceptions of care, akin to the health professions, this article deals with the particular trajectories of body-construction, well as care practices of a group of eleven transgender women from Cali, done at the margins of the health system. Through ethnographic work and life-stories, the article reviews the ways home-made techniques of body-construction were imported from Europe in the context of sex work and brought into contact with the particular body aesthetics of drug traffic in the 1980s, as well as the care dynamics derived from this kind of intervention. Keywords: Transgender Persons, home-made surgery, care, Gender-Based Violence, narration, ethnography.Objetivo: Descrever a construção corporal e as práticas de cuidado de mulheres transexuais em Cali.