Chaz Bono: My Outsides Are Finally Matching My Insides, I Shave (VIDEO)

(UPDATED WITH VIDEO, SCROLL DOWN)

Chaz Bono, Cher's son, is in the midst of physically becoming a man. In a two-part interview with Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart (to air Thursday and Friday nights), he opens up for the first time about getting sex reassignment surgery and talks about taking hormones, getting growing pains and going through puberty.

ET released the following statement:

About his life-changing decision, Chaz tells Mary, "It wasn't a sudden decision. I've been doing therapy for a long time. It's a long process going back almost a decade. I got clean and sober in 2004 and I couldn't have done this before that."

He goes on to say, "I always felt like the male from the time I was a child. There wasn't much feminine about me. I believe that gender is something between your ears not between your legs. That is something I discovered in the early 90's. It was just a long process of being comfortable enough to do something about it. I was turning 40 and I thought it's now or never. I want to still feel vibrant and be able to enjoy my life in a male body and not wait until I am an old man."

Chaz tells ET about taking male hormones, "I started in March. It lowered my voice. Fat redistributes, muscle growth, hair growth, sex drive increases. It doesn't change anything mentally and emotionally. [I'm] still not anywhere near what I will look like but really for the first time I am feeling much more comfortable with how I look physically." On having his breasts removed, "Most people call it top surgery. The construction of the male chest from a female chest. When I went through puberty and started to grow breasts, it was very uncomfortable and emotional." When asked if he plans to undergo further surgery, he replies, "That's a personal decision and I don't really feel comfortable talking about anything below the waist."

On how the changes will progress, "I will be changing for about 4 to 5 years in total but I'll be on testosterone for the rest of my life. The nice thing about this process is it is slow. I am literally going through puberty." Any negative side effects? "Just muscle aches... growing pains."

Chaz reveals that he has begun shaving his face, "I shave about once a week now. It kind of started to come in just like peach fuzz. I always wanted to shave. It is a very natural process. For my birthday I got a lot of shaving stuff."

How has Chaz's mother Cher felt about her child's experience? Chaz tells ET he cannot speak for her. However, he says everyone close to him has been nothing but supportive. "The people in my life are just happy that I'm doing this and seeing the positive effect that its having on me," he says.

Chaz goes on to tell Mary he hopes that his life experience will help others, "[I'm] trying to use my life experience to educate people. I feel more like myself more than I ever felt. I feel happier and more confident. I used to live most of my life in my head because I was so uncomfortable in my body. The most important thing about this for me is that my outsides are finally starting to match my insides. I feel like I'm living in my body for the first time and it feels really good."

HERE IS A CLIP:

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Comments

[mukTech]

Chaz/Chastity has talked a lot about how he/she "feels". He/She says: "I feel grateful..."; also: "I feel like I am living in my body for the first time". Again: ... and it feels really good".

Hmmmm. If Chaz/Chastity is basing her decisions on how he/she feels, we all know that as humans, our feelings change all the time. The question is: When his/her feelings change where he/she is not "feeling" so good anymore, or when he/she is starting to go through other life challenges, and this messes up his/her feelings about his/her gender, what is Chaz/Chastity going to do then?

What if Chaz/Chastity breaks up with the girlfriend, and his/her feelings are hurt?!! What if Chaz/Chastity finds a new girlfriend that he/she reaally likes, but the girl says Chaz/Chastity has to change her gender back?? What if, what if, what if.....

[Paulied]

What if, what if, what if...what if you refer to him as a he and not a him/her. Is it really too much to ask that you respect Chaz's decision?

[mukTech]

Does it really matter what I say or think or respect? Really? How is that going to change his/her life?

[massthreat]

Wow so much hate at the progressive happy-home of HP!!!

I half expected to read the n-word and some discussion about burning a cross.

[hippie4ever]

Cactusman, you wrote "the people undertaking this path aren't doing so casually."

You would be surprised. People in their 60s are transitioning because there's always the unscrupulous doctor willing to prescribe or cut. I ask you: how can a man or woman in their 60s benefit from such procedures? It's ridiculous and is motivated by narcissism and boredom. Some people always have to be vanguard, whatever the cost. After the Radical Fairies and Act Up! they've little to occupy themselves with, so they entertain this delusion that all their problems stem from gender.

Now, young adult who have consistently felt themselves to be the wrong gender, despite years of psychoanalysis, do seem to be excellent candidates. Unfortunately that's not what's going on, and once "reassigned" the individual continues to endure the same problems.

[Cactusman]

Gender identity is something more complicated than genetics alone. Some people feel that their bodies don't match their minds and hearts, and until they come to terms with this and self-actualize this part of their persona, they'll be miserable. Since humans are driven to avoid misery, they'll eventually move towards whatever higher truth they perceive. In spite of what society says they should do.

Given how gender reassignment is probably even more difficult than sexual orientation is, the people undertaking this path aren't doing so casually. Wherever transsexual/gender identity starts, it clearly comes from a plane deeper than the one society operates on.

I wish that people wouldn't mock or criticize people like Chaz Bono. It'd be good for us to strive for understanding and support of trans people, or at least acceptance. Who does it harm for Bono to identify as male?

People change. People come out as gay after having held a publicly heterosexual identity for decades. People change religious affiliation, names, marital status, and in so many ways. We all accept when a person wants to change names or careers. But those who refuse to honor Bono's desire to be referred to as "he" from now on are being spiteful. For what reason?

I wish Chaz Bono all the best in his journey. It'll be interesting to see how his life develops, and perhaps in 30 years how bothered and judgmental some people get about this will be seen as a silly nonissue.

[NOXQZS]

b.u.t.t.u.g.l.y.

[lonbwoy]

Is the girlfriend a lesbian??, since they have been going out for 4 yrs, since he was a woman???

[hoopesaz]

I really don't recall a thread being more heavily moderated than this one.

[horsey]

Must of been a wtf moment for Cher.

[Micki Pacific]

"Chaz is embarking on a difficult journey, but one that I will support. I respect the courage it takes to go through this transition in the glare of public scrutiny, and although I may not understand, I will strive to be understanding."

Cher goes on to say, "The one thing that will never change is my abiding love for my child."

[FHTB]

I love Cher...she is trying as hard as she can to get all this...we know she found it very hard to accept her daughter becoming a lesbian, and now she is trying her hardest to support her child's wishes, I am sure...glad that Chaz is coming to terms with who he now is...it's a rough road, and it's a journey I wish goes well for her.

[proudandtrue]

Now he can tea bag to his heart's content....

[Micki Pacific]

Most Intersexed people don't advertise their condition. From some of the comments here, I think you can see why.

Technically, 1 in 60 people are neither 100% male nor 100% female, biologically. They have an Intersex condition. The majority of such conditions have no external signs and it would take a lab test to determine their existence. And what does it matter of you find out that 10% of your cells are 46XX when the rest are 46XY anyway? Such a minor syndrome won't even affect fertility.

Many conditions are only detected via a fertility clinic. It can come as a traumatic shock for a man to be told that he's got the 46XX chromosomes normally only found in females, but has De La Chapelle syndrome. Or for a teenage girl to be told she has the 46XY chromosomes normally only found in men, but has Turner syndrome, so has a normal female reproductive system, but dysfunctional streak gonads instead of ovaries.

However... for about 1 in 1000... the Intersex condition isn't hidden.

The protogynous dichogamous pseudoherm­aphrodites with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) or 17beta-hyd­roxysteroi­d dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3). They look completely female at birth, but masculinise to look male later. Some can even father children after the natural change. Commonly mistaken for female-to-male transsexuals, for the 2/3 who are boys, the change is a miraculous cure for transsexuality. For the other 1/3, the girls, it's a descent into nightmare.

[Jorge Al-Subbad]

yes there is the phenomena of hermaphroditism... it happens. That has nothing to do with Alexis Arquette or Chastity Bono. What we're being handed in those cases is essentially a form of glam rock recast as a personality disorder. That's why it's all over the press and all over the cover of people magazine. An actual person with 46XX chromosomes or ambiguous genitalia or multiple sex organs would be a curiousity story on page 100.. tastefully done and journalistically sound. But CHAZ MY STORY is something else entirely... it's meant to sit beside that story on Omarosa's new breast implants and Jim Carrey's new malibu solar house as the latest in human renovations. There is a medical culture that, in the 1950s developed a lot of nifty new "better living through surgery" procedures, and this along with the pillow lips, fertility treatments, and anti-depressant marketplace has hit on a neat way to misuse medicine into the equivalent of getting a piercing or a tattoo. Once this is legitimized.. then what on Earth SHOULDN'T a doctor ethically do to a patient? Move their heart into their lower stomach? Make it so one nostril detects sweet scents and the other one detects only sour? Implant iPod headphones into the skull behind the ear? Just like it's industrial brethren.. the medical industry does the equivalent of strip mining or reversing the course of rivers using psychiatry to gin up a phony environmental impact statement.

[proudandtrue]

I just b*arfed in my mou th

[loutreverte]

Sure you did (roll eyes). Your third-grade mentality really adds to this discussion.

[silk olive]

so many hostile and bizarre reactions to this story! this made headlines because its not often that a high profile celeb's child changes their gender.

so, who cares if someone chooses to become the opposite sex? how does it affect you personally, especially when part of the story is simply describing what sounds like a happy relationship?

i don't fully understand it, but know people who have gone through the procedure (male to female and female to male) and they seem to live happier, healthier lives after transitioning. it seems to me that until we are less attached to strong notions of "men are this way and women that way", that the binary system we were born into isn't going to ideally fit 100% of the population... native americans used to called these people "two-spirited". they were seen as positively unique, with male identified females taking on male roles like hunting and marrying a woman, and female identified males took on tasks such as cooking and marrying another man...so in present day, these people have the fortunate opportunity to physically alter to more closely fit how they feel. how is this hurting anyone?

if you are comfortable with your own sexuality, i don't understand the negativity towards others who aren't threatening your sexual "position", if you will. sexuality is a fluid and complicated thing. there is tremendous diversity in the human and animal world that doesn't fit into the confining little boxes that many people create for themselves.

[ECB]

She looks like Wayne Newton.

[Ventoi]

I typed two entries yesterday....
one in reference to the days when Sonny was alive...
only the second entry was posted...
and it makes me look pro-sex gender transformation

I am not.

I am weary of why it needs to be done.

[Gudrun]

I guess it's something most people cannot understand unless they experience it. Lucky me, I was born in the right body! I can't believe anyone would go through with this process unless they felt an intense need.

[Archivist1000]

weary? why in the world would you be weary?

[KristenfromMA]

Good for him. It's a very brave thing to come out and transition in the glare of the pulbic eye. I hope he has a long, happy life as a man.

[GraceFoster]

I am curious about the long term affect of taking testosterone for transgenders. I know that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can cause cancers in women and testosterone is damaging to men taking steroids. Is their an increased risk of cancer or other diseases for transgenders?

[Collielady]

I don't have the answer but no doubt quality of life becomes the greater issue.

[FHTB]

The BBC did a great story about those who transition sexually...focused in on Thailand where the practice is accepted more than in many cultures. Check BBC website for story.

[dben]

Chaz Bono IS Eric Cartman.

LOL!!!