Jahn Kirchoff calls to check in, and the voice on the phone is startling. It has dropped considerably in just a couple of weeks. No way it sounds like a woman's voice anymore.

''Yeah, my voice is getting deeper. My vocal cords are expanding -- and my beard is really growing in now,'' says Kirchoff, who is getting used to five-o'clock shadows.

In 2004, after living as a biological woman for 48 years, Kirchoff had surgery to remove his breasts. In August he marked the one-year anniversary of the start of hormone treatments.

''It takes almost three years of taking the hormones for all the changes to happen,'' Kirchoff says in his sweet, laid-back way.

As stories about gender transitions go, this one is remarkable for what Kirchoff hasn't had to endure: He was never shunned by family or friends. As co-owner of the popular Deli Lane cafes in South Miami, Brickell and Sarasota, he doesn't worry about being fired. Over the years, he has gotten plenty of ''long looks'' from strangers but isn't afraid, even as his transition from female to male becomes more obvious.

''I think anybody who was going to have a problem with me would have had a problem already. I have been transgender most of my life. Actually, now I pass as a man more easily,'' he says during a pause after the lunch rush at the Deli Lane off Sunset Drive.

Each morning after his shower, Kirchoff massages his arms with a clear testosterone gel that costs him $140 a month. . He has a hard time gauging its effects.

But friends, family and customers see a difference: At 5-foot-3, the once-slight Kirchoff has gained 30 pounds and weighs almost 150. His chest and shoulders are broader, his neck and thighs thicker.

The hormones that made hair sprout on his face, arms and legs have given him such a mean golf swing that he bowed out of the women's leagues at the Biltmore Golf Course.

``I didn't want to have an unfair advantage. Picking up a 50-pound box of potatoes used to be a big deal. Now I can easily do it.''

Kirchoff grew up on Long Island, the youngest of three children in a traditionally middle-class, Irish-American family.

''In my dreams, I was always a boy,'' he says. ``When I was a kid, we would all go to the movies on Saturday afternoon. You know, Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, Bye Bye Birdie. There would be 15 of us from the neighborhood, and then we would come home and act out the movie. I was always the male lead.

``It's hard to explain, but at that age, it's not even about who you're attracted to. We were too young to think about that. It was just my role.''''

TOLD HIS PARENTS

When, at 20, Kirchoff told his parents that he was sure he was a man inside a woman's body -- he'd had an epiphany while watching a Dick Cavett interview with British travel writer Jan (nee James) Morris -- they were not shocked.

``I didn't remember this, but my mother told me that when I was 4 I got a cowgirl outfit, and I was completely baffled about why Santa would bring me a cowgirl outfit when I was obviously a cowboy.''

Peter Kirchoff, an engineer in the defense industry, was away a lot, but mom Catherine was always present.

''She just got me,'' Kirchoff says. ``I give her 100 percent credit for my success as a person. . . . Even in the smallest ways, she made every effort to build my confidence. She was like that with all of us. She was the queen of simple acts of kindness.''

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