In autumn 2012, writer and philosopher Maxim Februari – known until then as Marjolijn Februari – announced that he intended to live as a man. The reactions that greeted Februari, ranging from interest to concern and unease, made it clear that most of us don’t know what or how to think about transsexuality. Drawing on deeply personal experiences, The Making of a Man: Notes on Transsexuality explores this lack of understanding about gender, sex and identity.

The process of changing sex is a lengthy one, but to the outside world it takes place as a fairly abrupt switch. Over just 24 hours, as the testosterone took effect, Februari started to find himself addressed as a man rather than a woman. ‘What had changed?’, he asks. ‘I hadn’t had a haircut, I wasn’t wearing different clothes; it was just that the testosterone had altered the subtle signals by which my body suggested its sex.’

How are the sexual organs altered in a sex change? What are the clinical effects of testosterone? How is transsexuality dealt with by the law? This book covers these questions and many more. It also challenges the words we use to describe sex and gender, such as the seemingly minor but critical difference between the terms ‘transsexual’ and ‘transgender’, explores our stereotypes of effeminate men and butch women, and looks at the fine line between acceptance and prejudice. Februari also discusses the curious requirement in many countries that one must demonstrate a psychological disturbance – a ‘gender identity disorder’ – to be granted sex change therapy.

With his characteristically clear voice combined with intimate – sometimes moving, sometimes funny – ruminations, The Making of a Man wakes readers up to the ways, big and small, that our world is structured by sex and gender.