Without wishing to state the obvious, I am male. I say this because, less obviously, I am also transgender. Being assigned female at birth in 1986 has been a consistent pain in the arse for me, both figuratively and literally, since I started hormone shots.

I realised I was trans in 2010. I was 23. In truth, I was realising again, since I’d known with innocent certainty throughout childhood. When puberty hit, I caught on that my gender non-conformity was becoming far from cute, so I stopped talking about it. I managed to stop thinking about it too; a textbook bottling of unwanted thoughts. My tomboy friends did “grow out of it”. My male friends matured too, but I refused to engage with the inner voice that envied their facial hair and deepening voices. I lost touch with the truth about my identity because it was terrifying and, I thought, impossible to fix.

By the age of 23, I was both confident and frustrated enough to face reality. I watched a documentary about a trans teenager and, excuse the cliche, it blew my mind. It was like seeing the boy I could have been. I glimpsed contentment I had last experienced as an eight-year-old. Even with a late start, I knew now what I had to do.

I didn’t start testosterone until April 2013. This was thanks both to a stint working in Afghanistan and the idiosyncrasies of the NHS, which, aside from its slowness, has been fantastic.

I knew “top surgery” would be the next stage in my transition. This is the procedure to create a male-contoured chest; specifically, a double mastectomy with nipple grafts. I wanted it. Or rather, I desperately didn’t want what I currently had.

The stereotype of transition is that we are desperate for surgery, consequences be damned. In reality, everyone’s transition is different and every surgery carries serious risks. It was not something I could feel breezy about. Sure, life after the fact would be ace, but getting there involved a general anaesthetic, scalpels and a healing process fraught with potential complications.

My doctor recommended waiting a year for the masculinising effects of testosterone to optimise my chest for top surgery. I would have less body fat and broader shoulders. I used this time to work through my fears, motivated by the increasing discomfort of binding my chest with a four-layered vest made of nylon and spandex.

I remember a distinct moment of clarity just before Christmas last year. June was six months away: that was just enough time to have surgery, recover and actually enjoy the summer. Fantastic possibilities – like wearing one layer and maintaining normal body temperature – got my heart racing. I knew I was ready.

I’m a planner at heart and top surgery was no exception. With the help of a personal trainer I had met through YouTube – a trans guy who vlogged his own physical transition – I took up an intense fitness regime. My motivation was to give the surgeon an optimal, low-fat canvas to work with.

Fred in France in 1992. Photograph: Fred McConnell

I also researched surgeons. There are dedicated websites to which people can upload their results picture, as well as Facebook groups and YouTube channels. Post-op guys essentially peacock as a community service. Pre-op guys study their results and leave admiring comments. I felt lucky to be alive at a point in history when this was even possible.

I decided on a private surgeon in Florida. I had one shot at a chest I could be proud of; this surgeon’s results were consistent and I liked the aesthetic – right down to nipple placement and where the incision would go. Plus, he tended to get it right the first time. Other surgeons regularly carry out revisions.

I tried to remind myself that genetics and body-type determine most aspects of physical transition, most of the time, but I didn’t see what I wanted from NHS surgeons. Financing was definitely an obstacle, but I could make it work with family support. Frequently, I reflected on how lucky and privileged I was.

My mum has been a rock throughout this process, helped by the fact that my own approach to transition has tended to be slow and steady. My dad has accepted everything without wanting to talk much about anything. The dynamic works well for both of us; a classic, father-son affair. In the early days, the prospect of surgery would have horrified him. But after I had spent a year on testosterone, he understood my reasoning and helped make it happen. I’m grateful for that and for the strong relationship we maintain.

Surgery was scheduled for 16 April. My mum and I booked flights from Heathrow to Florida. She had agreed to be my travel buddy, which was great, because she was my first, second and third choice.

I wasn’t nervous or excited before we left; I felt focused, my brain fast-tracking resources towards its organising and scheduling centres. My new chest would be a reconfiguration of my own physiology. It would be anything but foreign. Even so, it felt like I was to receive an incredible gift. It involved a financial transaction, but what I’d get in return far exceeded the satisfaction money can normally buy.

I’d get something I’ve longed for – mourned over, even – since I started female puberty almost two decades ago. It would be created just for me, from me.

Several people asked if I worried about taking such a big, non-reversible step in transition. No, I said, because when I imagined my future chest I felt happy, impatient and comforted all at once. My other, more pragmatic response was that, while I couldn’t predict the future, I was absolutely certain my current situation was unsustainable.

The nitty gritty of it would be freedom from sweat, friction and breathlessness. Almost every form of physical discomfort will manifest itself while wearing that kind of compression vest every day for four years.

Objectively speaking, it did its job well. I looked flat-chested and no one even seemed to notice the binder. Yet none of this put me at ease. I felt as if I could always see it, even when I wasn’t catching my reflection, which I did more often than was healthy. Changing rooms and gyms were minefields. I knew the secure path through but had to plan ahead and tread carefully so as not to be compromised by a clothing misstep. By the time I booked top surgery I was worn down by this constant effort to be partially hidden, from myself as much as other people.

I hadn’t always hated binding. I vividly remember the time my first binder arrived in an unmarked Jiffy bag, from a company that made compression garments for hernia patients. They must have identified a niche market in the transmasculine population.

I stood in my student flat in Edinburgh, wearing the binder under a T-shirt. In the hallway mirror I saw an accurate reflection of who I felt I was for the first time since childhood. It was instant recognition. I bounced down to the corner shop for tea bags I didn’t need. I savoured feeling like the real me in public, even if I was the only one aware of how wonderful that feeling was. My beaming smile on a dreich Tuesday afternoon probably unnerved the shopkeeper.

But four years later, waiting in my parents’ house in Kent to be driven to the airport, I was spent. It was time for simulation to become reality. In our shared suitcase, I placed four button-down shirts (nothing over the head post-op), several pairs of shorts and a pair of flip-flops. The last step was pants and socks. And I’d need another binder or … wait, no I wouldn’t. I inhaled and felt the one I was wearing. Surgery was three days away. Most of the stay in Florida would be spent recovering. That’s it, I thought – just another few days. One will do.

At Fort Lauderdale airport, my avid planning continued to pay off. Leland, the owner of New Beginnings Retreat, a kind of speciality bed and breakfast for people having top surgery in south Florida, picked us up in his minivan. As traffic swept us along an elevated highway, he delivered a well- rehearsed account of what to expect from the next 10 days. He would drive us to all surgery appointments, pharmacy pickups, food shopping trips and even the beach, if we fancied it.

Our ensuite room came with air conditioning, a TV, a fridge and a large recliner that would serve as a post-op bed. The communal areas, including large garden and BBQ, were ours to roam. The two Yorkies are friendly, we were told, but please don’t pick them up, and don’t buy plasters or ointment for your new nipples because there’s drawers of that stuff left by other guests.

My mum and I were staying alongside half a dozen other people, and their buddies, awaiting surgery or at various stages of recovery. Upon arrival, we did a very British shuffle into the cavernous kitchen. Our fellow guests were sitting around the dining table in full conversational flow. They talked mostly of recovery – ways to cure post-op constipation, itching and the unbearable wait for that big reveal a week after surgery.

An ex-firefighter from California, whose twentysomething son was two days post-op, had made lasagna. He padded over on tanned bare feet, assuring us there was plenty to go around. There was a wall map showing the home countries of past guests. Aside from the Americas, Europe and Australia, I was surprised to see pins skewering northern China, Trinidad and Madagascar.

The retreat was dreamt up by Leland while he recovered from his own top surgery. He’d met international patients and heard of struggles with hotel accommodation and navigating the local, pedestrian-unfriendly area. Soon after, he and his wife opened this extraordinary place. So far they have accommodated over 300 out-of-towners. To my understanding, it’s places and people like these that constitute the global trans community; not a homogenous, membership-based network, but an infinite collection of ideas, encounters and shared experiences existing in real life and online.

My surgery was delayed by one day, so we took Leland up on his offer of a trip to the seaside. It was to be my last sad beach trip, trapped in a T-shirt and reluctant to swim. Instead, I read and got sunburn, ate tacos and started to feel like we were on holiday.

At 7am the next morning, having slept through anxiety dreams about drinking water after midnight, I lay down on a gurney. A tiny nurse began to insert an IV and chirped her disapproval at my red and white forearms. The last thing I remember is having my arms laid out on thin planks extending from either side of the operating table. You know, like a crucifix.

As I woke up, stiff and hazy, I asked whoever was bustling around my head: “How long did it take?”

This was anxious code for: “Did anything go terribly wrong?” Anything over two hours and I’d know it had. I’d also know that I owed the surgery centre another $250 for extra time in theatre.

“Don’t you remember just asking me that, honey?”

Not even slightly.

“You took an hour and four minutes,” she said with a sympathetic lilt.

I was soon distracted by the vice grip of compression bandages, extending the length of my ribcage, and the dawning sense that I could murder a Vicodin. Then the nurse was sitting me up and encouraging me to force down ginger ale and “saltine” crackers. She promised a pain pill as my reward.

For the next week, things got progressively less painful though steadily more uncomfortable, boring and frustrating. We visited a nearby flamingo sanctuary and all I could think about was not snagging my drain tubes on a tree.

Finally I was standing in front of a full-length mirror in the surgeon’s office. I’ll never forget hearing him say: “Now, that’s not swelling. Those are your pec muscles.”

I just grinned and shook my head in awe. Immediately, I recognised the reflection as my own in every way. My mum smiled too, though I think mostly out of relief.

The next day we were back at the airport, playing Scrabble on an iPad to keep our minds off the long journey home. By the time we changed planes in Toronto, I was flagging and mum was too, under the weight of our hand luggage. We dipped out of the security queue and I surrendered, faintly mortified, to assisted travel. The wheelchair was part of my continuing crash course in being utterly dependent.

I hadn’t prepared to receive this humbling lesson in not taking your physical ability for granted. Now, it seems naive. I knew surgery would be followed by recovery, but I had only focused on life beyond that. Mum gave me a look of faux sympathy with a raised eyebrow and I had to laugh. Look at your silly bruised pride, it said.

She has never been the overly indulgent type: I remember my fiery outrage at having to go to school despite “feeling sick”. This trip made me realise the real value of such tough love, in that it intensified the value of gentle, nurturing love when I really needed it. I can’t explain how grateful I am. I owe her at least twice as much as most children owe their parents. Even without the trip, she’s had to put up with two pubescent versions of me, the second time with added boy smell.

Walking to the carpark at Heathrow airport was surreal. Everyone knows that nothing changes when you’ve been away but, to me, things were actually more normal. Something had been fixed. Binding had always felt like an aberration, not much better than the female chest it hid. Now, instead, I felt cotton brush against my bare back and chest, like a comforting tickle.

I’m now two and half months post-op. No more dressings, no more sleeping on my back. I’m back on my bike, reaching top shelves and gradually returning to the gym. I’m keen to take up jiu-jitsu, because it’s possibly the most tactile sport out there and I’ve nothing more to hide.

My nipples are pink and perfect. My scars are thin and will fade; they trace the line between my potential pecs and the ribs below, which is all the motivation I need to bench-press them into obscurity.

One thing I am self-conscious about is the etiquette of being shirtless; I have no mental map for the nuances of having a chest that can – though often shouldn’t – be revealed in public. Given my way, I’d be topless at all times, providing the air temperature is above 12C, although I know enough not to indulge this urge.

For now, while I’m meant to keep my scars out of direct sunlight, I’ve got my eye on the summer-wear of my dreams. My fashion-forward sister was appalled to learn of my excitement about vests – but there’s no stopping me. I’ll be committing this faux pas like it’s going out of style.