The Transformation is a video documentary that explores the changes Ricardo (Sara in The Salt Mines), a former homeless prostitute trans woman, undergoes after discovering that she is HIV+ and deciding that she is not going to die on the streets. In order to move out of this street life she accepts help from a group of Born Again Christians who in exchange demand her complete transformation: from female to male and queer to straight. Ricardo is taken to Dallas where he tries very hard to transform himself: inside and out. During this process he becomes a Christian and marries 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 trans sex workers and invites Ricardo to go along with them to 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 she would want to be a woman.

See also The Salt Mines

• Emmy Award for Outstanding Interview
  
  "An unusual excursion into murky worlds of self-deception and dizzying gender confusions...facsinating to the end."
           -The New York Times
  
  "Riveting!"
           -The Advocate
  
  "[A]n intimate...and touching documentaryî
           -USA Today
  
  "Most remarkable of all...is the dignity the film affords to all its characters."
           -The New York Daily News