Chaz Bono's "Transition" is Probably Not What You Think

ChazBefore Imus and Chaz Bono delved into his new book Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man, Imus wondered why Bono, the daughter-turned-son of Sonny and Cher, never became a musician.
 
Turns out, Bono put a record out in 1993, and even appeared on Imus in the Morning to promote it. “Chaz,” Imus began, gently, “I can’t remember who was on the program Friday.”
 
Before Imus could forget who he was talking to presently, he asked Chaz, formerly Chastity, when he first began to feel like being a woman was not for him.
 
“Probably about ten years ago,” Bono said. Though he had long ago come out as a lesbian to himself and others, something still felt weird. “I just never really felt comfortable in that community, and I didn’t know why.”

As he got older, Bono realized one glaring difference between himself and many other lesbians. “All of these women identified as women, and felt like women, and had a positive female identity that I just never had,” he said.
 
Early on, Bono thought many other lesbians felt like he did: more male than female, and secretly wishing to be male. “I started to realize that, in fact, that’s not the case at all, and that what I thought was a portion of the lesbian community was actually what it means to be transgender,” he said.
 
Bono felt like a boy all through his childhood; made mostly male friends; and did “guy stuff” with his dad. Once puberty rolled around, however, “the expectations of people around me started to change,” he said. “When I was little it was okay to be like a cute tomboy, and people accepted me as that. And then as I started to become a young lady, all of a sudden I felt all the societal pressure to be something different. And that’s when life became hard for me, and also got very confusing.”
 
When Bono told his parents he was gay, dad Sonny was “always really cool” about it. Mama Cher, on the other hand, “initially had kind of the explosive reaction.” She quickly came around, and has since been accepting and understanding of her son’s lifestyle. Until, that is, Chastity decided to become Chaz.
 
“This is a hard process for parents to go through,” Chaz acknowledged. “In a sense, it’s almost like a small death. There’s a grieving process that one goes through. I think she went through that, and it was a difficult time. But I think she’s started to do pretty good now.”
 
In the last two years, Chaz started hormone therapy and underwent surgery that reconstructed his chest from male to female. What little physical discomfort he experienced from the procedure, he told Imus, was totally outweighed by how great he felt afterward.
 
“The effect on my life was just amazing,” he said. “For me, it was like a missing part of me finally got put into place.”
 
ChastityThere is one part that might always elude Bono, but he’s okay with that; the point of becoming a man, he insisted, was never to have a penis. “The ultimate goal, for me, was just to have my physical body match how I felt on the inside,” he said. “To go about in the world with people relating to me the way that I felt.”
 
Bono conceded that “in a perfect world” he’d have a penis, but that the technology “isn’t quite there yet.” Besides, he’s taken on other male characteristics, beyond sitting on the couch and watching football. “The way I express myself is a lot more male now,” he said. “I feel a lot more assertive.”
 
And though an outsider might think that changing from one gender to another would be a difficult, awkward process, for Bono it was the exact opposite. “Everything just feels so much easier for me now,” he said. “Before life just felt like a struggle, always. And now it’s a very effortless, peaceful place.”
 
We should all be so content.
 
-Julie Kanfer