Born to Be’s main subject has to be one of the most badass, real-life doctors to grace the screen in recent memory. Once a successful plastic surgeon, Dr. Jess Ting saw a need for a new field of medicine specializing in gender affirming surgeries. So, he built one of the best and biggest transgender medicine and surgery programs in the United States.

The documentary follows a diverse group of transgendered and non-binary individuals in different stages of their transitions at the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. As of the fall of 2019, the CTMS has performed more than 1,200 operations—and that number is growing fast. Most importantly, this documentary shines a light on the need for more doctors to specialize in transgender health care.

Tania Cypriano’s film is elevated by its compassion for all its subjects. She takes us along the journeys of Cashmere, a middle-aged trans woman seeking to repair damage from black market procedures; Garnet, who’s undergoing a new method of vaginoplasty; Jordan, a non-binary person in their late 20s who has a penis constructed; and Mahogany, who’s receiving facial feminization surgery. These four are the most in-depth profiles, but there are many more. In a sequence in which a trans woman examining her new breasts is juxtaposed with a trans man seeing himself without breasts for the first time, Cypriano’s camera focuses on the joy for both these individuals.

In many cases, these procedures must be done with expediency because gender dysphoria is, by definition, a depressive state. The longer a person lives in the wrong body, the greater the risk of succumbing to suicide. According to Dr. Ting, nearly 45 percent of trans people attempt it. This is brought up more than once, and his driving motivation is to never have another patient die by suicide. However, a major problem with gender affirming surgeries falling under the domain of cosmetic surgery is that at-risk patients are given the same level of priority as other cosmetic surgery patients. To give you an idea: the rate of people dying by suicide because they had to wait too long to get nose jobs is practically nonexistent.

What grounds the film is the remarkable doctor at the very center of CTMS. Dr. Ting studied the double bass at the Julliard School as both an undergrad and a graduate student. He could have been a successful musician, and he even provides some of the film’s soundtrack—which is a level of peacocking very much appreciated. Yet in the middle of grad school, he changed course to Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he graduated first in his class.

Despite building a renown transgender medicine and surgery program, he still faces discrimination. There are the expected hateful things written about him online, but he gets it from both sides. Because the center is so well regarded, it has hundreds of patients on its waiting lists, with surgeries scheduled six months to a year in advance. From time to time, potential patients take to social media to rant about their being waitlisted as another form of trans discrimination.

Currently, there are no U.S. medical schools that offer transgender surgery and medicine as courses of study. Doctors like Ting have had to learn everything after medical school, and his story should be an inspiration to medical students who want to make a difference. Changes are on the horizon, though perhaps slowly, as the demand for more of these kinds of surgeries increases. In fact, during the course of filming, CTMS started its first fellowship, although with just one fellow.