Author David Thomas still lives as a man, but has begun the male-to-female gender transition that will eventually result in becoming a woman. Each week he chronicles his progress. This week, he talks about the effects of female hormones on his body

So there I was, running up the last flight of stairs to my attic apartment, taking them two at a time, as I do. I got to the top and thought to myself, ‘That shouldn’t have been so hard.’

It wasn’t that I was huffing and puffing for breath, so much as the dull ache in my legs. They just weren’t up to the job in quite the way they had been a few months ago. So I thought, ‘Maybe I’m just tired.’ After all, I’d had a few nights of not sleeping very well, and that can take the spring out of anyone’s step.

But even so, the actual physical effort of pushing myself up the stairs was greater than it should have been. Hmm…

A few days later, I was out in the garden. The house that I live in has half an acre or so of land that is cut off from the rest of the garden.