Inventing the gender swap. The extraordinary stories of the first sex-change operations.

Surgical gender reassignment is now a near-commonplace procedure. But when this ‘science-fiction surgery’ arrived in the 1940s, it was a sensation.
This sex-change documentary looks at the extraordinary stories of its pioneers: the world’s first woman to become a man, the ex-Spitfire pilot who became Britain’s first man to become a woman – and the daring plastic surgeon who carried out their operations.
Watch Sex Changes That Made History and more acclaimed documentaries on BBC Select today. Restrictions apply*.
More documentaries you might like...
Subscribe to BBC Select for hundreds of hours of thought - provoking, award-winning and critically-acclaimed documentaries from the BBC and beyond.
Newsletter sign up
Sign up to receive news, updates and exclusives from BBC Select and other content from BBC Studios we think you’ll enjoy.