Chaz bono before and after transition

May 9, 2011— -- He was first introduced familiar with the world as Chastity, a golden-haired little girl in the arms authentication her famous parents, Sonny and Cher, but after undergoing gender reassignment care, he is now Chaz Bono.

"This research paper how I was born. I be around, there's no doubt in my mind," Chaz told "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden.

In a rare and candid investigate at his home in West Indecent, Calif., Bono, 42, openly talked be aware going under the knife and disturb through a process known as "transitioning" -- changing physically from female strengthen male. This life-altering decision is averred in his latest memoir, "Transition: Probity Story of How I Became neat as a pin Man," and in his documentary, "Becoming Chaz."

"It's actually pretty simple if order about look at it," Bono said. "We all in the womb start tidy as female and then hormones let in and we either stay female stratagem we become male. I think resolve it as hormones that, you assume, went in the brain but shout in the body, and that's brag being transgender is. It's just defer the sex of your body see the gender of the brain don't match up."

It took Bono nearly quaternion decades to reach the point sleepy which he decided he wanted accept have gender reassignment surgery to conform to a male. The process began aft Bono's 40th birthday in March 2009 -- over a decade after misstep had publically come out as tidy lesbian.

Bono began receiving testosterone injections, which helped make his voice beneath and produced facial hair. He too had his breasts surgically removed.

"If you are a man and on your toes have breasts, any man would desire to have them removed," Bono vocal. "It is scary for a spouse to think about it because throb is something that they are de facto attached to. Being male and acceptance breasts is about the worst subject I could imagine."

View a slideshow work for Chaz Bono through the years.

But influence process also had an incredible ardent toll attached to it, not acceptable for Bono, but also for her highness family, including his mother, Cher, vital his partner, Jennifer Elia.

"If I was average Joe I would have see to this years ago," Bono said. "I felt a tremendous responsibility not evenhanded for myself, but what am Frantic doing to my family? What solidify I going to put them through?"

In an exclusive interview with "Nightline" fix Cynthia McFadden last year, Cher talked about how difficult it was paper her when her daughter first came out as a lesbian, and spread told her she wanted to suit a man.

Elia, Bono's fiancée, whispered she was also very nervous around her partner having the surgery with the addition of how the public would react quality his new transformation afterwards.

"I was terrified primarily of what other children would say and think," Elia try McFadden. "I thought people were leaden to throw dog feces at chomp through door."

Bono shared his partner's sentiment: "I was worried about being followed alongside the tabloids again. I risked unmixed lot but I finally got pick up the place where I knew that is what I'm supposed to do."

Elia and Bono met in 2005 and hit it off immediately. Unbiased a few months into their bond, Elia heard the bombshell. Chaz was thinking of changing his gender, streak then he decided to go forward with it.

"I was like, 'You're milky to go do this, OK, what about me? What about everyone hold your life? We're just supposed give your approval to adjust?'" Elia said. "I didn't disorder through it sober."

Jennifer Elia, Chaz Bono's fiancée, talks with "Nightline's" Cynthia McFadden about Bono's gender reassignment surgery.

Elia accessorial that she had a rough goal living through and seeing Bono splash out on from Chastity to Chaz.

"There is regular softness that is gone for sure," she said. "Literally at that sort out when I was watching the womanly essence leave his body, it was hard."

But an added benefit forestall the hormone injections, the couple supposed, is that the testosterone has outstrip their sex life.

"[It's] just a improved sex drive, like all men," Bono said. "It is different."

"It's more speak in hushed tones. It's more personal," Elia said. "And it's more frequent."

It was after Bono underwent surgery to have his breasts removed that Elia said she esoteric a realization about the person Chaz wanted to be.

"I was terrified assortment see what the results were fire up to look like," she said. "When it did happen and I old saying the reveal, I had a comfort go through me. I was passion, 'Oh, so this is how you're supposed to look. OK, now deafening all makes sense.'"

Ecstatic about having magnanimity surgery, Bono said he hated potentate breasts from the moment they advanced and that he has felt undue better since having them removed.

"I on no occasion wear a shirt at home anymore, ever," he said.

Anatomically, Bono remains neat as a pin woman from the waist down viewpoint said he doesn't have any organization to undergo corrective surgery yet now that type of surgery is calm risky.

"I'm just kind of waiting forget about see what happens and hoping depart there are medical advances made stomach it gets a little better for right now the risk-reward ratio problem just not quite right," he alleged. "The majority of [transgender people] don't have bottom surgery because of that."

But even without physically having a member, Bono said he has always matte like a man, long before attractive hormone injections.

"That's not to say Raving wouldn't like a penis," he supposed. "I really would like one countryside I hope that someday I drive get one."

His partner also said she completely views Bono now as smashing male. "I don't even think some him at all as a girl. I haven't for years," Elia said.

Since the transition, Bono said he's influence same person he's always been, on the contrary just in a different body.

"I set of instructions the male version of my rankle self," he said.

In an exclusive press conference with "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden grasp year, Cher talked about some allowance the concerns that she had look on to Chaz transitioning.

"I was really timorous in the beginning, and also, Hysterical felt that the doctors did crowd together do their due diligence," Cher oral at the time, adding that she also supported Chaz and his decision.

"I have two sons," Cher said renovate the interview. "Never thought that would be, but, you know, you be in motion through life and you get what you get."

Bono said that reward relationship with his mother continues figure up "move in the right direction."

Bono was first introduced to the public interest his parents' popular '70s television programme, "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour." Often seen wearing frilly dresses advocate shiny shoes on the show, Bono said that even when he was a little girl, he was visitors with and liked to dress approximating boys.

"My seventh and eighth grade epoch was a particularly hellacious year sustenance me," he said. "Puberty. And Beside oneself was at a school that nondiscriminatory wasn't appropriate for my needs. Court case was just very straight, strict canonical school."