Cher Gives Frank Advice In Order For Parents To Understand Transgender Kids

Dec 23, 2020 by apost team

When Cher’s first son, Chaz Bono, 51, came out as a transgender man for the first time more than a decade ago, the singer did not take it “all that well.” In an interview earlier this month, the “Goddess of Pop,” talked to SheKnows about how she came to accept Chaz for who he is and the advice she has for fellow parents of a transgender child.

Becoming Chaz

Chaz Salvatore Bono, 51, is the son of the late Sonny Bono, and Cher. He was born on March 4th, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, and his parents—in case you were not aware—made up the singing duo, Sonny & Cher. After his parents divorced, they went on to different(-ish) career paths: Cher, of course, made it big as a solo artist and became a decorated actress, while Sonny was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 before meeting his demise in a skiing accident.

Chaz was, as Infoplease describes, born the “cherubic daughter,” of a “hippie-era couple.” Originally named Chastity Sun Bono, Chaz got his name legally changed to Chaz Salvatore Bono after he underwent a sex change which was completed in 2010. This came after decades of Chaz being a public advocate for LGBT causes. The actor even had the whole transition documented in a 2011 film titled Becoming Chaz and the documentary went on to clinch the top prize for the 2012 GLAAD Media Awards as well as no less than three Primetime Emmy nominations.

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Cher recalls her reaction to Chaz’s coming out

“Look, I did not handle [Chaz’s coming out] all that well in the beginning,” Cher said to SheKnows. “It took me a minute. Because you have been with a child for 40 years, and then all of a sudden … but you know what? Chaz was so happy!”

“As a matter of fact, I was just telling this to my friend last night,” she continued. “It’s like if I woke up in the morning, and I wasn’t me anymore and I did not feel like me and I could not be me, I would just be beyond grief-stricken.”

This would be a reiteration of what Cher said in an interview with ABC News ten years ago. The singer had explained to her younger son, Elijah Blue Allman, Chaz’s half-brother, about Chaz wanting to undergo sex change surgery.

“This is the way I felt about it, and this is how I tried to explain it to my son, Elijah. I like being a girl … if I woke up tomorrow and I was in a guy's body, I would just be flipped out, and it would just be horrendous for me,” the singer said. And that is all I can think of. That is the way I put myself in Chaz's place."

Cher’s sage advice to parents

In Bobbleheads: The Movie, Cher plays a ‘bobblehead’ version of herself called ‘Bobblehead Cher’, who, according to PEOPLE magazine, “offers words of wisdom to a group of misfit bobbleheads on a dangerous mission to save one of their own.” In a recent interview with lifestyle site SheKnows to promote her role in the movie, real-life Cher also had words of wisdom to impart — but not to bobbleheads, rather to parents who might be struggling with accepting that their child is transgender, something she knows all too well.

For parents who may be struggling with their children coming as transgender, Cher wants to tell you this:

“You are who you are, but how would you feel if you were someone else and you could not be that someone else? That is how I had to get it.”

She also reassured parents that they do not have to feel good about it right away. “And, you know, I did not do it all that well in the beginning. So, I cannot take too many kudos, but now, it’s fabulous.”

Cher had suspected that her daughter was gay even before she came out to her parents back in 1987 when she was 18 years old. This was also noted in Chaz’s book, which was published in 1998, Family Outing: A Guide to the Coming Out Process for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families. He comments on his experiences from his childhood, where he detailed his mother’s reaction to him claiming that he was a lesbian and how he had felt “different,” growing up.

"...as a child, I always felt there was something different about me,” Chaz writes in his book. “I would look at other girls my age and feel perplexed by their obvious interest in the latest fashion, which boy in class was the cutest, and who looked the most like Covergirl Christie Brinkley. When I was 13, I finally found a name for exactly how I was different. I realized I was gay."

In the same interview with ABC News in 2010, Cher shared that she was one of the last people that Chaz had come out to. 

"She had told everybody but me," said Cher, "because she was frightened to tell me… what are people going to think?" Cher added that while she was scared, she was as supportive as she could be of her child’s choice. She said: "We had talked about it before, over the years. So I said...'If you need to do this, you had better do it.'”

"It is actually pretty simple if you look at it," Chaz said in an interview with ABC News in 2011. "We all in the womb start out as female and then hormones come and we either stay female or we become male. I think of it as hormones that, you know, went in the brain but not in the body, and that's all being transgender is. It is just that the sex of your body and the gender of the brain do not match up."

Cher says being the child of a famous person is not easy

“It is a hard thing to be the child of someone who is famous, and I think they did really, really well,” she told SheKnows. “They had so much patience. And I think I could have done better. But, I tried to instill in them a good moral compass, and I am proud of them for that because they have it.”

Cher recounted a time when her younger son, Elijah Blue, as a five-year-old boy, had shown kindness to a complete stranger. “Elijah, one day we were in New York and he was little, and he came upstairs and went, ‘Mom, we have to go to Bloomingdale’s and buy a puffy coat.’ I said, ‘All right, and why do we have to do this?’ And he said, ‘Because there is a man downstairs, and he has no jacket on and it is really freezing.’ And I said, ‘All right, let’s go.’”

She continued: “We bought a puffy coat. We brought it to the man, and he said, ‘I am so thrilled that you gave me this, and I am going to put this in my locker. But if I have on a $500 coat, I am not going to get any money!'”

“I really think I have good children,” the singer, who describes Chaz as someone who has “the biggest heart,”, said. “It certainly is not all my doing, for sure.” She added that while she feels that she set a “good, moral compass” for her children, she acknowledges that not all the credit for how they turned out goes to her.

"I have two sons. Never thought that would be, but, you know? You go through life, and you get what you get. You get what belongs to you," she said.

Cher and her love for elephants

Last month, the pop star traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan, to oversee the release of Kaavan, the “world’s loneliest elephant,” according to CBS News. The singer was instrumental in getting him freed and relocated to Cambodia.

What Chaz has been up to

More recently, Chaz starred in a film called Reboot Camp, which just recently on November 2nd, 2020, Austin Film Festival announced, won the Audience Award. Chaz takes on the role of “Herbie,” a character which The Austin Chronicle describes “isn’t too far off” of his character in American Horror Story: Cult, Gary Longstreet. Reboot Camp is a comedy that follows two brothers who create a fake self-help group that unexpectedly becomes really successful.

In Reboot Camp, Chaz plays Herbie, a character he says is similar to the one he played in American Horror story. "Herbie just seemed like, in a strange way, an extension of the character that I played in American Horror Story," Chaz told The Austin Chronicle back in October. 

"Herbie was kind of silly and did not, obviously, kill people, but I went into it with that kind of mindset of just getting completely ensnared and moved, just, you know, being so gung-ho in there."

Today, Chaz enjoys a sense of peace that has only come after accepting his identity. He now lives with his girlfriend, former child actor Sarah Blue Mathes, whom he has been dating since 2019, in West Hollywood.

What do you think of Cher’s advice? Let us know your thoughts about this story in the comments and be sure to pass this story to anyone who you think that it might inspire!