Posted on 06/14/2009 6:42:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Political and social activist Chastity Bono the only child of entertainers Cher and the late Sonny Bono began undergoing a sex change shortly after her 40th birthday on March 4.
"Cher is very supportive and has known about Chastity wanting to do this for a very long time," a source tells PEOPLE. "This will be a long process but it's something Chastity has wanted to do for many years."
Bono's spokesman, Howard Bragman, told TMZ, which first reported the story, "Yes, it's true Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity.
"He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by his loved ones. It is Chaz's hope that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue, just as his 'coming out' did nearly 20 years ago."
He added, "We ask that the media respect Chaz's privacy during this long process as he will not be doing any interviews at this time."
According to a 1998 PEOPLE article about Bono, at the time she published her book, Family Outing, a guidebook of real-life examples (including her own) that showed young gay people the rewards and pitfalls that accompany being open about their sexuality, Bono first decided to tell her parents she was gay when she was a freshman at New York University in fall 1987. Father Sonny took the news in stride, but mother Cher did not.
"I flipped out," Cher told PEOPLE. "I'd always had this idea that she would get married and have a family." And though Cher had won acclaim for her portrayal of a gay woman in the 1983 film Silkwood and has counted upon gay audiences for being among her staunchest fans she banished her daughter from her Manhattan apartment. Later, when Chastity decided to abandon her studies to pursue a career as a rock singer, she chose to keep her homosexuality a secret.
It didn't work. While she was trying to launch a career with her band Ceremony in 1990, a weekly tabloid announced Bono's lesbianism to the world. Besieged by reporters, she also felt betrayed by members of the gay community, who had tipped off the tabloid.
"It was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me," she said in 1998. Bono felt completely at sea. "I closed my blinds at home," she said. "I didn't have a life, really."
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She looks like John Candy.
Thanks for the much needed laugh folks :)
Don’t care.
I don’t idolize dysfunctional people. Those that do are just as dysfunctional.
Paul McHugh, former head of Johns Hopkins psychiatry, where they did a bunch of the sex changes early on, stopped the procedures there, did follow ups and found the people were worse off than prior to the surgery.
He just wrote a long article on this and damned this as physicians enabling delusions. I agree with this. For years I have said this is colluding with a delusion.
This is a bad procedure, will not make her happy and she nmay end up worse than ever.
Her life is sad, not a thing to joke about and I don’t think she made any choice about it. It is really tragic.
One positive aspect of the current cultural fad of announcing one is changing one’s gender, is that surgery is no longer necessary in order to be taken seriously in the circles that take these things seriously. Used to be if you wanted people to start recognizing you as the opposite sex from what you started out as, you had to do the surgery, and many people rushed to have the surgery because they were so eager to be taken seriously. Now, a lot of these people don’t even start taking hormone treatments, much less have surgery — they just announce “I’m now living as a man” (or woman), and it’s done. Obviously, this approach greatly simplifies the process of coming to one’s senses later on.
What’s sad is that the cultural fad of gender-changing has gotten so widespread, that it’s really hurting the small number of people who really do have some sort of anatomical or genetic or developmental quirk that makes them not fully female or male to begin with. Many of these people were raised as belonging to a gender which was chosen by their parents and/or doctors in infancy, and which later turns out to have been the wrong call. These people have a serious challenge to live a remotely normal life, and often surgical intervention is an appropriate part of their treatment.
I’m fully sympathetic to people who have *real* gender identity problems (and have had a passing acquaintance with a couple of them). However, the current epidemic of patently ludicrous announcements that “I’ve realized I’m really a man” (or a woman) is a disgusting mockery of those who really have a serious problem. Since I’ve had a passing acquaintance with a couple of the phonies in the past couple years, I’ve realized there’s a striking absence of gray area between the 2 groups. The phonies are 100% phony — attention/sympathy/excuse seekers who’ve latched on to this idea as a way to manipulate people around them into being “supportive” of what has been a self-absorbed worldview and lifestyle long before the first thought of “gender identity issues” arose in their manipulative minds.
ah but I have never needed to ask that question as mine is very round and firm
As Rush said on his show Friday...Chastity’s ‘Addadicktomy’!
Another TMZ type article....
puke
So we are supposed to abandoned our long held principles to 'open our hearts and minds' as if they weren't already open (just not open to perversion) because some 'celebrity' freak says so?!!!
Not only will she be an ex-lesbian but an anti-lesbian (homo) as well.
“So if shes a lesbian today, does she become a straight man after the operation?”
I’m also curious about how that works.
Does she then partner with a straight woman who wants a man that can’t do anything - or does she find a lesbian who wants another lesbian who no longer has what she wants...
I’m confused and it makes my head hurt.
Chaz Sun Bono (born March 4, 1969) is an American LGBT rights advocate, writer, actor and musician
Bono began his career with a short-lived music career with his band, Ceremony. Their only album was not successful and the band was dropped by their record label (David Geffen's DGC)
Bono was initially named "Chastity Sun Bono" after the title of Cher's first feature film, in which Cher played a bisexual character created by Sonny
Bono was publicly outed as lesbian by Star in January 1990
In April 1995, Bono voluntarily came out in an interview with The Advocate after a series of non-published meetings
Bono worked as a writer at large for The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian magazine.
Bono became a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, promoting National Coming Out Day, campaigning for the reelection of Bill Clinton for US President and campaigning against the Defense of Marriage Act.
Bono served as Entertainment Media Director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
The dumbing down of the Freep continues.
That is EXACTLY the thought I had!
Looking at her... heft... must wonder if she's spent years watching her mother and her warped sense of what's "beautiful", as in skinny and augmented primary female sexual characteristics.
If she's got issues keeping her weight down, isn't it easier to just be male because she'll never be beautiful in her inherited idea of female beauty?
Psychatrist evaluation?
So “Bono” is Chastity Bono??
I SOOOOO don’t follow this crap!
Rush said she was going to have an “Addadictome”. I was driving down the road and almost had a wreck.
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