February 3, 2021 – This documentary movie is hard to watch because it is about pain, not just pain from invasive surgery, but emotional pain as well.

I had read about some of these kinds of surgeries showcased in this movie, but I learned a lot more about the surgical techniques used, and why patients want these operations, than I knew before.

This film is centered on a doctor, Jess Ting of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City, where transgender medicine is required to be covered by insurance companies.

Ting ended up in this field, he says in the film, because he was the only plastic surgeon who volunteered for it when the unit opened up at the hospital. The film follows several patients who undergo different transgender surgeries, and it also follows the expansion of the transgender medicine unit over time.

Ting is a fascinating man in his own right, an elite plastic surgeon, as well as a former music student at Julliard. In the movie, we see him performing surgery, and we also see him playing an upright bass with equal skill.

The movie introduces us to people born male who want their bodies to be made more like female bodies, and people born female who want their bodies to be more like male bodies. When their names are shown on screen, the “he/him” and “she/her” pronouns are shown indicating their sexual identity, as opposed to just their assigned sex at birth. At least I think that is what is meant by this nomenclature after doing some research into it.

This movie is the ultimate lesson in the old saw that you can't judge a book by its cover. Without going into gory details or graphic depictions of surgery or genitalia, the film shows us remarkable transformations wrought by Ting and others working in the field of transgender medicine. This is a new field of medicine and Ting is one of the pioneers, developing new techniques.

Ting talks about his early days working with transgender patients, saying he first learned of the urgency some patients feel about it when he learned that one of those on the waiting list for surgery committed suicide. Later in the film, another of his patients, who had successful transgender surgery, tries to commit suicide. Ting noted he can only work on the bodies of his patients. He cannot cure the damage caused by years of rejection, hatred and abuse that is in their minds.

Underlining the need for this kind of surgery are the stories of the patients themselves, who talk about the years of working to save enough money for the operations. Others tell of being so desperate to change their bodies that they submitted to operations performed by unqualified practitioners. According to the movie, the demand for transgender surgery is much greater than the hospital can handle.

Whatever you think you know about this subject, you might just change your mind about it after you see this movie. This film rates an A.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff (no extra charges apply). I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2021 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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