Chaz Bono has said he was terrified at
transitioning in public.
The 42-year-old Bono was honored
Saturday at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's 40th
Anniversary Gala and Auction with the group's Board of Directors
Award for his transgender activism.
In accepting his award, Bono, the child
of gay icon Cher and Sonny Bono, said he would have transitioned
sooner if the world wasn't watching.
“When I discovered I was really
transgender, I felt like my world was going to fall apart. It took
me over 10 years to come up with the courage that I needed in order
to start transitioning and finally be myself. One of my goals since
starting my transition, and believe me when I say if I could have
done it privately, I probably would have done it years ago, but the
idea of having to transition in front of the whole world was
something that really terrified me. So when I finally did get the
courage to do it, I wanted to take the opportunity to try and do it
in a way where I could educate the public and shine light on what it
means to be transgender. So many people just still don't have any
information about that and that includes the gay and lesbian
community. We say LGBT and it kind of rolls off our tongue but the B
and the T are kind of like the stepkids at another table.”
“I'd like to challenge everybody here
tonight to really take the time to learn a little bit more about what
it means to be transgender, how it's different from sexual
orientation and some of the struggles that we go through.” (The
video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)