It was produced by George Weiss who also made the exploitation film Test Tube Babies that same year.

However, it has since been reevaluated and has become a cult film due to its low-budget production values, idiosyncratic style, and early cinematic themes of transgender acceptance.

A police inspector investigating the suicide of a transvestite named Patrick/Patricia seeks the advice of Dr. Alton, who narrates for him the story of Glen/Glenda.

Glen confides in a transvestite friend of his, John, whose wife left him after catching him wearing her clothes.

An extended dream sequence begins, containing several vignettes symbolically depicting Glen's struggle with his sexuality.

Shot in four days, the film was loosely inspired by the sex reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen, which made national headlines in the U.S. in 1952.

George Weiss, a Hollywood producer of low-budget films, commissioned a movie to exploit the case.

[6] While not organic parts of the narrative, they seem to tell their own tales of gender dynamics and so fit in with the general themes of the film.

Domestically, the film was limited in release, having been pre-sold to some theaters (under alternative titles such as I Led Two Lives, He or She?

[2] According to Tim Dirks, the film was one of a wave of "cheap teen movies" released for the drive-in market.

[11] Describing the film as "a half-mad old movie Paramount hasn't so much rescued as disinterred", critic Janet Maslin wrote in a 1981 review of the film in The New York Times that "it's dreadful enough to have a certain comic appeal", that the Lugosi character "presides over the action like some sex change deity", that it is "impassioned [and] incoherent", but noted that "there is plenty of inadvertent humor in Glen or Glenda, with its weirdo homilies, rotten acting and frequent talk of underwear.

"[12] Writing in DVD Talk, critic Ian Jane wrote that "Wood throws in all manner of strange stock footage of Buffalo and bound women alongside clips of Bela Lugosi freaking out", that the film is "so utterly messed up that it borders on arthouse rather than simple b-movie exploitation", but that it "holds up immensely for multiple viewings due to its total incoherence".

[13] A review by Andrea LeVasseur in AllMovie described the film as a "showcase of Wood's infamous ineptitude", and noted that "the personal stories of two transvestites are spoken with ridiculous dialogue, terrible acting, and interspersed with irrelevant stock footage.

"[14] The critic Leonard Maltin names Glen or Glenda as "possibly the worst movie ever made".

[16] In 1980, Wood was posthumously given the accolade of 'Worst Director of All Time' at the Golden Turkey Awards, and a revival of interest in his work followed.