Transsexuals

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Health-Medical Documentary hosted by cast themselves, published by Global Village Inc. in 1971 - English narration

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Fifty years ago, it was virtually impossible to access gender affirming surgery in the United States, so Deborah Hartin, one of the individuals featured in this documentary, traveled all the way to a doctor in Casablanca to achieve what she had long wanted. Having spent most of her 20-plus years trying to conform to life in the body of a man, she ultimately made the choice to follow her destiny and fully become the person she knew herself to be. In 1971 - a year or so after her surgery - a group of students in New York City learning how to use the nascent technology of portable video, interviewed Hartin for a documentary they were making about the subject. Along with Esther Reilly (who was recently post-operative) and others in the transgender community, Hartin shared her story and revealed how the procedure had transformed her body. After the documentary was originally completed, Deborah Hartin went on to become an outspoken activist, and subsequently lived a private life until she passed away in 2005. Because of technical limitations, "Transsexuals" could not be broadcast on commercial television. It was never distributed and rarely shown publicly. In 2016, it was converted from the obsolete format in which it was originally produced so that it could be preserved and presented anew. As such, it serves as an inflection point from which it is possible to spotlight how attitudes, medicine and human understanding of gender have - and have not - changed.