Film Description

The Transformation is a video documentary that explores the changes that Ricardo (Sara in The Salt Mines), former homeless prostitute transvestite, undergoes after discovering that he is HIV+ and deciding that he is not going to die on the streets. In order to move out of his street life he accepts help from a group of Born Again Christians who in exchange demand his complete transformation: that of homosexual to heterosexual. Ricardo is taken to Dallas where he tries very hard to transform himself: inside and out. During this process he becomes a Christian and ends up marrying Betty, a woman he meets through the chuch. Together they try to start a new life away from his past.

Meanwhile the church organizes a trip to New York to "rescue" other transvestite street walkers and invites Ricardo to go along with them and preach his example. Ricardo travels to New York and meets up with his old friends Gigi and Giovanna, both of whom refuse the offer to come back with him to Dallas to be redeemed from their sexuality. They also refuse to believe in the truth of his transformation, and regard it openly as a desperate exercise in survival. Ricardo and the church committee return to Dallas empty handed.

As time goes by and Ricardo is affected by the onset of AIDS-related illness, he looks back on his life and reflects that if he could choose all over again he would still want to be a woman.