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Even living as a man, even with all the surgeries, Sherlock Holmes never fully discarded the female pronouns.
Mycroft found it irritating. Mycroft wanted her to pick a side to stay on, but even with his disapproval he paid for her histerectomy, the oophorectomy and mastectomy. He paid for the reconstruction and the testosterone and the myriad checkups the medical transition required.
With the Yard, Sherlock was a man. Even the time she'd needed a chemical shower because of the radiatioactive material she'd been exposed to, the excellent contructive surgery that had created her penis kept her secret. Donovan hit on her a few times before she realized what an ass Sherlock could be, and Hopkins took one look and knew Sherlock was out of his league.
John could never figure it out. How flamboyant she was, how well she knew the trials of women and the things they feared, that they knew how to incapacitate an untrained fighter with a few strokes. He never understood how well Sherlock, the man, could gain a woman's trust.
It was in the body language, Sherlock would have said if John asked. It's in the swing of your hips and the slope of your shoulders and where you put your hands. It's in not standing tall, in jutting your hips to one side tilting your head and crossing your chest and playing nervously with your hair.
When John gave her a look too many, she made a point of asking for fashion mags from Tesco and reading them in the living room, muttering about how such and such a bag could kill a man while filing away the tips for later.
Sherlock shaved her face and washed her hair and straightened her slim tailored suits. It didn't matter if Mycroft approved or if John knew. She was a man, and she would not deny herself for the sake of anyone.