Max Wolf Valerio

The third section, "After Testosterone", is one written so that the readers can feel Valerio's emotional, social, and perceptual transformation from female to male. The beginning chapters of this section narrates Valerio's acceptance of becoming a male. His body is physically transitioning and he is adapting to doing and experiencing ‘male’ things such as shaving, adapting to a deeper voice, and having straight women make advances towards him He also discusses the emotional experiences of telling everyone who didn't yet already know that he was becoming a male. He describes an in detail encounter of coming out as transsexual to one of his female co-workers as a way to narrate the difficulty of identity politics when transitioning With this woman, Valerio experienced his first intimate encounter with a female since transitioning to becoming a man. Valerio narrates his perceptual experiences of not yet having bottom surgery, but being physically male otherwise The book ends off with his discovery of his Adam's apple that has grown from the testosterone which signifies his excitement and recognition that this transition was exactly what Max needed to be happy with himself.

Valerio described his transition and experiences as a trans man in the 2006 memoir The Testosterone Files. He also writes and performs poetry, and has acted in films and appeared in many documentaries.

In the film MAX, Valerio talks about his experience of perceptual, emotional and physical change with testosterone. Filmed in New York City in the early 1990s, the film is a groundbreaking exploration of trans male experience.

Valerio transitioned in 1989 from female to male. Valerio's initial exposure to transsexual information were two pieces that have been considered by LGBTQ groups as being exceptionally transphobic. The first book Valerio picked up was Female-to-Male Transsexualism by Leslie Lothstein. Valerio says in The Testosterone Files that "Lothstein's book is damning" and that he "paints the transsexual men he is working with as psychopathic, borderline, fractured, pathetic". Valerio also says that Lothstein's book says that Lothstein "feels that most of the men are mistaken in asking for sex reassignment". The second resource Valerio picked up was Janice Raymond's book The Transsexual Empire. Valerio states that "Raymond postulated that all transsexuals were dupes of the patriarchy, "mutilating" their bodies in order to live out stereotyped sex roles instead of changing those roles through rigorously applied program of radical feminism".

In 1988, after discussions with a friend and roommate who was formally transitioning from male to female, Valerio realized that he was transsexual and began considering a sex change. Max found the FTM Organization in San Francisco run by Lou Sullivan and started attending meetings. Valerio was amazed by the other female to male trans people and shifted his identity from that of a lesbian to a trans man.

Growing up Valerio had a hard time relating to girls. He felt that he did not fit in because of his masculine nature and at times would offer to play male roles, which went unapproved by the girls that he was attempting to play with. Valerio imagined himself as a boy when growing up and could not imagine himself growing into a woman. He felt he was always male and identified with male children/adults. Valerio would cry himself to sleep as a child wishing to be a boy. He decided to identify himself as a lesbian as a teen because it made the most sense to him at the time. He came out as a lesbian feminist in college in 1975. Valerio could not relate to lesbian sex. Valerio started to feel more male and a male gender identity started to come back from childhood.

Max Wolf Valerio (born February 16, 1957 in Heidelberg, West Germany) is a poet, memoir writer, essayist and actor. He has lived for many years in San Francisco, California.