Original July 2023, revised and updated December 2025
During the 1970s travesti sex workers in Brazil became more accepted by some members of the public, if not by the police, and along with that there were two other developments:
1) the injection of silicone rather than the more dangerous oil or paraffin to feminise the body. Such pumping (bombadas) was first done in New York by competent doctors such as Dr David Wesser, but a few years later was being done by non-doctors (such as Jimmy Treetop in New York).
2) A few Brazilian travestis had managed to get to Paris, and returned rich enough to buy not one but two or more apartments. The first was almost always for their mother: a casa da minha mãe. Then greater numbers went. At the peak of the migration there were – for a short while – special charter flights for travestis (although in mufti). It was estimated that of 700 prostitutes in France, 500 were from Brazil – and they had taken over the main prostitution venues in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne. They were treated somewhat better than in Brazil – they were addressed as Madame or Mademoiselle, but they were still living on the margin, subject to violence and having to pay both the police and a travesti boss for a place to stand. The French prostitutes’ union protested their presence, accusing them of unfair competition in that as illegal immigrants they did not pay taxes.
Elisa was from a relatively well-off family in Rio de Janeiro. She participated in some Carnival balls, and performed in the Săo Paulo stage show Les Girls when it came to Rio |
| Elisa (in Et il voulut) |
Elisa was featured in the film Et il voulut être une femme, about travestis and other trans women in Paris in the 1970s. The film includes Elisa's surgery.
Competition came from Claudia Tavares, who was also a bombadeira, who sourced her silicone in Paris and had cheaper prices. Elisa put a lot of pressure on Claudia, to get her to leave France. Threats and violence mounted until Claudia killed Elisa.
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| Claudia in later years, |
After the murder, many rivalries, envy, scandals, and threats surfaced among the immigrant travesti sex workers themselves. At the same time, the pressure from the French authorities grew: between 1980 and 1984, expulsions were multiplied because of irregularities in their visas. Migration of Brazilian travestis to Italy and other European countries commenced.
- Michel Richaud (dir). Et il voulut être une femme, with Elisa. France 76 mins 1978. IMDB. Part 1 online.
- “Reavesti brasileiro é assassinado em Paris”. Cidade de Santos, 1.11.1980: 7.
- "Elisa morreu na Praça Pigalle. Mataeam o maior travesti do mundo”. Diário da Manhã, 2.11.1980: 1.
- Joao S Trevisan translated by Martin Foreman. Perverts in Paradise. Gay Men’s Press, 1986: 165.
- Don Kulíck. Travesti : Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Univeristy of Chicago Press. 1998: 178, 217.
- Julieta Vartabedian. Brazilian Travesti Migrations: Gender, Sexualities and Embodiment Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 : 89, 197.
- Igor Danin, research 2025.
- Claudia Tavares. A volta da gata. Livaria Editoria, 1983.
- -- La femme inachevée. Editions R Deforges, 1987. *
- -- Circonstances atténuantes : Récit. Nicolas Philippe, 2002. *
- -- A Rejeitada. Cia, dos Livros, 2011.
- -- Claudia. Faralonn éditions, 2022.
- -- La volonté d'exister. Nombre 7, 2023.
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No surname is given by either Vartabedian or Kulíck. Vartabedian has no entry in her index for any Elisa. Kulíck has an index entry for a different Elisa, but not this one.
Vartabedian writes: “During the beginning of the 1970s, the first ‘pumped up’ (bombadas) travestis did it in the United States, in New York, with the practitioner Wesser.” Apparently she did not know that Wesser was a doctor, even though I wrote of him two years before her book came out.
The practice of pumping silicone spread across Brazil and south America during the 1980s. In 1983 there was a sort of epidemic in São Paulo where many travestis were dying painfully after industrial silicone was sold as filtered silicone. (Trevisan p165).
Claudia's books are very hard to find. As is the film, Et il voulut être une femme.
Health warning: estrogen is far better than silicone for feminisation.
