What Sex Am I? 1985 documentary edited for rebroadcast on Discovery channel. (Halfway through I realized I have seen clips of this before via Genevieve Gluck).

Begins with a review of famous transsexuals, including a brief contemporary (at the time) interview with Christine Jorgenson, who never regretted the SRS. 

Profiles Cathy, a male, gay southerner, who is about to go through SRS. Documentary states it's a problem of the body not matching the mind. At the time SRS required going to one of several dozen, as the documentary describes, reputable gender clinics and preops had to take large doses of female hormones and "live as a woman for a year." SRS would cost $8000 for Cathy out of pocket, as insurance would not cover it. Narrator explains "This operation is not irreversible." 

Profiles Jodie, who, "unlike Cathy, is 45 and had some difficulty passing as a woman."

Jodie: "It wasn't about wanting. I just knew I was a woman. It wasn't about wanting to be a woman... I knew I was supposed to be a woman and something went wrong. I feel like I was born with a birth defect and I finally got it straightened out." 

Narrator consistently uses feminine pronouns for male transsexuals, but uses the term "father": "Jodie is the father of three children". Jodie has a second wife, Paula, of eight years, who has stayed with Jodie. Jodie was fired from his job, so the couple moved to San Francisco, where, despite decades of experience as a computer analyst, could not find work. 

On marriage the narrator asks: "What are you to her now? You can't be her husband." Jodie: "We're lovers. In California I am legally a woman, so I can't be married to Paula. But in our minds we're still married."

On the SRS and castration: "The doctors warned me but that wasn't important to me. It was more important to me to be who I am than try to maintain the equipment of a life that is a lie."

On childhood: Jodie says his dad didn't like him, while his mother treated him like a little girl and she would tell him "Relative to my genitals, I should have been a girl."

Narrator: "What do you mean?"

Jodie: "Like my genitals should been inside instead of outside."

Narrator: "How did she show that to you?"

Jodie: "She would push them in there [gestures to crotch] and so on."

As a young adult, Jodie joined the navy and says he acted out and performed masculinity to prove himself as a man. Later on, despite being a father and having a  successful career, was conflicted about his gender identity, saying he attempted suicide multiple times. Since the transition two of his children have rejected him, while he still has a relationship with a daughter. 

Narrator: "How do you feel about your dad being a transsexual?"

Daughter: "She's a lot more sensitive, outward than she used to be. She was always very masculine and would never show feelings of hurt."

Jodie, on what has changed, "I had to work very hard to appear as a woman... Also working on voice training... I also had to learn how to dress and not appear outlandish." Says he would rather kill himself than to go back.

Interview with Paul Walker, Ph.D. gender specialist: "I think the most important thing about the transsexual that this is not something someone does on a lark. This is not something they chose. These people have felt this way, and have wanted this, usually as early as childhood, and they fought it and they fought it and they fought it. Even though they may have appeared to family and friends as having been happy, normal kids and teenagers they were living a private hell."

Profile: Clifford, a gay man who came from a conservative, religious family and turned toward transsexualism as an escape from homosexuality. The documentary says that Clifford did not go to a reputable clinic. 9 out of 10 gender clinic patients decide not to go through with the surgery but Clifford read books and convinced his doctors he was a good candidate for transsexual surgery, which he then regretted.

Walker on why gays turn to SRS: homosexuality is seen as a moral problem, while transsexuality is seen as a medical one, making it attractive to gay men. 

Then there's a segment on shemale, term used by the documentary, prostitution: Men using hormones and surgery to feminize their skin and chest, while retaining their genitals

Then a segment on transvestitism, showing a therapy group. (This is the segment I've seen before, via Genevieve Gluck, with men talking about masturbating with their mother's underwear). Charles Prince is interviewed, admitting transvestitism begins as a sexual experience, but then it becomes pleasurable just to live as a woman. Prince describes the binge and purge pattern (a phenomenon I've heard TVs in real life describe).

One TV: "We are transvestites until we die." Another TV then describes starting by wearing his grandmother's clothing. Narrator asks if he had thought it was wrong, and the TV responds "I didn't stop to think it was wrong until afterwards. I got erections immediately!"

Why are there no female TVs? Prince says women can go and buy pants and no one cares. 

Then there's a brief review of historic instances of women cross dressing to earn advantages within patriarchy. Then they introduce female transsexuals. 

As 1985, 50 percent of all SRS were for female transsexuals. They profile Steven (Doris) Richards, who was a tomboy as a child, identified with the guys, married a man, and then transitioned in 1975. 

Steven: "I wasn't female gendered. I was female sexed. It's the gender that lets you be who you are, not your sex. So if I'm male gendered, I've got to line the body up, now I'm a whole person." 

Steven was fired from a middle/high school PE teacher job and had difficulty finding work afterwards. 

Another female profile: John (Janet), married to a woman, Susan, both work in a shipping yard and began their relationship as a gay couple. John's partner was initially devastated by the idea of the transition but then accepted it. The documentary describes the behavioral changes, including binding, required before the FTM surgeries. John was delighted to have the mastectomy and considers life to be much better to no longer appear to be a woman.

Fin.