Chaz Bono’s new documentary, Becoming Chaz, airs tonight on the OWN network. Chaz, 42, was of course born Chastity Bono, and was the cute little blonde girl shown on the Sonny and Cher show in the 1960s. He’s since made the transition from female to male and part of his story is told in the hour and twenty minute special. Advance reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and critics say the show brings up thought provoking issues of gender identity and sexuality as Chaz is shown removing his breasts and taking testosterone to transition into the man he feels he was meant to be. (He has not done anything below the belt to affect that area other than taking testosterone.) Chaz also has a memoir out today called Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man.

E! has a new interview with Chaz promoting his show, and he’s just as outspoken and articulate as we’ve heard in the past. He does deign to comment on Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s tomboy style, although E! kind of glosses over the part where he says he doesn’t know the family and wouldn’t make assumptions about a child’s gender identity. I think he means that he’d like to talk to Brad and Angelina about the big hoopla the media has made over Shiloh, but people could make something else out of it.

On Cher accepting his change
“I think that she is moving in the right direction,” he says. “I don’t get the impression that she’s 100 percent completely comfortable, but I think she’s on the road to being that.”

Why he didn’t get the money from Cher to have his breasts removed
It’s that very reason that Bono borrowed the $10,000 he needed to have his breast removal surgery from his AA sponsor rather than from his mom. “I didn’t want to go to my mom with it because it was something she was struggling with,” he explains. “It’s like why rub her nose in it?”

He hasn’t had genital surgery
While Bono is now legally recognized as male that doesn’t mean he’s also undergone the bottom genital reassignment surgery. He’s too weary of today’s options. “At this point, I’m not happy with the technology and I don’t really feel comfortable doing anything about it,” he says.

However, he isn’t ruling it out completely. He’s attending an upcoming transgender medical conference in Atlanta, where he says, “I’ll be really interested to talk to some of the doctors to find out what’s on the horizon.”

On his engagement
By Bono’s side through the entire journey is his fiancée, Jennifer Elia. They plan to marry some day. “We got engaged two years ago and we kind of just tabled it because so much was going on,” he says. “I think that once we get through this we can look at it again. I think in probably typical guy fashion, I think it’s absolutely absurd to spend thousands and thousands of dollars for one day. So I would like to do as little as possible.”

On being a role model
For now, he’s concentrating on lending his voice and face to the transgender movement. He refuses to call himself a role model. “I see myself as just somebody who’s gone through the process,” he says. “For me, part of the way that I got through my fears is by reading books and seeing documentaries of people who transitioned before me. So I look at myself as one of those people who are just out in the community and the difference is that I just have a little bit of a larger reach.”

He volunteers for a support group for children with gender identity issues and their families. “I relate to these kids,” he says. “The difference between them and myself is that I didn’t articulate it and fight for it and say, ‘No, no, no! I’m a boy!’ I have so much respect for these kids that do.”

On Shiloh Jolie-PItt
Bono doesn’t know Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and wouldn’t assume anything about their daughter Shiloh’s choice to dress more boyishly, but the media’s attention to the story did shed some light on gender identity. “I would love to talk to them at some point,” Bono says, “to at least let them know we have this resource for them if they ever need it.”

Even so, Bono says, “People get too freaked out about kids and what to do with kids. If you just let kids do what they need to do they usually have the right idea.”

[From E! Online]

Maybe it would be better to say “no comment” with regards to Shiloh, because you know that the media are going to blow it out of proportion. (Hell, I did.)

I’m really interested to see Becoming Chaz and to learn more about his story. I’ve read that Cher appears in it briefly, that you can tell she’s conflicted about and that it hurts Chaz that his mom is only gradually coming around to the idea that he wants to be a guy. It’s got to be a tough situation to deal with all around, and he’s brave for being so public with his story. He’s the highest profile person so far to come out as transgender and it must have taken a lot of courage for him to go public like this.

Chaz on Oprah:

Chaz telling his fiance how to inject him with testosterone. (He’s shirtless, which maybe isn’t the best decision.)

Cher’s onetime daughter Chastity has legally been declared a man and has completed his gender reassignment surgery, according to official court documents. Chaz was seen outside of court in a suit and tie and he looked happy and triumphant after his long journey. (You can see more photos here.) I didn’t spot Chaz’s longterm girlfriend and rumored fiance, Jennifer Elia, in the pictures. Now that Chaz is officially a male, he will be able to legally marry a woman under California law. The National Enquirer reported last year that Chaz and Elia were trying for a baby through in vitro fertilization for Jennifer.

Chaz Bono’s long journey to change from a she to a he has finally come to an end – with a Judge granting Bono’s petition for a legal gender and name change.

A jubilant Chaz, looking very dapper in a suit and tie, was at court Thursday, and RadarOnline.com can bring you the photos.

And that’s not all, according to documents filed in March, Chaz has also completed his gender reassignment surgery, the documents state that Chaz underwent an “irreversible surgery” on September 23, 2009 to change his “sex characteristics from female to male.”

So it’s officially goodbye Chastity, hello Chaz – Congratulations!

[From Radar Online]

There will be inevitable questions about what the gender reassignment surgery involved, and from what I’ve read it was surgical removal of Chaz’s breasts along with hormone treatments. I saw Chaz on Good Morning America last November and came away with a much better understanding of how he struggled with gender identity since he was a child. He said that once he made the decision to make the change the hardest thing was dealing with the loss of privacy that comes along with being a celebrity:

“An incredible hurdle was the idea that I wasn’t going to be able to do this privately like most people can. That took a really long time to get over. And then, I think 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 got to live my life for myself. And life is short and life is precious, and this is who I am. I need to finally be who I am.”

Congratulations to Chaz and best wishes for the future.

South African runner Caster Semenya, 18, made headlines worldwide last month when it came out that she would undergo gender testing to verify her first place finish in the women’s 800 metre race at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. Semenya has always identified herself as female, but her visible masculine characteristics and deep voice brought her gender into question. The results are supposedly in, and Semenya has reportedly been identified as a hermaphrodite. The thing is, these reports have been leaked to the press and weren’t supposed to be officially released for a few months. Her family is understandably upset:

MOKGADI Caster Semenya’s family and South African athletics bosses are outraged at an alleged leak of a medical investigation that reportedly found the 800m world champion has “both male and female sexual characteristics”.

Yesterday, the Australian The Daily Telegraph quoted a “source closely involved with the Semenya examinations” at the International Association of Athletics Federations as saying that tests, including “various scans”, showed she had internal testes and no uterus or ovaries.

“Tests conducted during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin last month, where Semenya’s gender became the subject of heated debate following her victory in the 800m, revealed evidence she is a hermaphrodite, someone with both male and female sexual characteristics,” the Sydney tabloid reported.

The IAAF has said it will release the report only in November, after consulting Semenya.

Spokesman Nick Davies did not respond last night to queries on the alleged leak.

The Times informed Semenya’s family of the Australian newspaper’s report on the gender tests performed by IAAF doctors last month.

The 18-year-old’s mother, Dorcus, fumed and accused the media of “causing the family pain” by continuing to report on the controversy.

“Why must jealousy drive people to say such bad things? Why are you bringing all this?” she said, before hanging up.

Semenya’s grandmother, Maphuthi Sekgale, was shocked and angry on hearing the news: “They are crazy. It can only be jealousy that makes them say that she is a man.

“I raised her as a young girl and I have no doubt that she is a girl.

“As the family, we don’t care who is saying what and we also don’t care, even if she won’t be running internationally, but we will always support her athletic talent,” she said

The Daily Telegraph claimed “Semenya has three times the amount of testosterone a ‘normal’ female would have”.

It said the IAAF “is ready to disqualify Semenya from future events” and has not ruled out stripping her of her gold medal.

Athletics SA president Leonard Chuene told The Times last night that he was appalled at “how far people are willing to go to pull down Semenya’s victory”.

“What you are saying to me is like swearing at this little girl. We have no idea where these allegations are coming from because we were told by IAAF that the results would only be out in November,” said Chuene, who has repeatedly denied any gender tests were conducted on the athlete.

Chuene accused unnamed people in Europe of “making up their minds about Caster”.

“[They] will continue spreading these stories until they have ruined her name,” he said.

The Australian report quoted the unnamed IAAF source as saying: “There certainly is evidence Semenya is an hermaphrodite. But the trouble is the IAAF now has the whole ANC and the whole of South Africa on their backs.

“Everything is going to have to be done absolutely by the book, no question of a challenge to our findings,” it said.

ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu — whose organisation gave Semenya R50000 after her win — said the report might be based on “malicious rumour”.

“I think we need to find the real truth before we can give these claims a platform,” he said.

“We need to know who is saying this. We should be careful that we are not giving them a platform to confirm a rumour that is not yet verified by the IAAF.”

[From TheTimes.co.za]

Last year I caught a special on NPR about transgendered athletes that aired during the controversy over gender testing for the Beijing Olympics. Transgender author Jennifer Finney Boylan was a guest, and she convinced me that transgender and ambiguous gender athletes have a right to compete. She wrote a very compelling op-ed in the NY Times about this issue if you’d like to read her arguments. I also agree with an editorial in The Nation that says that sex testing in athletics needs to stop and that “The idea that an 18-year-old who has just experienced the greatest athletic victory of her life is being subjected to this very public humiliation is shameful to say the least.”

Does Semenya have an inherent advantage over other female athletes if she was born with hidden male characteristics? It’s not her fault, and she seems to have been unaware of it up until now. It may look obvious to us, but her family sounds mortified and they swear that she’s a woman. Should we tell her she can’t compete because she’s not “100%” female? Supposedly she didn’t even suspect this. Should we bar everyone that’s not born strictly male or female from competing in athletic competitions? Should we relegate them to “other” status and make them compete in a separate but unequal category? What about athletes with excess testosterone or androgen? Semenya worked hard for her success, it wasn’t achieved because she had some latent testes. She beat records and she won the race. Surely that counts for something.