What did @alexandritethegem actually say?
This is a comedic skit, not a medical tutorial. Alex plays multiple versions of himself across a fictional timeline, from "one day on T" through one year, each time checking in on his voice and finding it unchanged. The punchline is that after a full year he's still baffled: "it's not doing anything." He also drops this line mid-skit: "I've been drinking it every day." That detail matters, and we'll come back to it.
To be clear, this video is clearly joke content. The creator is not making earnest medical claims or advising followers on how to use testosterone. But jokes land hardest when they touch something real, and the underlying premise, that voice changes on testosterone are slow and sometimes frustratingly subtle, is worth examining seriously.
Does the science back this up?
Partially, yes. Voice changes are among the slower and more variable effects of testosterone therapy in transmasculine people, and the frustration Alex is lampooning is well-documented in the literature.
A 2016 study by Azul et al. published in the Journal of Voice found that voice pitch changes in transmasculine individuals on testosterone typically begin between one and three months but can take up to two years to reach their final range. Another study by Damrose (2009) in Laryngoscope noted that vocal fold changes are driven by androgen receptor activity in laryngeal tissue, which varies considerably between individuals. That individual variation is the actual reason some people feel like nothing is happening at four months while others notice changes within weeks. It is not a character flaw. It is receptor-level biology.
So when Alex says at four months, "it's okay," and at eight months sounds genuinely confused, he is accidentally illustrating a real phenomenon in endocrinology: the timeline for voice masculinization is nonlinear and deeply person-specific.
What did they get wrong (or right)?
The "drinking it every day" line is the one flag worth raising. Injectable testosterone, which is the most common formulation for transmasculine hormone therapy in the US, is not consumed orally. Testosterone cypionate and testosterone enanthate are injected intramuscularly or subcutaneously. Testosterone undecanoate (Jatenzo) exists as an oral capsule but is not typically used in this context. Topical gels and patches also exist but are also not "drunk."
Now, Alex is clearly joking. Nobody watching this video thinks he is literally consuming injectable testosterone as a beverage. But for viewers who are new to hormone therapy and don't yet have clinical context, the offhand line could cause minor confusion about administration routes. That is worth naming even if it wasn't intended as instruction.
What he got right, comedically and factually, is that the expectation of fast, dramatic change often crashes into a slower biological reality. That mismatch is real, and the emotional arc of the skit, optimism, patience, creeping doubt, mild despair, maps onto what transmasculine patients actually report in qualitative research (Nygren et al., 2016, Journal of Medical Internet Research).
What should you actually know?
If you are starting testosterone therapy, or thinking about it, here is what the evidence actually says about timelines. According to the Endocrine Society's 2017 clinical practice guidelines (Hembree et al., Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism), voice changes typically begin within three to six months and may continue for up to two years. They are not guaranteed to reach any specific pitch, and outcomes depend on age at initiation, genetics, baseline hormone levels, and the specific testosterone formulation and dosing protocol determined by your prescriber.
The "nothing is happening" feeling is common and does not necessarily mean treatment is failing. Serum testosterone levels should be monitored regularly by a clinician to confirm therapeutic ranges are being reached. If levels are appropriate and voice changes are still absent after six to twelve months, that is a conversation to have with your provider, not a reason to self-adjust.
One more thing: administration method matters. Injections, gels, patches, and oral formulations each have different pharmacokinetics, meaning different absorption rates, peak levels, and troughs. "Drinking it every day" is not a real protocol, and improvising your own administration method outside of medical supervision carries real risk. That part of the joke is worth being explicit about.