SAN SALVADOR — She takes the bus daily, and has never been robbed. She could eat vegetable soup every day, especially if her mom makes them. Before she was 20 years old, she wanted to be a bodybuilder, because she likes lifting weights and is studying a Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education at the University of El Salvador. Then, on her own initiative and encouraged by her friends’ comments, she became convinced that she had a talent for modeling.
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Modeling is not only the profession she aspires to make a living from. It was also the starting point a year ago for her to begin to fully accept herself as a trans woman. Previously, her family and social environment prevented her from showing her identity and gender expression freely. She had to deny who she was even in her work space: the runway.
Nessa Sosa has now become a reference for the the LGBTQ+ population in El Salvador. “You represent us,” shyly said a gay boy after a theater performance. She continually receives other comments on social media or in person that praise her work and her visibility as a trans woman, in a country that discriminates and stigmatizes sexual diversity.
Front page and center
Although she already used TikTok and Instagram to show her modeling talent, Nessa rose to fame after the April edition of Blanc Magazine, a New York-based independent fashion publication. She was on the cover’s magazine and also inspired a photo essay titled “La ruta de la flor”, the route of the flower, which attempted to show the world the daily life of a trans woman in El Salvador.
“I am here to create my path and serve as an example for all trans people who hide and protect themselves in our small and conservative country,” Nessa explains to Blanc Magazine.
The magazine’s 26th issue was called “New Beginnings” and featured Nessa as El Salvador’s first trans model. On the cover, Nessa appears slender, wearing a blazer with native fabrics, sitting on a horse and wearing a colorful flower hat with ribbons. She was portrayed by the church in Concepción de Ataco, a touristic town in the west of the country.
The hat she’s wearing is inspired by those used by the Historiantes, folkloric characters in Latin America. In El Salvador, every August, they perform a traditional dance in Izalco, to represent the historical battle between Moors and Christians.
The plight of trans women
For Nessa, the accessory symbolizes something else: “It is like the LGBTQ+ flag, because they are colored ribbons decorating me. In the end, the story behind ‘La ruta de la flor’ is about a trans woman, Nessa Sosa, a story about me. It’s very meaningful.” In fact, the image on the cover of this magazine, with coverage in several countries in America and Europe, was not planned. It arose when the production team saw a man pass by with a horse in front of them.
In El Salvador, the LGBTQ+ population faces a society that places them in unequal conditions compared to heterosexual people. There are no laws that sanction discrimination against people of sexual diversity, that recognize trans people or that allow same-sex couples to have basic rights such as access to social security or property rights.
Life isn’t easy for many, and even less so for us.
Of all groups, the most affected are trans women. In 2018, only one in three trans women in El Salvador had been able to enter the workforce, according to research published by the AMATE organization.
Runway choices
Hate crimes are a harsh portrait of the life expectancy of trans women. According to the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Trans People, trans women have an average life expectancy of 35 years. That is, 42 years of life less than for cisgender women, whose life expectancy is of 77 years.
Nessa combines modeling with her university career and a job in a beauty salon. She has 11 modules left to finish her degree. But in the next five years she envisions herself traveling the world, modeling.
“Life isn’t easy for many, and even less so for us… I feel watched in my daily life, sometimes with admiration, confusion, curiosity, desire, or maybe even hate,” says the model in a video posted on Blanc Magazine’s Instagram platform on April 15, the day the issue featuring her on the cover was released.
In March 2023, for the first time, Nessa modeled women’s clothing on a runway. She had already modeled before, but in the three fashion shows in which she had previously been accepted, she was asked to model men’s clothing. She had not yet come out as a trans woman.
Modeling inspiration
On that occasion, designer Didihiver chose her to model a leather dress at El Salvador Fashion Week. Nessa also modeled her outfits in November of that year, at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. These are the two most important fashion events held in El Salvador, and Nessa became the first trans woman to walk on their runways.
“That time I fulfilled my dream and since then I feel I am myself. It gave me the strength to say: ‘Ok, I am this and I want to do this.’” She proudly remembers how she received a standing ovation of applause and praise.
Just as they make me more visible, they make my entire community more visible.
Didihiver did not know that, in 2023, he was the first Salvadoran fashion designer to choose a trans woman as a model, respecting her female identity and gender expression. He states that, at the casting, he was amazed by Nessa’s talent.
“Being a gay person, who had many confidence problems in my adolescence and who grew up in a traditional and very closed-minded family, when I see people from the queer community who manage to express their true identity, I feel immediate attraction and total admiration for them,” he adds.
Ever since Nessa’s presence on these catwalks, says the designer, several trans girls have been in touch with him about upcoming castings to be able to enter the world of modeling.
The first of many achievements
Just as Nessa is making waves in the fashion industry in a country that discriminates against and stigmatizes sexual diversity, Cris Miró, the first transgender showgirl in Argentina, gained fame for her talent in acting and modeling between 1995 and 1999. A new biopic series focused on Miró has recently been released internationally.
In her fleeting career, Miró became a symbol of LGBTQ+ resistance in a society that had not yet approved equal marriage (2010) and the Gender Identity Law (2012). A society that was not used to seeing trans people occupying important positions in media, arts or entertainment. Today, in Latin America, Argentina is an oasis in the protection of the rights of sexual dissidents.
“Just as they make me more visible, they make my entire community more visible, all the trans women in the country. I think that for me the support, the love, the admiration that I receive is priceless because it is part of the LGBTQ+ community and, above all, from trans women,” explains Nessa.
After the March 2023 runway, Nessa was clear that she had taken an important step in her modeling career and she told herself that, if she was constant, more achievements would come. Inspired by the successful Britney Manson, a Russian TikTok trans model who shares advice for beginner models, the Salvadoran decided to try to make videos modeling in the historic center of San Salvador go viral on TikTok and Instagram.
Why choose this place as a walkway? “In the center of San Salvador you can find the reality of the country. Through hidden alleys, you can see homeless people. There is not only cultural and architectural beauty, but also a human reality,” explains the model.
The Flower Route
Since she became a visible person in the world of fashion, her mother and sister also learned about her female gender identity through social media. Although they live in the same house, her identity and professional career are taboo topics within the family.
At 16, her mother asked her if she liked men and, from then on, the family relationship became complex. There were constant fights that caused Nessa, for a moment, to doubt her identity and sexual orientation.
Amate’s research reveals that out of the 284 people interviewed for the study, 22% said they had to leave their homes when they came out and fend for themselves because their families turned their backs on them.
The fashion industry in El Salvador is not as progressive as elsewhere.
It was through social media that Kevin Alexander, a Salvadoran fashion photographer based in the United States, met Nessa. After watching a TikTok video in which Nessa models a black suit and brown boots in the capital’s Central Market, Alexander was delighted with her and contacted her to work on projects. In September of last year, both met at a fashion event in El Salvador and finally this year they made “The Flower Route” real.
“The Flower Route” is made up of 22 photographs taken in Ataco, one of the districts that now make up the tourist route called the Flower Route, and its surroundings. Alexander’s goal was to introduce Nessa and El Salvador, with its cultural nuances, which also encompass its LGBTQ+ hate.
Denial and acceptance
In the photographic series, Nessa wore 11 outfits that were designed by national and international designers. In the photographs, she appears posing around the town and interacting with local artisans. Each image is accompanied by excerpts from a letter that, at Alexander’s request, Nessa dedicated to the LGBTQ+ population.
“As a transgender woman, a transgender model, you do not have the same opportunities as a cisgender model. At the end of the day, the fashion industry in El Salvador is not as progressive as elsewhere,” acknowledges photographer Alexander.
In this context of restricted opportunities for sexual diversity, there is the anti-rights advance of the the unconstitutional government of President Nayib Bukele. In 2021, deputies in his alliance shelved a draft Gender Identity Law intended to recognize transgender people. Additionally, in June, the Ministry of Culture censored the play Inmoral from the National Theater of San Salvador. The play, presented by a drag company, depicted the violence experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals in El Salvador.
The censorship of the play was followed by the dismissal of 300 employees from the Ministry of Culture on June 27, just one day before International Pride Day. According to a post by Bukele on X (formerly Twitter), the employees were fired because they “promoted agendas that were not compatible with the government’s vision.” In 2019, Bukele’s government had transferred the responsibilities of the now-defunct Social Inclusion Secretariat to this ministry.
“Even during this process of seeing myself as feminine, it was still difficult for me to say ‘I am a trans woman.’ I faced a period of denial for months. It’s hard because you constantly think about how your life will change now that you’re saying you’re a trans woman, that you want to be called this way and treated this way. It’s tough to accept that your life will literally change 100%. Everything changes, but like everything it is a slow process,” Nessa says.
