Today, the mainstream scientific consensus is that gender and sexuality exist on a spectrum throughout nature, but that hasn’t always been the view.

In Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, a documentary from The Nature of Things, historian Jules Gill-Peterson and host Mae Martin look back on several milestones in the flawed (but still influential) history of gender science.

“We’re looking at about a century’s worth of some of the worst scientific research telling us what gender and sex really are,” Gill-Peterson says.

In the video above, Gill-Peterson talks about conversion therapy, the shaming of kids whose behaviour strayed from gender norms, and an inspiring act of social justice by gay psychiatrist John Fryer.

 “When we look at this whole span of history, part of what it reminds us is that it’s not just that science was conducted incorrectly, but that it really took people stepping up and challenging the way that science was practised to make it finally change,” she says. 

Watch Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary on CBC Gem.