TMZ:
Chastity Bono, civil rights advocate, journalist, author and musician, is in the early stages of changing his gender—transitioning from female to male, TMZ has learned. Bono, the child of legendary entertainers Sonny and Cher, began the process earlier this year, shortly after his 40th birthday.
“Yes, it’s true—Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity,” confirmed Bono’s publicist, Howard Bragman.
Congratulations to Chaz Bono. I have no beef whatsoever with his decision. I’ve known lots of lesbian-identified women who transitioned from female to male. Lots. I don’t have issue with it. But…
This just doesn’t happen to my gay male friends. This has never happened to a gay man that I’ve know personally. And I can only think of a single gay man in the public eye—one of the Arquettes—who has ever announced that, after years of consideration, he realized he wasn’t honoring his true identity—e.g. he’d really been a woman all along—and was transitioning from male to female. Female sexuality is very different than male sexuality—which is not to say that female sexuality is lesser than or inferior to. If we don’t view male sexuality as the standard, if we don’t use male sexuality as the baseline, pointing out that female sexuality is lived and experienced very differently is no slam. The fluidity of female sexual identity, as I’ve said in “Savage Love,” should be viewed as a superpower, not as a flaw.
And, again, congrats to Chaz.
How the hell am I ever going to remember to refer to Chastity Bono as ‘he’?
Blurg.
Female sexuality isn’t lesser than or inferior to male sexuality, but it’s a superpower.
Really? It’s “more than” male sexuality?
So there are differences and da chix is better than da guys.
OK, noted.
(Wow. Invent fire, impose 40,000 years of patriarchy and war, and man o man, da payback’s a sumbitch).
Ewwww. But she/he’s got a point. Penises are waaaaaaaay better than vaginas. Thanks be to god that the majority of men in this world don’t agree with me.
Add one of the Wachowski brothers (“The Matrix”) to your list. I think Larry became Linda.
Dan, I know at least one gay-identified man that transitioned from a man to a woman. Perhaps that your statement that female sexuality is more fluid informs your observations. A male sexed person with gender identity disorder IS a woman. Your premise that she would have a more fluid sexuality suggests that she would be more likely to be open to having satisfying sexual/dating relationships with someone of the opposite gender than a gay man. In an interview I recently watched with a male-to-female transsexual, she viewed her high school relationships with women as lesbian relationships, and her relationships with men as hetero. From what you’ve written in Savage Love, this fits well into your interpretation of female sexuality, if you view a male sexed female gender transsexual as female.
@4:
This Chinese character :
王
is pronounced “wang” and means king. Just thought you might like to know.
Dan, I know you tried very hard to be PC in this post, but I’m afraid you are guilty of the cardinal feminist sin of essentialism. In future, please consult with ECB before writing anything. You are hearby sentenced to 3 women’s studies courses and 3 hours of sensitivity training.
@7
Thanks for the info!
Random thought: most intersexed infants have a gender picked for them early on, and it’s usually female, isn’t it? Since it’s so much easier to remove bits than to try and construct a penis. If a lot of those intersexed babies would have grown up to identify as male, it wouldn’t necessarily be surprising that you have more FtMs than MtFs.
You know there are quite a few more MTF’s than FTM’s, right?
http://differenceblog.livejournal.com/ta…
Are you saying MTF’s have the superpower of a fluid female sexual identity, but FTM’s don’t? Or both of them do, just gay men don’t? Why are there so many more drag queens than drag kings? That doesn’t count as a fluid sexual identity, you have to take hormones to make it count?
Whenever you stereotype genders, you make no sense. You realize the biological difference between female and male sexual response is exclusively in the hormones, right? The junk down there is the exact same tissue between men and women, just rearranged a little.
I wonder when Chaz will fuck Violet Blue.
@1: I’d be real curious to know how often you refer to Chastity Bono as anything. And why.
No, the most common intersexed condition is an XXY trisomy (Klinefelter’s), and almost all of those infants are assigned to male, because of enlarged genitals at birth.
Most XXY people don’t even know they have the condition because few people question whether they were born female or male after their assignment. The condition does affect gender identity, behavior, body shape, secondary sexual characteristics, and internal genitals, however.
13 – I used to watch Celebrity Fit Club.
Chaz gets the best of both parent’s worlds: Cher’s plastic surgery and Sonny’s moustache!
@14: Ah, shows how much I remember. I was secretly hoping for a nice neat explanation, but I guess you don’t always get those. Thanks for the info!
Bucket@16 wins the thread and possibly the entire internet for the day.
Aside from the fact that gender reassignment is an incredibly rare event, what’s missing here for comparison is the rate of gender reassignment among your acquaintances who aren’t gay men.
Lizzie: I don’t know a lot about inter-sexed or transgender people (aside from knowing a few!) but: the junk down there is pretty complicated stuff. I don’t think it’s rearranged just a little between genders. Although you do go on the mention internal sex organs, etc.
So, Dan: are you saying that because Chaz will now be a male, but was born female, that “fluidity” is what led him to that choice? Or will Chaz enjoy more sexual fluidity than most men, having been born a woman? I think “women’s sexual fluidity” is Danspeak for “girls who are straight will sometimes make out w/ other girls but usually straight boys won’t make out w/ other males.”
On reflection, I know one gay man who went MTF, two women (1 straight, 1 gay) who went FTM & one straight man who went MTF. I know less gay men than Dan does (presumably). Hmmmm.
I have also known at least one gay man who transitioned to female. I knew her during her transition, and she was very sad when she could no longer go to bathhouses. Apparently, the straight men she met weren’t quite as exciting (or good-looking) as the gay men she had known. Nevertheless, I agree that lesbians transitioning to male seems much more common, as I can easily think of half a dozen lesbians I’ve known who have transtitioned to male.
The fact that you can think of only one gay-to-gal in your whole life sure shows who you hang with. Where the hell have you been????
Please go watch “Paris Is Burning” and report back what you think of how the other half lives……
as someone who’s known, fucked, and befriended numerous gay men over the course of his life, i think we can all defer to dan savage’s judgment in these cases. as he pointed out in his column, ADULT gay men rarely make the decision to change their gender. and, as someone who knows MANY MtF transsexuals, i can agree with his observations. men who decide their gender aren’t “who THEY ARE” often consider and say as such early in puberty. i think it’s because, despite people’s incessant idea that men and women should be and are treated EXACTLY THE SAME, they are treated differently. children grow up seeing how they’re treated compared to how they feel, and often understand something’s amiss. the difference between MtF and FtM transsexuals in childhood is that early development has evolved so that we try to treat our girls the same as the boys, but not quite so much the boys as much as the girls. to wit, the girls who wear dresses are normal, and the girls who wear pants are normal. but the boys who wear pants are normal, and the boys who wear dresses are considered ABNORMAL.
I’ve got one tranny friend who was a big out fag til she was 20. Now she’s got big tits and the military boys just love her.
@3:
Considering that even the tiniest whiff of female sexuality can turn the average het male into a drooling, goggle-eyed nincompoop, I’d have to say, “yeah, it’s definitely a superpower”.
The outlet for female-bodied people to play with gender, and possibly eventually decide to physically transition, is the butch-femme culture within the lesbian community (which is SUPER accessible). The outlet for male-bodied people is drag, which can be a little scarier. That said, there’s more than a few drag queens who eventually decide to transition; I’d question which sort of gay men you hang out with if you’ve NEVER seen it.
Congratulations to Chaz!
And maybe his courage will help his mom to come out as a drag queen.
I can’t believe there’s ANY area of human sexuality that I have more experience in or knowledge of than you, Dan, but apparently there is. I have a friend who is a fag-turned-woman (in a long-term relationship with another fag-turned-woman, which is even more unusual, I guess).
@23 I think you’ve nailed at least a big part of it. Everybody is attacking Dan, but he has a point – there have been articles in the New York Times addressing the way the lesbian community handles the phenomenon of adult lesbian-identified people announcing themselves FTM. Not so for the (grown up) gay male community. There does seem to be a bit of an imbalance, and I think that comes from the way straight and lesbian female-sexed folks have more socially acceptable leeway with gender expression than male-sexed (even – or especially – gay-identified) folks do.
It’s also a method of gaining privilege. Granted, transitioning FtM is not as privileged a position as being born male-sexed and identifying as a man, but it can result in gaining the privilege that comes with being male-identified.
Transitioning MtF is a loss of that privilege and may therefore be more rare – who wants to lose what little privilege he has?
If Cher were my mom I’d want to wear all her clothes and go for manicures together and fuck with the help until we both wet our pants.
facet @7: That character is “spelled” “wang”, at least in some romanizations, but if you pronounce it as if it were spelled “wong”, you’ll be more likely to make yourself understood. And, speaking of “understood”, Straight Girl @9, that what “dong” means.
Glad to clear all this up.
I definitely agree with 23 and 29. I’ve long been frustrated by the narrow limits imposed on men in our culture. Not to the point where I’d consider reassignment surgery. But it would be nice to be able to wear a skirt without raising a ruckus.
@33, I totally agree. Skirts are much more comfortable. I’ve never understood why so many women prefer pants. But, as you say, a guy in a skirt would most definitely “cause a ruckus.”
Anatomically speaking, skirts also make a lot of sense for men.
Sexuality /= Gender. You can’t interchange the two.
Well Dan, for what it’s worth, I’m a lesbarbarino and I personally know four former lesbos who’ve made the big mustache of change.
I love them. It’s still bewildering to me.
@21: I’ve known a lot of non-transsexual women who had the same complaint about all the best guys being gay. 😉
@26: That’s a very good point.
@34: A guy in a kilt, on the other hand, is just fine as long as you have the legs to pull it off. 😉
A couple of thoughts.
– A FTM transition is a transition into greater social power, which might be more appealing than the reverse.
– Gay men are less likely to demonize females/femininity than lesbians are to demonize males/masculinity. There’s more community support for existing in the middle among gay men. Not UNIVERSAL support. Just more.
I’m not as convinced as Dan is that female sexuality is sooo much more fluid than male sexuality, having known (and dated) plenty of bi/shades-of-gray guys. I think men are subject to more severe socialization against sexual fluidity. Not that the socialization isn’t just as real as the biology, blah blah blah (Paul, I miss you!). . . I just think we’re gonna see a shift over time towards men being more like women in this regard.
@39: I also note that Dan’s post was about someone who was publicly transitioning FtM. I think, culturally, there’s a much stronger negative reaction to MtF transsexuals than to FtMs. Men in our society are very protective of their masculinity and MtFs are perceived as undermining that in a way that seems to threaten a lot of people. For that reason, I suspect MtFs are more likely to stay out of the public eye.
Fifty-Two-Eighty,
Allegedly pants/trousers were invented by a Chaldean princess named Semiramis 2,800 years ago for women/eunuchs to wear while galloping across the steppe on horseback conquering things. Most men wore robes, kilts, skirts, and dresses for thousands and thousands of years because of the wang comfort issue. Only in the past few hundred years did the trouser take off as “male” apparel.
@40
Yep, absolutely. I think there’s a perception of FTMs as being kinda tough/badass (who wouldn’t want to be a dude, right?), and a perception of MTFs being pansy-assed faggots (what kind of freak would want to be a giiiiirl, right?) who need to have their skulls crushed. As you say, not surprising if a FTM is more willing to be seen as such.
I just saw this shiz on Twitter, that’s crazy! Man, I’m glad I’m not famous and have to announce such personal shiz like this through my publicist. Heh.
Only in the past few hundred years did the trouser take off as “male” apparel.
so then the trouser trout as such is a relatively new species?
I’ve always wondered about the lesbian infatuation with looking male compared to the relatively mild femininity of some gay men. Why the short haircuts? Why the baggy/men’s clothes? Some gay men I know like to wear girl-ish jeans but that’s about it. It’s very odd.
@14 Actually, most babies that are born XXY are not detected at all until they are adults. They appear completely normal, and typically don’t develop any problems until puberty when they don’t produce enough testosterone to increase muscle mass, lower voice, etc. The lower rates of testosterone’s largest effect is usually depression. Many men who are XXY do not find out until they try to have children and discover they are infertile. Transgender/transexual issues do not occur in XXY individuals at a increased rate over the general population, and neither does being gay. Older studies of XXY tend to show the most severe cases, and it is highly variable. It is only since the use of amniocentesis that we realized how often (1 in 500) XXY occurs. Recent studies of prenatally diagnosed XXY babies have very positive outlooks. Most XXY boys start taking testosterone supplements at some point during puberty and live completely typical lives as compared statistically to the general population, with the exception that it is almost impossible for them to produce children without the use of IVF.
I’m confused… You have an issue with the fact that women are different from men? And then you go on to acknowledge that women are, in fact, different from men, and that females aren’t ‘lesser than’ men?
….Okay… Thanks for the tip. Didn’t realize that one. Thanks for making me feel like both an outsider and, on some strange subconscious level, inferior.
My pet parrot, whom I’ve always referred to in the masculine, suddenly started laying eggs this past Monday, after 12 years.
I don’t get the whole sex change thing, but a lot of people don’t get the whole gay thing. I hope Chaz is very happy. Live and let live.
Hi, Dan… lesbian here…
I am not thrilled with the continuing movement to push lesbian butches into this idea that they have to become men… that if a woman does not feel like what our culture thinks of as a traditional female, they must be a man…
Butches are an important part of our lesbian community and butches are constantly asked when they are going to transition to male…
Lesbian Butch identity is NOT just a step on the way to becoming a man.
and women who transition to men are NOT lesbians. they are heterosexual men… and they lose their lesbian card, in my book… I will not date a F2M genderqueer transman… I am a lesbian, I do not date men, no matter what their genitals look like…
I used to sing with the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus. The chorus was comprised of gay, bi, straight-but-flexible, trans, intersexed, and queer/questioning folks. There were at least three of the men in the chorus that I was actually surprised to discover were F2M. There were none of the M2F who surprised me. (There were a lot more transfolk than those, I’m just saying that three of the F2M guys were so very masculine – and hot! – that no one would have guessed they were transgender.) For whatever reason, F2M often seems to work “better” – at least, more seamlessly, and I do think a lot of it has to do with acculturation. As Franky and others have pointed out, a girl who behaves “mannishly” will get some shit, but NOTHING like a boy who behaves and dresses like a woman.
Most of the F2M transfolk I knew had identified as lesbians before their transition. I only know of two of the M2F transfolk who identified as gay beforehand; most had simply been more or less sexless/celibate until they could get their reassignment – maybe because society is harder on women in general. People are much more baffled by a man becoming a woman, and largely I think that is because of the loss of status and power.