Lone Star International Film Festival 2008

This compassionate and compelling documentary is set in Trinidad, Colorado, known as the “Sex Change Capitol of America.” Thousands of patients have undergone genital-reassignment surgeries there since 1969, when Dr. Stanley Biber began his research. After his death, former patient Dr. Marci Bowers took over his practice, enhancing the procedure to near perfection. The lives of Dr. Bowers and two of her patients, at different stages of their sexual transformation from male to female, are followed through this once prosperous coal-mining and ranching town. Their multi-tiered struggles with small-town morals and intolerance and reconciling their new personas with their families are set against their adopted community’s struggle to accept that their economic survival depends on this new industry. Cleverly structured, this is a fascinating documentary.