Singer Cher is famous all over the world. From childhood she dreamed of becoming famous, from an early age she worked on signing autographs and went a difficult way from a dancer of a small club to a world-class star. Cher also became a real style icon for people with non-traditional orientation, who felt in her kindred spirit.
The singer didn’t really fit in with society, but she never imagined that her daughter Chastity would go even further. After her camming out, she would change her gender and turn into a man named Chaz.
In a woman’s body.
Chastity Bono as a child with her parents.
Even as a child, Chastity began appearing on her parents’ show Sonny & Cher and captivated viewers. The girl was adorable: blonde curls and angelic face along with beautiful outfits made the little girl look like a doll. Parents, Cher and Sonny Bono, named their daughter, born on March 4, 1969, after the heroine Cher from the film of the same name. This was the singer’s second major role in the film, and she starred as a hippie fugitive who hitchhikes aimlessly, reflecting on life and love. In that film Cher played a girl-bi, for whom gender in love did not matter.
But for her daughter Chastity, as it turned out, gender mattered too much. Already at the age of 13, she began to feel uncomfortable with the fact that she was attracted to girls her own age rather than boys. At first Chastity noticed that she was not interested in what girls her age were into. Following fashion seemed boring to her, as did discussing her classmates. Already at that time Chastity realised that she preferred women. However, only a few years passed, and the girl decided: nature was wrong to create her, she should have been born in the body of a man.
Chastity Bono in her youth.
For a long time she expressed her thoughts only in music, but at the age of 18 she still confessed to her parents her desire to become a man. Of course, they didn’t understand her daughter’s choice right away. It was difficult for them to accept her self-identification and even more difficult to support their own child in her desire to change gender.
And Chastity herself did not come to this decision immediately, initially she spoke of herself as a lover of women, and was afraid to do the last act that would make her truly happy.
Gender reassignment
Chastity Bono with her mother in 1983.
Chastity graduated from the Fiorello H. Fiorello High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts. La Guardia in New York City and began looking for ways to express herself. She began with a career in the musical group Ceremony, where she was a vocalist and played acoustic guitar and drums. But in 1995, Chastity decided to reveal the truth about herself, and gave a big interview to The Advocate, a magazine for minorities. She was no longer talked about as Cher’s daughter, but as a separate creative entity.
According to Chastity, her statement literally elevated her to a new position, changing her entire life. Cher was not just annoyed after the release of her daughter’s interview, she was in a rage over her public statement on the subject. It took her a full year to come to terms with it and even agreed to star for the cover of The Advocate as the loving mother of a daughter with a non-traditional orientation.
Chastity Bono.
Chastity herself began to work with The Advocate, writing articles for it on topical issues and soon became an activist for the rights of people like herself. However, the idea that she was a man continued to haunt Chastity. In 2008, she finally realised that she did not want to exist in a woman’s body and decided to undergo a sex reassignment surgery, before which she had to undergo a course of hormone therapy. In 2009 she had the surgery and in 2010 her transition into a male body was legally completed when a California court granted his request to change his gender and name. Chastity no longer existed and was replaced by Chaz Bono.
In a new body.
Chaz Bono.
It was still a long time before Cher could readjust and stop calling Chaz by her daughter’s name. She now had two sons, and it was something to get used to. According to the singer, she blames herself for her daughter Chastity becoming a man. If she had spent more time with her when she was a little girl, instead of disappearing all the time on film shoots and tours, things might have turned out differently. She should have stayed home more often, baked more biscuits and socialised with Chastity. Right after her daughter’s sex change, Cher even thought about how she had no right to have children at all.
They were the ones who had to pay for her success and achievements, and the price of her own fame was too high as a result. Even in the rare moments when her mother was with her, Chastity did not feel that she was an important part of her life. As soon as they went out on the street together, a crowd of admirers of the singer immediately appeared. Compensated for all these not the most pleasant moments only the girl’s father Sonny Bono, who tried to smooth for Chastity the absence of her mother, when he was already divorced from her.
Singer Cher and Chaz Bono.
The singer still for a long time addressed Chaz as her daughter, confused constantly in pronouns – he, she, her, his… She could not get used to a man’s voice in the phone and accept the fact that Chaz is still her daughter Chastity. It had taken Cher a long time to realise that it had taken her daughter much more courage to make the transition from woman to man than it had taken her to understand her son.
She consoled herself with the fact that her child was now happy, even though he had to go through the hatred of others. In his book Family Picnic, Chaz Bono talked about the amount of threats he received. They wanted to physically kill him, wipe him off the face of the earth. The flow of negativity exceeded all his expectations. Fortunately, the threats turned out to be just words, but at the time, Chaz seriously considered the danger that was looming over him.
Chaz Bono and Shara Blue.
He made a film ‘Becoming Chaz’, where he spoke in detail about his sex change and the difficulties associated with it. And in 2017, his favourite woman appeared in his life – actress Shara Blue. In January 2023, they celebrated 6 years of life together.
All the problems were left behind, today Chaz Bono feels quite satisfied with life. He has to take hormones every day, because of them it is difficult for him to control his weight. But Chaz has learnt to adjust his diet, lost almost 40 kilos and admits: it is much easier than living in a body that you do not accept.
Mum and son.
The life of transgender people is full of difficulties, but many of them find their happiness after the change of sex. In the UK, for example, a man and a woman who survived sex reassignment surgery have married. Captain Hannah Winterbourne was born a man and her husband Jake Graf was formerly a woman.
