In celebration of pride month,SkinSpirit, a medical aesthetics and skincare company, hosted a drag queen, community-driven extravaganza. Guests had the opportunity to enter raffles and enjoy light refreshments and food.
It was a day focused on acceptance and love in support of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Vinny Sathe
One attendee, who is a SkinSpirit nurse specialist, is Vinny Sathe.
He came out as gay after graduating high school, and this guided him to initially pursue fashion design at the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. From there, he worked for Details Magazine at Condé Nast and then Here Media, a publishing company for LBGTQ magazine, The Advocate. After his time there, he decided to pursue a career in medicine — thus began his journey of becoming a nurse and practicing medical aesthetics.
“It really spoke to me,” Sathe said. “Having a design background in education and being able to blend that with Anatomy, Physiology and Medicine was a better place for me.”
While working in medical aesthetics, Sathe wanted to apply the luxuries of the industry by helping the transgender community. Sathe’s treatments from Galderma are not only temporary but can help trans people feel more like themselves on the outside as they do on the inside.
“As a queer male myself I had a unique opportunity to use my craft to help trans people,” Sathe said. “Medical aesthetics is not going to stop people from getting gender reaffirmation surgery later, what we are able to do for people can run the length of their transitions.”
Liquid facial feminization, or masculinization, is a minimally invasive, non-surgical treatment option designed to create more of a feminine or masculine facial appearance for those undergoing gender affirmation treatments. This is what Sathe does, and it can be applied while undergoing hormonal therapy and can start as early as the teen years.
“I used social media channels to identify three transwomen who would benefit from what I do and in that process, I’ve met and become friends with three fabulous women,” Sathe said. “Through this experience, I just learn so much about my own craft and the trans community.”
Sathe is working on submitting his work to conferences and hoping to speak about what he’s accomplished.
Alaria Allen
Alaria Allen is one of Sathe’s patients. She came out as transgender when she was 32 years old. Growing up in a toxic environment in Oklahoma, Allen said she felt like she missed out on psychosexual stages of development and because of this, she felt like she didn’t fully develop a personality until her mid 20s.
“I entered the world with no idea of sex and sexuality until I joined the Domestic Peace Corps after high school and then I got to travel the Midwest for three years,” Allen said. “I got a very quick education in different ethnic groups in sex and sexuality and it just blew my mind.”
After the Peace Corps, Allen was then married for 11 years but mentally struggled. It wasn’t until after she divorced her ex-wife that she realized that she was a woman.
“I always tell people that it was like a light switch that flipped and then everything made sense,” Allen said. “Growing up I was told that I was gay and I was like ‘well I’m not gay I like girls’ but that was the label for me through most of my childhood and adolescence, now I consider myself a lesbian — my sexuality has never changed.”
Now, she does gallery artwork and is an electrologist, which is the only FDA approved and recommended permanent hair removal. Allen tried starting her own electrologist business in Albuquerque, New Mexico but didn’t receive attention until she moved to Colorado. In Colorado, she works for a company called “Bald” and is one of the only electrologists in the state. Allen specializes in working with transgender patients.
“I had 48 patients all transgender, preparing for them for their gender confirmation surgeries,” Allen said.
It was during that time that she heard about what Sathe offers at SkinSpirit and decided to try it herself.
“I have always been trepidatious about having facial feminization surgery,” Allen said. “I’ve already had some serious cranium surgery in the past and so I saw this opportunity as a way to feminize my face in-evasively.”
With Sathe’s process, Allen said she finds herself feeling more confident and likes the idea of it being temporary.
“This whole experience has been a huge boost in confidence so I can’t thank SkinSpirit and Vinny enough, he really approached it with an artistic eye and as an artist, I appreciate that,” Allen said.
Stayce White
Growing up in a small town in Missouri, Stayce White struggled with coming out as transgender – though she knew at the age of four. She would circle and underline dresses and wedding gowns in JC Penney and Sears catalogs. Due to her religious family, she had to suppress herself until her 40s.
“I had a big support system at a church that I went to, everybody there was super supportive and that helped a lot,” White said. “My family completely disowned me so I have no family members at all but I can’t change who I am.”
As a transgender woman, White believes that the biggest misconception that people often have of her community is that they think it’s a choice when it’s not. In her adolescent years, White struggled to balance her femininity with masculinity.
“If I had a choice I sure wouldn’t be like this,” White said. “But here I am because I grew up trying to be a macho boy and did stuff that could kill me easily and I was pretty reckless but I didn’t care because they didn’t know who I was.”
To suppress her feelings, White turned to alcohol and didn’t escape it until she truly became herself. Sathe’s program was also a huge confidence booster for her. She came across Sathe’s social media post and decided to give it a try.
“He worked on my face and it was a huge confidence booster,” White said. “The journey here has been awesome.”
Lexi Covill
As a 40-year-old transgender woman who grew up in Toronto, Canada and moved to Florida, Lexi Covill suppressed her coming out until she was 38 years old. In Canada, Covill was a part of the LBTQIA+ community but struggled with toxic masculinity when she moved to Florida.
“I think if I had stayed in Toronto I probably would have transitioned in my teens or 20s because I moved to a Conservative, Christian environment that was like don’t behave this way, don’t conform, super not how I was raised,” Covill said. “It was a lot of going against my own beliefs and so it kind of created a shell and it took me years to come out of that.”
It wasn’t until performing in Vegas and working with special effect makeup and dressed like a woman that she began to question herself.
“I performed as a woman for years and acted and wore the clothes and the shoes,” Covill said. “But people were never like ‘oh you’re transgender.’ It was just the environment that I was in, it was fluid.”
Post-COVID, after reevaluating what she wanted out of life, she realized that she wanted to be a woman and so she did.
“It was the best thing I ever did for myself because I had a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of self hatred, a lot of not liking myself or who I was or the man that I was and now I like myself and I’m happy with who I am,” Covill said.
Though she recently had to cut her mother off, her experience with Sathe has helped her feel her most confident.
“The transition was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself,” Covill said. “I’m the best person I’ve ever met and this has been great. This has been the most helpful thing anyone has ever done for me as far as my confidence is concerned.”
June means Pride Month. To Sathe, this is an opportunity for the LGBTQIA+ community to show that they exist among everyone.
“It’s not to push it on people or rub it in anyone’s faces but it’s to remind those of the struggles and tribulations that the community went and continues to go through,” Sathe said.
With this in mind, Sathe’s liquid facial feminization or masculinization is to help those who continue to struggle and go through tribulations. Through his process, he helps them feel like their best selves.
Photos by Lauren Black
Book a SkinSpirit appointment with Vinny Sathe here
Editor’s Note: Liquid facial feminization or masculinization definition changed to correctly inform that it is not plastic surgery and is a minimally invasive treatment.