Chaz Bono Announces Transition
His publicist told TMZ:
Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity ... He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by his loved ones. It is Chaz's hope that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue, just as his 'coming out' did nearly 20 years ago.
Let's hope that the media can handle Chaz' transparency with the dignity and respect it deserves. It could either be a great opportunity to educate the public about transgender issues, or a total disaster--probably will end up being something in between. Regardless, props to Chaz for his public courage.
According to Broadsheet, mainstream media outlets are handling it fairly well thus far, with the exception of (suprrise, surprise) the NY Daily News, which used the pronoun "she" when announcing the news.
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Hooray for him! What an exciting time in his life, and bravo for his courage in being so open.
I'm not optimistic that this won't turn into a giant disaster though. Watch out for lots of "it", "that's disgusting," and of course "Oh noes why r all teh butch lezbians transitioning!?!?" wank.
I'm really excited for Chaz, and applaud his courage - it can't possibly be easy to come out as trans when you're a public individual (and to come out twice! Good job!). I hope that this can be a good teaching moment, but of course there are already a ton of comments on various websites and twitter of the "ew gross" variety. The best thing we, as feminists, can do is talk about trans issues and encourage understanding.
Is it sad that my first reaction was, "Chaz Bono? Who's Chaz Bono? Oh lord, am I so out of touch with pop culture that I have no idea who this person is that Feministing AND TMZ are talking about?!"
Then I figured it out ... but I panicked about my apparent lack of pop culture savvy first. :)
Props to Chaz for the boldness to do this in the public eye, and I wish him the best. I hope that he receives lots of support from family and friends, and that such a public transition will encourage understanding and compassion towards transpeople.
Quick question. When is the correct time to switch (masculine/feminine) tense in the language?
By that I mean should we call Chaz (for example) 'her' when referring to the person he was before he transitioned and 'him' after? Or do call him 'him' when referring to anything Chaz said/did in the past? If the latter, would it be necessary to retrospectively alter documents that referred to 'her' when quoting from them?
Consider these two (fictitious) sentences:
'In 1997 Chaz celebrated her birthday with friends. Now he still celebrates his birthday with friends.'
The second sentence is certainly correct because if refers to Chaz after transitioning. The first suggests that Chaz was female before the transition. Is this correct?
Now, harder:
'Previously the paper had reported that "In 1997 Chaz celebrated her birthday with friends."'
Should it be:
'Previously the paper had reported that "In 1997 Chaz celebrated [his] birthday with friends."'
or similar?
Good question. Since this is about identity more than biology, I think the best but not always easiest option is to ask Chaz. Clearly from this point forward he wants to be regarded with a male pronoun. As for past/present, I think it's always best to err (right word) on the post-transition side of things to be most sensitive to the wishes of the individual.
Maybe we need a new feminist stylebook?
Creating a feminist stylebook would be my dream project :)
Do it!!! I'll be on the waitlist for a first-run copy!
I think in all cases you use masculine words because that is his identity regardless of his physical qualifications. Even in times when a he was uncertain what gender he was are now referred to with masculine words, because now he knows.
I don't know who the hell Chaz Bono is and I don't know much about transgendered people, but the way you have put your sentences is actually offensive iirc. Now that he considers himself male you should not reference him, from any point in time, as a female-gendered person. It's fine to say "he underwent a transition operation" but you don't say "he was a she in 1997 and a he in 2007." He was always male in gender, even when he was female in sex.
(I googled Chaz and he's the son of Sonny and Cher.)
So, it is simply impossible that a person should consider themselves one gender at one point in time and another at a later time?
Not necessarily. Genderfucking takes this into consideration because, in a quick definition, it's when someone plays around with gender and so presents differently depending on how "masculine" or "feminine" they're feeling.
He was always male in gender, even when he was female in sex.
I think this assumes more than we actually know, doesn't it? I understand that for many transgender people, they have always known that their gender identity was different from the one that society imposed on them at birth, but isn't it possible that some transgendered people actually change their gender identities at some point in their life? Like "I felt I was a girl up until I was 9 or 10, but then something changed and I felt I was a boy"? That seems consistent with the idea of gender being a fluid characteristic that is shaped by society.
Yes, I said, "Even times when he was uncertain what gender he was are now referred to with masculine words, because now he knows."
(I removed a typo "in" and "a" from that for clarity.)
I say refer to him at X time in his life as a male regardless of what his feelings were at that time, because now he acknowledges himself as male.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure how to explain it better, I just assume (based on the OP's point about the NY Daily News and the recent transgender discussions around here) that it is offensive to a person who knows what gender they are to be referred to as a female at any point in their past, even the times when they weren't sure.
Well, the official Wikipedia Manual of Style says to use the subject's currently preferred pronouns unless it makes the sentence bizarre on face, the example being "She fathered her first child at age 23" or something like that as an ungood sentence. And Wikipedia is clearly correct in all instances.
What's so bizarre about that?
Sorry, I'm Intersexed, and I'm also the biological father of my son, even though I'm medically female.
It causes some interesting dialogue when I'm asked what my relationship is with him.
It really depends on the person. Generally, you use the gender the person identifies/ identified as at the time to describe a situation taking place at that time. So in past tenses, it's still 'Chastity' and 'her.' It's unfair to assume that Chaz has always identified as male, and even if he did internally, publicly he did not.
Though, again, it depends on the person, and I'm sure Chaz will let us know.
Since Chaz has always been the same person, you would use masculine pronouns referring to everything in his experience now. For any time in the past, they're not incorrect given time context, so they'd remain and no editing is necessary.
Since he's a trans man and not a genderfuck, then it'd remain static.
Congrats to Chaz, but the mainstream media are only handling it well if you set the bar pretty low.
Yes, most news outlets are using the right pronouns (at least some of the time; "daughter" seems to be the big trip-up and some aren't even trying, as you mentioned). But they've also by and large equated transition with "gender reassignment surgery" and "a sex change operation." Never mind that there's no mention in the publicist's statement about any surgery or medical details of any kind, "transition" is parsed to automatically mean surgery. Even Broadsheet falls into the "to become a man" trap, implying that self-identification isn't enough to make Chaz a man.
Oh well. I hope Chaz gets the privacy he wants and coverage dies down soon in the absence of any more public statements... until he's ready to deal with the inevitable media onslaught, which I'm hopeful he'll handle skillfully.
as an ftm transexual, i'm really, really hopping that the 'all press is good press' comes through for us here. that whole media freakshow that was thomas beattie does not have me overly confident, but Mr. Bono has a whole lifetime of experience handling the media and being in the public eye, so if anyone can be 'the famous token trans guy' without making us all look like asses, then i suppose it's him.
@kandela
there was actually a really great miss manner's column on this question a few months back. i wish i could find it, because she really tells it like it is. basically, if there is any question at all in your mind of which to use, err on the side of the currently correct pronouns. miss manner's made the analogy with a woman who has changed her last name after getting married; you would use her current name, even if talking about events in the past.
Wow, the single vs. married analogy is a really excellent point!
Welcome to the gender, man. We get cupcakes.
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here, but welcoming Chaz to the gender is rather condescending-- the reason he's transitioning is because he already identifies as such.
Not really. Transition is often treated as a journey, making a welcome to the "destination" just acknowledges that.
Kay. I can rephrase.
Welcome to being publicly percieved as this particular gender.
The cupcake situation remains the same.
Thanks ephraim (and j-doug and pleco). Err on the side of currently stated gender identity.
I will say though that there is not always consistency when it comes to now married women. I have often seen 'The then Miss X,' or similar for Mrs Y, for example. But of course Miss X could not have considered herself Mrs Y before she were married so it's not quite the same.
This could get very confusing if we were talking about a transgendered person who was now identified as female having been married to a woman previously. The woman might consider that the tg person was their husband at the time, while the tg person might consider that they were her wife when they were married. The label wife/husband in this instance would speak to the sexual/gender identity of both partners so I have no idea which would be correct.
Congratulations to Chaz! Increasing visibility for transgender folks is awesome and I'm so happy he's able to transition with this type of honesty and integrity.
It took a tremendous amount of courage for Chaz and other transgender people to come out. I think everyone can learn from their strength.
This might sound weird, but I'm sort of hoping that VH1 makes a series about Chaz' transition. He was on Celebrity Fit Club a few years ago, so it wouldn't be totally out-of-the-blue for them to make a documentary series about. Or maybe Logo can do it. I think it's all MTV Networks anyway. But if it were on VH1, the show would get more exposure and I think more people would watch it.
For those expressing dismay at having to look up who Chaz is, don't. He's not a celebrity he's the kid of one entertainer and Sonny Bono (best known for being a shitty snow-skier and neocon mayor of Palm-Springs). You wouldn't feel bad for not knowing who David Niven's kids are.
You just made a joke about a guy's accidental death. Not cool. His death wasn't funny, it was sad to his family and friends and if you don't care just don't comment.
I happen to think Sonny Bono's death was somewhat funny and didn't find Logrus's joke uncool. If I were to die by skiing into a tree and somehow were able from Heaven to view people making jokes about my death, I wouldn't mind.
Also, how do we know all his family members and friends were sad? Plenty of people die and have family members and friends who are not sad, but are rather relieved. I don't think it's an assumption you can automatically make. Plenty of people also joke about their relatives' deaths themsleves, especially if they didn't like said relatives.
You don't think we should act assuming that a person's family is sad when that person died.
And because if it happened to you, you'd be cool with it, that makes it okay.
Those are...interesting statements there.
I'm old enough to clearly remember Chaz as Chastity Bono, the adorable tow-headed girlchild of two of my favorite entertainers, Sonny and Cher, whose show I watched every week. Chastity was a couple of years younger than I, and I used to play-imagine being friends with her. I don't remember having much of an opinion on Chastity's coming out as a lesbian, but I'm finding that I cannot look at a picture of Chaz without seeing the face of young Chastity, and it's confusing me. I'm not judging Chaz, I'm just feeling confused, in a lot of ways, about gender and identity and how one goes through life as an effeminate (looking) butch lesbian who, it turns out, self-identifies as male and is transitioning.
because the gender binery that has been bashed into your head your entire life does not allow your eyes to "see" anything other than male or female.
I remember that too!
It must have been so hard for Chaz to realize who he was, having no doubt gotten so many compliments for being a beautiful little "girl," and being the child of a het sex symbol.
To put this in perspective for the younger set, we didn't even have a single queer on TV until we were teenagers. (Soap had Billy Crystal as Jamie controversial for both hets and gays, and, later, a character named Alice who was, in my opinion, a positive lesbian portrayal.)
How was Chaz to find a way to identify? Good for him!
You don't have to understand it. You just have to accept it.
Just a word of advice: It is proper to say "transgender" but not "transgendered." This is a common misconception used by the media and lay-people (if that makes sense). However, transgendered is very offensive to trans people and if you need to describe a trans person's status, drop the '-ed'
Why is it offensive?
The person is more than just their gender identity. Transgender is an adjective describing the person's gender identity while transgendered is the nominal form which suggests all a trans person is, is their gender identity.
You'd think it would be the other way around. "Transgender" is a noun. Describing a person as "transgender" or "a transgender" seems to be more all-encompassing than "a transgendered person".
But "transgendered" sounds like behavior that can be changed and not a way of being. I'm a woman. I'm not womaned.
Isn't it more like a state? Being in a transgendered state? Being in a female state? Being in a tired state?
No, it's not a state.
How come?
A state is a temporary condition, like a mood. You might be thinking more of a trait, which is an enduring characteristic that can be modified, but it's ultimately unchanging. The expression of sexuality is a trait. But even the feeling of what gender one is is much stronger than that. I know I'm a woman because it's this feeling that I have. I can't help but feel that I'm a woman, just like I can't help but know that I'm a human. Chaz feels like he's a man, and those feelings are just as strong as my feelings of being a woman. The only difference is that my body parts match the feelings that I have. Chaz' don't, so he's going to change them so that he's no longer in the wrong body.
OK, trait does seem to work better. But why would the -ed at the end signify something temporary?
In general, it is more accurate and respectful to describe a person rather than define a person.
Who cares? That's so semantic.
Who cares? That's so semantic.
From the GLAAD Media Reference Guide:
PROBLEMATIC: "transgendered"
PREFERRED: "transgender"
The word transgender never needs the extraneous "ed" at the end of the word. In fact, such a construction is grammatically incorrect. Only verbs can be transformed into participles by adding "-ed" to the end of the word, and transgender is an adjective, not a verb.
Dang, I thought more people here would know about Chaz's activism work. I recognize the name, not just as a child of famous entertainers, but as someone who's been in the front lines as an activist for LGBT issues. We queer folk need more historians and more lessons about our movement.
Any ways, good for Chaz. I hope he's got supportive friends and family.
Alas, it's not just the NY Daily News that are taking it upon themselves to pronominally skew Chaz - see http://bloggingadeadhorse.tumblr.com/post/122332552/chastity-and-sex if you can excuse some blatant self-promotion!
I have a question, and a comment, because of the use of the word transition here: if this is too much of a derail, please let me know and I'll take it somewhere else. I have several friends who have transitioned, and only a few of them have had actual gender reassignment surgery. Those who have not are living the gender that they feel themselves to be, and I have absolutely no bones with that-I mean, you are who you are, right? I thought though, that transition means that actual reassignment surgery is performed. I've seen it defined as simply "the process of changing sex." Is that true of anyone else's, cis or transgender's, understanding of this?
If it's not just the surgery, this is sort of even more revolutionary of Chaz, and either way, I salute his courage and openness.
Transitioning is generally used to refer to the entire medical, social, legal, etc process. What it entails varies from preson to person, but it can include taking hormones, changing their name, going full time, sex reassignment surgery, other surgeries, etc. It's a long process, not just restricted to surgery.
Chaz is described as in the early stages of transitioning, and has apparently legally changed his name. There's no mention of what other steps he plans to take (such as surgery), and it's possible he isn't sure yet.
Thank you, that's kind of how I thought about it.