Chaz Bono: "Gender is between your ears, not between your legs"

Chastity Bono / Chaz Bono

Chaz Bono, former Chastity Bono, Cher and Sonny Bono's former daughter and present son gave his first interview since beginning the process of becoming a man eight months ago. "To me, gender is between your ears, not between your legs. I've felt male as far back as I can remember. As a child, it was really clear. I felt like a boy. A lot of female-to-male transgender people end up doing a stint in the lesbian community because it just kind of makes sense. At 13, 14, I was real clear at that point that I was attracted to women. So I was like, 'I'm attracted to women, I am a woman, I guess I'm a lesbian'. Who you're attracted to has nothing to do with gender identity. A lot of people find that really confusing but they're two completely different things. One is how you view yourself and how you feel and the other one is who you're attracted to", he told Chris Cuomo on Good Morning America.
Chaz also revealed that becoming a man through a four-to-five year process of gender reassignment wasn't an easy decision to make. One of the issues was that he considered himself a well known person, so his private life was all the time under the media's attention. "Just an incredible hurdle was the idea that I wasn't going to be able to do this privately like most people can. That took me a really long time to get over. And then, it was about dealing with the people in my life and how it was going to affect them. And finally, it came down to realizing that I've got to live my life for myself and life is short and life is precious", he said. But he had his girlfriend Jennifer's support. "At this point, nothing scares me. I'm living the life that I've always wanted to live now, and that's amazing", Bono added.