Cher's daughter, Chastity Bono, is changing gender

Parent Cafe
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<p>I obviously can’t speak for trans guys, for whom the line between presenting as female and presenting as male can be extremely nebulous, given the greater variation in acceptable attire for people born female. But certainly for trans women, you don’t usually go from living as a woman “no time,” to “full time,” from one day to the next. It’s a gradual process. During the two years prior to my actual social transition (that is, the day I began living as a woman all the time), the percentage of time I spent presenting as a woman increased until it got to the point that although I was still working as a guy, I spent almost 100% of my time outside the office, in public and in private, including when I was with my son, as a woman. Which was certainly a lot easier by that time, since it required a certain amount of effort, and lots of clothing that was too big for me, to conceal the effects of my medical transition. (I did learn that a lot of people are remarkably unobservant.)</p>

<p>Once I was living fulltime, though, I was living fulltime, and had changed or was in the process of changing the gender designations on all my legal documentation. For example, I timed my transition at work to take place almost immediately after my legal name change took effect. After that, the idea of “going back,” even for a second, never crossed my mind.</p>

<p>I have no idea as to the point Chaz Bono’s transition has reached – I suspect that there wouldn’t have been a need for a public announcement if it hadn’t reached a point at or close to living all the time as Chaz rather than Chastity. Whether he’s begun hormone treatment yet, who knows, and it’s very clearly nobody’s business but his.</p>

<p>PS: Speaking of gender presentation, don’t assume, by the way, that all trans guys are necessarily “butch” or hyper-masculine. I’ve met some trans guys who are naturally quite “femme,” actually, including some who are gay as men. And some who are straight men. As I’ve said before, gender identity does not equal sexual orientation does not equal conventional masculinity or femininity of appearance. There are femme trans guys and butch trans women, some who like men, some who like women, and some who like both, as well as every possible permutation thereof – exactly the same as for non-trans guys and women.</p>

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<p>Is it difficult to change the gender designation on legal documents, such as a birth certificate and passport?</p>

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<p>I can’t answer in detail right now – got to run – but, to make a long story short, yes. For state documents like drivers’ licenses, the requirements vary from state to state. Some make it easier (a letter from your doctor that you’re transitioning), some harder (evidence of surgery). For federal documents like passports and changing your gender marker on your Social Security records, the applicable regulations usually require the surgical process to be completed. (Which, in practice, can mean all sorts of different things depending on which bureaucrat happens to be handling your application!)</p>

<p>Birth certificate changes usually require evidence (sometimes even an operative report from the surgeon) confirming genital surgery. For trans women, that’s easier to define than for trans men. </p>

<p>A lot of the requirements for surgery (rather than simply evidence of social transition) are very discriminatory in effect with respect to low-income trans people. Genital reconstruction surgery costs a great deal of money (up to $25,000 for trans women depending on location and surgeon, and more than that for trans men), which most trans people don’t have. Besides, not everybody even wants genital surgery.</p>

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<p>New photo of Chaz Bono and his girlfriend. He looks good! If I saw this couple on the street I wouldn’t give his appearance a second thought. <a href=“His%20girlfriend,%20however,%20reminds%20me%20of%20Octomom…”>i</a>* ;)</p>

<p>[Chaz</a> Bono and GF Go Public | TMZ.com](<a href=“Chaz Bono and GF Go Public”>Chaz Bono and GF Go Public)</p>

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<p>Catching up on a few things :)</p>

<p>Re clothes: I assumed that the publicity photo released with the article was an old one, hence why Chaz is wearing makeup, etc. (Not that there aren’t trans guys who wear makeup… as Donna points out, not all trans men are super butch, nor are all trans women super femme.) My experience with clothing as a trans man, was pretty similar to Donna’s as a trans woman: a gradual shift away from wearing clothes associated with my assigned sex, and toward those associated with my identified gender. It was made much easier by the fact that there’s a much greater range of socially acceptable clothing for people who are seen as female than for people who are seen as male. I could go out in men’s jeans and a flannel shirt without transgressing gender norms - at least, before I cut my hair. My girlfriend (who is MTF and only recently began to transition) doesn’t have the freedom to wear a skirt without outing herself.</p>

<p>So, even before I transitioned most of my clothes were from the boy’s/men’s department, and it wasn’t a big deal. But there were situations where I had to wear “sex-appropriate” clothing… which was a problem. In that respect, I did have to make decisions about when to wear men’s clothes (e.g., senior piano recital) and when to suck it up and wear a skirt (e.g., cousin’s bar mitzvah). My band director insisted that I wear a dress rather than a tux, well after I started to transition… until parents started asking him after concerts, “Why was that boy wearing a dress?”</p>

<p>Re changing paperwork - it’s a pain in the neck! Some places will do it with a letter from a therapist or endocrinologist; some require proof of surgery. While AFAIK there’s a general consensus that vaginoplasty constitutes surgery for trans women (Donna, correct me if I’m wrong), it’s more complicated for trans men, who may have “top surgery” (= bilateral mastectomy), a hysterectomy and oophorectomy, and/or one of several genital surgeries, at a total cost of $75,000 or more, not covered by insurance. Often, top surgery is enough to change documentation - hence Thomas Beattie, the “pregnant man”, has legally changed his sex. Some places insist on genital surgery - problematic because it’s very expensive, risky, and many trans men don’t like the results, so most in the U.S. don’t have it. (It’s more common in Europe, where state health insurance covers it.)</p>

<p>Even after all that, some places refuse to acknowledge any kind of legal sex change - for example, Ohio, where I go to school. I’ve lost track of the places where I’m legally considered male or female, the places where my girlfriend is legally considered male or female, and the places where we can legally marry. (Not that that’s going to happen any time soon… but it’s bewildering to think that we’re a straight couple in some states and a same-sex couple in others…)</p>

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<p>Oh puh-leez. What “sincere, loving conversation” is there around a mother telling her daughter she’s not coming to her wedding? Are you for real?</p>

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<p>It seems like your conclusion is that dress clothes in general really suck :)</p>

<p>Personally, I didn’t mind skirts and dresses when I was really little; I was sensitive to fabric and pants rubbed against my legs too much. I did hate them when I was older. I resented having to wear them because they’re so strongly associated with women, and I’m not a woman, or particularly feminine in terms of clothes… To add insult to injury, they were impractical, uncomfortable, and tended to highlight physical features that I wanted to minimize. I’d guess many FTMs, and women (whether lesbian- or butch-identified or not) who choose to wear suits instead of dresses, share at least some of this logic.</p>

<p>On the flip side, my girlfriend loves wearing skirts, and many non-trans women that I know regularly wear dresses, heels, etc. that look amazingly uncomfortable to me. Some people (women or men, trans or not) like to dress up in something elaborate every once in a while, especially because suits are kind of bland; some crossdressers find it an opportunity to explore or express other parts of their personality even if they identify solidly as men; and some people just like those kinds of clothes. (For the vast majority of crossdressers, sexual interest is totally irrelevant.)</p>

<p>As for men’s clothes, while I hated dressing up before I transitioned, I genuinely like wearing suits and ties. I think they look good, and I don’t find them uncomfortable (unlike most other guys in band, who complained bitterly about our regulation bowties and cummerbunds).</p>

<p>So there’s no accounting for taste. I don’t get the appeal of dresses, but I can’t fault anyone for wearing the clothes they want to wear, or question their desire to wear them … just as I can’t fault people who don’t share my dislike of eggplant or snowboarding :wink: And I don’t find the desire to wear dresses, heels, etc. any stranger in men than I do in women.</p>

<p>Sorry to put up two long, belated posts… I was working all day and wanted to make sure these questions didn’t slip by unanswered.</p>

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<p>I thought this article may be of interest to those reading this thread:
[Commentary:</a> Transgender people are everywhere - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/16/rose.transgender/index.html]Commentary:”>Commentary: Transgender people are everywhere - CNN.com)
“Transgender People Are Everywhere”
By Donna Rose</p>

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<p>There was an interesting article about the prophylactic removal of healthy breasts where there is a strong family history of breast cancer:</p>

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<p>[Removal</a> of Healthy Breasts Is Found to Cut Cancer Risk - The New York Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/14/us/removal-of-healthy-breasts-is-found-to-cut-cancer-risk.html?scp=7&sq=breast%20removal&st=cse]Removal”>http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/14/us/removal-of-healthy-breasts-is-found-to-cut-cancer-risk.html?scp=7&sq=breast%20removal&st=cse)</p>

<p>Are women who make such agonizing decisions in fact mentally ill or “disordered”?</p>

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<p>Those reporters (in the video UCLA Band Mom linkes) appear to be stalking Chaz. Looks to me like they were camped out at his house waiting for him to appear. He’s gracious enough, but yeech. Can’t they give a person decent privacy?</p>

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<p>That’s a nice essay by Donna Rose.</p>

<p>I definitely enjoy having the freedom to wear what I like now, and it’s certainly a lot easier for me to find clothing that fits than it used to be. (I used to have to shop in the boys’ department, unfortunately.) I really don’t think I dress any differently at work from most female lawyers in New York, and on weekends it’s mostly blue jeans for me, no different from before.</p>

<p>At least I get to wear short-sleeved tops and dresses, and go barelegged with sandals at work in the summer – way more comfortable than long pants and a long-sleeved button-down shirt! I think that makes up for the less-comfortable shoes the rest of the year.</p>

<p>I do think women in New York City, and maybe other cities in the Northeast, wear dresses and skirts, at least in warm weather, much more than in some other parts of the country where I’m told a lot of women almost always wear pants. On summer days sometimes, I’d guess at least half the women you see are wearing dresses or skirts. The only city I recall being where that’s even more the case was Rome, when my son and I were there on vacation last summer.</p>

<p>I agree that hose can sometimes be uncomfortable. Not to mention that my cat loves to tear a hole in them just as I’m leaving for work!</p>

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<p>So the removal of a healthy kidney would be permitted for someone who had a desire to live with just one kidney.</p>

<p>I assume that blood donation is acceptable inasmuch as it does not prevent the donor’s body from functioning properly; so a person with a desire to experience loss of blood (subject to the body still functioning) would not be barred from having that experience.</p>

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<p>In my view, alteration or disruption of the body is not per se good or bad. A given alteration may or may not be morally acceptable, depending on the purpose for which the alteration is being done.</p>

<p>As I see it, the removal of healthy breasts; the removal of healthy kidneys; blood removal; rendering reproductive organs nugatory by vasectomy, tubal ligation, birth control or Natural Family Planning; gender reassignment surgery; and so on may or may not be may not be morally acceptable. In my view, it depends heavily on the purpose for which these efforts to alter or defeat the functioning of the body are being undertaken.</p>

<p>In my view, assessing a given alteration of the body requires judgment and compassion, not the automatic and condescending citation of simplistic rules propounded by religious administrators pretending to speak for God.</p>

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<p>This is a key comment Donna made, and I want to say something about it in a minute:

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<p>But first a comment in general terms (remembering this is just MY OPINION). </p>

<p>Gender transition is everybody’s business. Why – because we don’t live in a null-effect society. Any person’s behavior has the potential to have an impact on anyone else in any number of ways.</p>

<p>When you have a baby, what’s the first thing everyone asks? Is it a boy or a girl? When you find out you’re pregnant, there is the burning question, boy or girl? The choice to find out or not adds to the expecting woman’s excitement (or dread, in some cases). There are society rituals, markers and behaviors that are directly linked to the gender of the baby – circumcision, ear-piercing (in Latin America), etc. The gender of a baby MEANS something to society, who knows why? (someone smarter than me would have to do that thesis). Female infanticide or feticide in some cultures is an unfortunate phenomenon that points to the importance of gender in stark life-or-death terms.</p>

<p>So parents give birth to a baby, they – in the vast majority of cases – know whether they have a boy or girl, and so does everyone in their world. Even hippie parents (like me) that gave dolls and toy trucks to both sons and daughters, found that there were marked preferences that came down to gender. </p>

<p>So imagine the utter shock of parents who thought they were raising a boy, when actually they were raising a girl, or vice versa. Paradigm shift doesn’t begin to describe it. In hospice, they say that EVERY change in life, even a good one, needs to be mourned. And so parents, and everyone in society, has to be allowed the perfectly human response of shock and even mourning, when someone they love (or even just know casually) changes gender. I don’t think it has anything to do with bigotry or judgmentalism. It needs to be discussed in the clear and articulate terms that Donna and quaere have so beautifully done here. And then gradually everyone (everyone reasonable, that is) will be perfectly okay with it. I’m convinced we are reasonable enough to do that.</p>

<p>Now about Chaz, and why his gender transition is everyone’s business. Most people of my generation “adolesced” with the Sonny and Cher show. We only had 3 channels then, don’t forget! S & C were goofy and exotic, and most of the girls wanted to look like Cher (some of the boys too, lol). At the end of many shows, they brought out their adorable blonde daughter Chastity who waved in the most darling way. They were perfect! We loved them!<br>
And then S & C got divorced, that was a shock.
And then Chastity Bono came out, that was a surprise (and her mom’s reaction was a surprise, but maybe what I said above applies?)
And now Chastity Bono is a man.</p>

<p>There are no constants in life. People can change their status, their gender, and their minds. Those that are quicker to adapt to change help out a lot by their patience and clear explanations for those who come to it at a slower pace.</p>

<p>Thank you all for the tenor of this discussion.</p>

<p>ps, you’re right, quaere, I hate dress-up clothes! I come home and peel off like that scene in “Emerald Forest”. However I do enjoy strutting around in heels and a little skirt sometimes!</p>

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<p>I gotta disagree with you here, Anuddah mom (though I totally agree on the dress-up clothes–hate them!). Just because we are interested in things, doesn’t make them our business. I was a fanatic for S and C when I was younger, and thought that Chastity was adorable, but whether Chaz gets hormone treatment is between him and his doctor. No matter how “interested” I might or might not be, it’s really not my business. Same with all the rest of that paparazzi stuff that fills the tabloids–no matter how much inquiring minds want to know, it does not mean they have a right to know.</p>

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<p>I see your point, AnudduhMom. Transitioning is in many ways a public act, since people who transition are asking to be recognized as our genders. And I definitely think it’s important to discuss it openly, to help people understand - that’s why I’m posting here right now instead of guessing someone’s chances at Princeton :wink: I hope Chaz will be an activist and a spokesman for the trans community, the way he has been for the gay community.</p>

<p>That said, I don’t think that the medical choices a person makes as part of their transition have to be public knowledge. Some people are comfortable sharing those things, especially for the purpose of educating. Others aren’t, and I don’t think anyone inherently has the right to know someone else’s medical history just because that person has come out as trans. The part of an individual’s transition that’s relevant to other people is their social identity, not the form of their body.</p>

<p>(There’s a trend of asking trans people questions about our bodies - mostly our genitals - that would no way be socially acceptable of anyone else. “Does this mean you’re going to have a ***** / cut off your *****?” An otherwise great teacher asked me how well I’d be able to “pass as a man in a gym shower”. Uh, that’s really not your business…)</p>

<p>So, the fact that Chaz is a man and is transitioning - yes, relevant, important, and “everybody’s business”. But the details of whether he’s started hormone therapy, whether he’ll have surgery, etc. - it’s great if he’s willing to share them, but ultimately those are private choices and I don’t think he has any obligation to divulge…</p>

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<p>quaere, thanks for your post. If it isn’t too personal, may I ask how your experiences have played out at the college level? Are there any difficult issues that you’ve had to tackle regarding dorm housing or sports or–in general–acceptance from others? (Oberlin is lucky to have you, by the way).</p>

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<p>Hmm, I didn’t realize CC bleeps ***** but not vagina. Weird - wonder what the logic is there…</p>

<p>Anyway… it’s not too personal of a question at all. I’ve had an easy time being trans in college, but I came into it with a lot of advantages. I have a binary gender identity, and had legally changed my name. I also started hormone therapy the summer before college, so that I didn’t have to deal with the counseling center or Student Health. By the time I got to Oberlin I passed consistently as a guy, albeit a young one - lots of people thought I’d skipped a few grades :slight_smile: It was the first time I’d been in a place where people only knew me as a man, and it took a while for me to realize that people didn’t know I was trans unless I told them.</p>

<p>By and large, students at Oberlin are very accepting; being trans is just not a big deal. In group meetings, people introduce themselves with their name and pronouns (“I’m quaere and my pronouns are he, him, and his”). Most people are conscious of how discussions and decisions relate to trans people, and know that you can’t assume someone’s identity, etc.; they know how to be allies and how to support friends who come out as trans. There is some backlash against people who are genderqueer or use gender-neutral pronouns, but only among certain segments of campus, and people are getting more and more educated. We also have a full-time staff member to support LGBTQ students, which is a great resource when problems come up.</p>

<p>Housing wasn’t a big deal because I chose to live in a student-run co-op: all the bathrooms were all-gender, and my request to live with another guy was no problem. (Halfway through the year I switched rooms to live with a female friend, for reasons unrelated to gender, and that also wasn’t an issue.) I’m not sure what would have happen if I’d had to live in a dorm. I’ve tried talking to ResEd and they seemed kind of clueless about what to do with me, so I’m hoping I’ll get into a co-op again for my junior and senior years.</p>

<p>I don’t play any team sports, so that wasn’t an issue. The gym has been weird because of the changing room situation - there is a single-user, unisex changing room, but it’s unlabeled and the staff I talked to didn’t know it existed, so it took me a while to discover it. It’s also really uncomfortable to bind my chest while exercising, so I’m mostly avoiding the gym until after top surgery. (By and large, I’ve found that no one in classes or around campus really cares if I’m not binding my chest, but it’s not something I’m comfortable doing at the gym.)</p>

<p>I skipped out on a lot of issues like coming out to professors, finding safe bathrooms, etc., because of where I’m at in my transition. I did have to come out to one professor, who was pretty aware of trans issues and didn’t consider it a big deal. So I had a pretty easy experience. Things would have been markedly harder if I were genderqueer or MTF, used gender-neutral pronouns, had not been able to change my name, needed a trans-savvy therapist or endocrinologist in Ohio, didn’t pass consistently as male, weren’t comfortable using the men’s room, lived in ResEd on an all-female hall or one without an all-gender bathroom, wanted to play team sports, studied in the Conservatory… Some of that’s due to institutional problems at Oberlin, and some of it would cause issues anywhere. Oberlin is not the best school for trans students, but we’re certainly up there.</p>

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<p>quare- thank you for the info on your experience at Oberlin. I have a couple of questions- maybe they were answered earlier-

  1. What is binary gender identity?
  2. What is gender queer?
  3. Why do you think your experience would have been more difficult if you were studying at the Conservatory? I ask because I have some experience with musicians and have always found them to be among the most accepting group of people, as long as one has the musical talent to be there.</p>