Made for ITV by Red Production Company, the series focuses on the family of 11-year-old Maxine (Callum Booth-Ford), who begins to realise that she is a transgender girl.

Anna Friel and Emmett J. Scanlan play her parents, Vicky and Stephen, who reluctantly begin to accept Maxine's need to transition.

[3] The storyline has similarities to Green's experiences with her transgender daughter Jackie, who in 2010 became the youngest British girl to receive sex reassignment surgery at age 16.

Marchant aimed to dispel two myths about transgender children: that they identify as such to be "trendy", and that puberty blockers are easy for trans people to access.

[12] The soundtrack, which consists of synth music, was composed by Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon, who previously worked together on Netflix's science fiction-horror series Stranger Things.

[15] In Italy, the series was broadcast on the paid channel Fox Life in December 2018 on Mondays at 9 p.m., after premiering at a film festival in Milan.

In Radio Times, Ash Palmisciano – the first transgender actor on the British soap Emmerdale – praised Butterfly as "a landmark story", describing it as "truthful, dark, heart-breaking [and] beautiful".

and PinkNews reported that it was well received by viewers on social media, including by trans newsreader India Willoughby and Labour politician Dawn Butler.

[3][24][25][26] One woman interviewed by the Manchester Evening News described having a very similar situation to that of the programme's characters and said that the story "really hit home".

[36][37][38][39] The acting and characterisation was lauded by critics, with Lucy Mangan of The Guardian describing the characters as "fully realised" by "uniformly brilliant performances".

[31] Booth-Ford's acting as Maxine was praised by Euan Ferguson of The Observer, Sean O'Grady of The Independent and Carol Midgley of The Times, with Samantha Allen of The Daily Beast saying that he brought "believable vulnerability" to the character.

[34] Steadman's role of Barbara received mixed reception, Ferguson calling her cynical nature "superb" but Gabriel Tate of The Telegraph finding her character "phoned in".

A negative review in The Telegraph by Allison Pearson criticised the programme as "highly irresponsible" for displaying Maxine's suicide attempt.

[41] Gabriel Tate called the series "carefully calibrated pushback against lazy prejudice" but nonetheless criticised its use of clichés and negatively compared parts of it to a public information film.