Chaz Bono's long-time girlfriend
Jennifer Elia says she never identified as a lesbian.
Bono, the daughter of gay idol Cher and
the late entertainer-politician Sonny Bono, announced last year that
he was eight months into gender reassignment.
Bono's transition is documented in the
film Becoming Chaz, which premiered earlier this month on
nascent cabler OWN. He's also written a memoir on the subject,
Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man.
In
an interview with lesbian entertainment website AfterEllen.com,
Elia, who is bisexual, said she's never identified as a straight
woman or a lesbian.
“I identify myself as an individual,”
Elia said, “and I haven't been very active within our community. I
never identified as a lesbian, and I never identified as straight.”
She said that her boyfriend's
transition has not affected her community identity: “I've never
really identified with just one community, so I haven't really felt
any difference.”
And she added that she's always thought of
Bono as male.
“We always had a male/female dynamic
and I treated him, I guess, as male,” she said. “I felt like he
was a man.”