Cher’s daughter-turned-son Chastity Bono says getting sober gave him the confidence she needed to start her sex change. In a two-part interview with Entertainment Tonight, premiering Thursday, Chastity, who now goes by Chaz, talks with Mary Hart about the gender reassignment progress.

“It wasn’t a sudden decision. I’ve been doing therapy for a long time. It’s a long process going back almost a decade. I got clean and sober in 2004 and I couldn’t have done this before that,” he explains. “I always felt like a male from the time I was a child. There wasn’t much feminine about me. I believe that gender is something between your ears not between your legs. That is something I discovered in the early 90s. It was just a long process of being comfortable enough to do something about it. I was turning 40 and I thought it’s now or never.”

Chaz started taking male hormones in March and recently had his breasts removed. The entire process will take “4 to 5 years.”

“It lowered my voice. Fat redistributes, muscle growth, hair growth, sex drive increases. It doesn’t change anything mentally and emotionally. [I'm] still not anywhere near what I will look like but really for the first time I am feeling much more comfortable with how I look physically.” He adds that he has begun shaving his face “once a week now.”

He adds: “I believe gender is something between your ears, not your legs. I feel like I’m living in my body for the first time.”