Best Gender Reassignment Movies & TV Shows

Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.

This true story, which takes place in Fort Campbell, KY, tells the heart-wrenching story of the life and tragic death of soldier Barry Winchell. His love for Calpernia Addams, a transgender nightclub performer, was misunderstood by his fellow soldiers and eventually led to his murder.

Louis Theroux travels to San Francisco where a group of pioneering medical professionals help children who say they were born in the wrong body transition from boy to girl or girl to boy at ever younger ages.

In 1972, John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation. The story was the basis for the film Dog Day Afternoon. The Dog captures John, who shares his story for the first time in his own unique, offensive, hilarious and heartbreaking way. We gain a historic perspective on New York's gay liberation movement, in which Wojtowicz played an active role. In later footage, he remains a subversive force, backed by the unconditional love of his mother Terry, whose wit and charm infuse the film. How and why the bank robbery took place is recounted in gripping detail by Wojtowicz and various eyewitnesses.

Katie Couric travels across the U.S. to talk with scientists, psychologists, activists, authors and families about the complex issue of gender.

Fact-based story about tennis pro Renee Richards, whose player status was challenged in 1976 when it was revealed that she was a trans woman. Flashback to 1964 before she was out as trans, a successful New York doctor with a great lifestyle, a flashy girl friend, and a secret life. Her psychiatrist mother refuses to deal with her and sends her to a colleague who diagnoses with a psychotic gender confusion, which he says can be unlearned. After a failed marriage and parenthood, she comes out as trans, with a new life in California.

A documentary on the work of sex-change specialist Dr. Leo Wollman, including interviews with Dr. Wollman and a few of his patients, with an illustrated lecture on the various aspects of transsexuality plus actual footage of a sex-change operation, which is what gives the film its notoriety

Focuses on three intersex individuals who overcame shame, secrecy and unauthorized surgery throughout their childhoods to enjoy successful adulthoods, choosing to ignore medical advice to conceal their bodies and coming out as who they truly are.

Christine Jorgensen goes to 1950s Denmark and makes headlines for having the first sex-change operation.

A Boy Named Sue chronicles the transformation of a transsexual named Theo from a woman to a man over the course of six years. Following Theo's physiological and psychological changes during the process, as well as their effects on his lesbian lover and community of close friends, A Boy Named Sue tells a story about gender identity, relationships, and how even things that seem permanent can change.

Sex Change Hospital is an American six-part documentary series following trans men and women having genital reassignment surgeries. Dr. Marci Bowers performs the surgeries and calls upon her own experiences as a transgender woman to guide her patients as they go through the ultimate life changing procedure.

A Vietnam vet decides to undergo a sex change operation in the 1970's.

Filmed over five years, we follow Lily Jones, 20, as she transitions from male to female, leaves her seaside home for the city, undergoes gender reassignment surgery and finds love.