Week 01

Attend 2nd Appointment at GIC. If you can show that you are working, or attending a full time college course, or a full time volunteer worker, or even an unemployed local councillor, the clinic will give you the go-ahead (if you wish) to start the real life test. If you are in agreement, at this time, the clinic will write to your GP and authorise them to prescribe you male hormones.

Week 04

• Start testosterone injections: - you will have these for the rest of your life.
• 2 days later: start eating as if a famine is due. You will feel very hungry and it is very very easy to put on a lot of weight over the next couple of years. Go to they gym NOW and get yourself membership, pay for a year up front, that way you’ll have spent a lot of money and feel obliged to get your money’s worth.
• 3 days later: feel very horny and take up masturbation as your hobby - you will feel this randy for about 2 years until you get more used to your testosterone
• 4 days later: have a huge row with your partner - you will find that over the next few years, a shot of testosterone, in many cases, will put your temper on a short fuse, you are going to have to negotiate with family and friends - to them you are going to appear like a very bad tempered pubescent boy who needs a good thrashing. However be reassured that this will get better and in 3 or 4 years (yes it takes that long) you will be a little better tempered, though you still will have days when you want to fly off the handle very quickly.
• 6 days later: be more like your old self for a few days.

Week 06

Next injection: - the cycle starts again, family and loved ones resort to day trips out to escape from you and your newfound moody-ness. Partners find that they need a constant headache to get some of the jobs around the house done, and you think that you might need glasses soon at this rate.

Week 10

Menstruation: next period is likely to be very slight. Hopefully that should be the end of menstruation for the remainder of your life. But give it another month and see what happens before you burn all the tampax and panty liners. Breast Binding: Sort out now how you are going to bind your breasts comfortably and so that you can still breathe. Start to sort out your wardrobe - you really are not going to ever again wear that dreadful dress that you wore to sister’s wedding

Month 04

Major Changes now starting

Periods completely ended now - Hooray, voice begins to deepen and break, Those who don’t know what is happening start to ask you about the cold you have, and sometimes on the phone strangers call you Mr.

3rd Appointment at the GIC - report back how fantastic you feel and ask them to put you on the waiting list for a mastectomy. Now is the time to think about formalising matters and making the transition from female to male. This is going to be the biggest day of the rest of your life.

Change your name by statutory declaration and start to change all your paperwork, such as driving licence, tax records etc. (For a step-by-step guide, see the FAQ section on changing your name).

Tell your workplace

our boss, or personnel director, and take 2 weeks off work to enable staff to be told. It also gives them time to practice your new name, to get over most of the gossip, and it means you have a little time to live full time as a man in your social life, first, which is a little easier.
The first day in work as yourself

Your parents

At this point also consider whether to tell your parents.

Why leave it this late? Well for a start it is too late for them to hassle you and to try and persuade you not to start hormones, secondly you have built up an external support network in case they refuse to see you ever again, and thirdly you will feel a lot more confident about yourself.

Your parents will not like what you are going to do. A few are very understanding and they cry in the privacy of their own bedroom. Some divorced or separated parents start to use you as a weapon in their own personal war - “it’s all your fault and they way you treated her when she was six” etc. Some shout and scream and say they never want to see you again. Some are quiet but say they never want to see you again. Some cry a lot in front of you, however they rarely say they don’t ever want to see you again.

Either way it is rarely a pleasant scene. Think about telling them over the phone or by letter if you are not feeling up to the crap. In reality as you tell your parents, you have to remember that in 99.9% of cases, things will be a lot different in 3 years time, they may well not be perfect, but it is rare for Ftm’s to be excluded forever from families. In some cases, this may well be the start of the open and honest relationship that you were all looking for in your family and it may well be a route through to something much better than you have ever had before.

Month 06

4th Appointment at GIC - insist they put you on the waiting list for a mastectomy. Tell them who you would like them to refer you to. They will probably say they can’t because the surgeon is ‘out of area’ - but insist on a surgeon who is experienced in performing mastectomies on Ftm’s.

Voice well and truly breaking now and a few hairs break through. You may want to grow a beard - but shave them. Men either have beards or they shave their faces, they do not grow ‘bum fluff’ over their chins.