Skip Channel4 main Navigation
Sex Change Soldier
About the programme
Ian Hamilton (43) is a Captain of the Parachute Regiment and one of the most highly decorated officers in the British Army. He has served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
But in 2007 Ian became the first officer and the first paratrooper in the history of the Armed Forces to undergo a sex-change operation.
Film-maker Jane Preston documents Hamilton's transgender journey to become Jan, revealing an intimate and raw portrait of a remarkable year, as the alpha-male Para transforms into an ultra-feminine woman. The changes are physical but the emotional consequences are extensive as Jan has battled with an inner turmoil for years.
Army career
Ian had fought to suppress his feminine side, seeking out the toughest assignments to prove his manliness. In 1983, aged 18 he began his army career at Sandhurst and on a career-break from the army – he retrained as a cameraman in 1987 – his military background saw him dispatched to war zones covering the first Gulf War and the conflict in Bosnia. He then rejoined the Army as a Captain of the Parachute Regiment and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The transformation
Now he has stepped forward and acknowledged that he is more comfortable as a woman and the transformation begins. The muscles and the stubble will go to be replaced by a softer, more feminine face thanks to Facial Feminisation Surgery, breasts will replace pecs and finally Ian will have Sexual Reassignment Surgery to be a complete woman.
The tribunal
All the while Jan has more battles to face – to be accepted by her friends and family, as well as the Army. When Jan told her bosses she was transgendered and undergoing transition to be a woman, she was not allowed to take up a posting as an Army Media Liaison Officer in Gibraltar. She is now taking the Army to an industrial tribunal.
It is an extraordinary year for Jan, as she turns her back on the trappings of manliness she had clung to all her adult life to recognise that she, at heart and now in body, is a woman.
