As a man in recovery, how do I integrate my masculine and feminine parts?

Welcome to the Real Talk Recovery Podcast with the Therapy Brothers. We're brothers,

we're therapists, and we know recovery. Bring your stories, your questions, your

successes with real recovery.

Grant, on one of our favorite topics, at least one of your favorite topics, right?

I love it. I love that masculinity and femininity, so it's great. Speaking of masculinity,

we were just talking about our men's retreat, just kind of reminiscing on it, and I was awesome.

I mean, it's crazy. It was so long ago, but our guest today actually went to our men's retreat,

so we're really lucky. Yeah, he came to our men's retreat to just happen about six months ago,

and it was funny that we were just talking about it before he came on today, so we're excited

to have James here. James, you came and got the full experience of the retreat, and you still

wanted to come back on the show, which is a good sign. Hi, James, so if you could just give us a

little bit of background and a little bit of context, and then ask the question.

Okay, so I've been, there's been this like feminine part of me since I can remember,

you know, I can recall like when I was three or four, one of my sisters through a dress on me,

I liked it. I ran and hid. I wanted to keep keep it on, and I just remember having this

thought, what if I was, what if God had made me a female rather than male? And that was kind of the,

and then, you know, I've had some other kind of experiences that kind of reinforced that idea.

And I started, I'm trying to decide how much context I'd give you. I don't know if I want to give

you the whole, my whole life story or just, I'll try to keep it to the Cliff Notes version, I guess, but

in, I've been, so it's pretty tough for me to talk about it. I shared it first,

publicly at the Rising Suns Conference, right? But so I have this desire or want to cross-tress,

...