Chastity Bono comes out as Chaz

Unfortunately, I'm not suprised by that.

I think this is b/c so many LGB people see sexuality and gender being one in the same, which is silly b/c as lesbians and gays we should be the FIRST ones to know  gender has jack squat to do with your sexuality. For example, when someone comes out as lesbian or gay, what's one of the first things we hear? 'Oh, honey- you can't be gay- girls don't like girls, girls like BOYS.' 'Sweetie you can't be gay- boys don't like boys, boys like GIRLS.' So off the bat, we should know that our gender has shit to do with our sexuality. You would think the 'forward thinking' queers would be the first to know this but apparently, we have a long way to go for understanding within our own frakkin' community.

And that just makes me sad. However, instead of just lying on my laurels, it's b/c of this very perception of trans people from within our own community that I decided to be a visible and vocal trans ally. I'm currently looking into volunteering in my city.

Yah, I don't think there is room for hate in our community.
Transphobia... I don't get.

The LG's seem to be biphobic as well.  Many, for instance, say they wouldn't date a bisexual, wouldn't trust one, even wouldn't consider one as having as deep a struggle as the LG's in the real world - while at the same time outcasting them.  These sorts of issues aren't limited to LGB not accepting T's - and we really need to work together to get people of all sexualities and gender identities to get along.

If Chasity wants to become Chaz because he believes that it will make him happy, then more power to him.

He's just started fighting to be known as male. Hopefully at least the LGBT community can respect his identity.

I was thinking the exact same thing... Chaz is a terrible name. Its like the "cool" guy's name from some 80s movie

BUT SERIOUSLY, GOOD FOR HIM :o)

~Sarah

Chaz isn't giving the media or people the wrong impression; they already had that impression.  I do think that plenty of kids momentarily wish they were the opposite sex, and then decide that it's okay they are not.  But I have no difficulty accepting that for millions of people, that is not the reality.  If someone feels like their body is wrong for them, then I don't see what's so wrong about trying to fix that.

   As for natural and unnatural, well, that gets a little tricky.  Plenty of people say that about LGB people as well. There are some animals, like some species of fish and reptiles, who can physically change their sex, so it's not like out of the realm of nature altogether.  And unfortunately, sometimes the chromosomes themselves in people don't fit into our cozy little definitions of female and male.  But aside from all that, following your logic, surgery at all is unnatural, because it's manipulating the body.  So is medicine.  If we're just talking about manipulation away from what's fully natural, then so are modern textiles, plumbing, electronics, and just about everything else humans use. 

I do not mean to sound nasty or attacking but this just rubbed me the wrong way from your headline. People actually commit suicide because they are unhappy with themselves because they feel as if they are trapped and have no where to turn. There is so much transphobia(not calling you transphobic) in both the heterosexual community and the LGB community because they are not accepting of people who are different from them. "Why do you not suck it up and be happy with yourself? You can get counseling to make yourselves feel "whole"." I heard that personally and it is wrong and not right. It is not like transgenders wake up one day and say "Hey I want to change my gender let me call the doctor and get the operation". It does not work like that and it is a life long struggle that transgenders have to deal with and go through just to make it on a day to day basis. Yet alone not being accepted from anyone. It takes years and years of counseling and therapy before any doctor gives the okay on allowing the person to begin transitioning to becoming whole.

I consider myself queer and I feel what transgenders go through. I do not feel that I  am either a male or female and do not wish to fit in with mainstream idea of this gender binary. Am I wrong? Should I suck it up and accept the fact that I was born a woman even though I do not feel that in my heart. I just don't understand this at all.

I just want to understand why do you feel this way about transgenders? Do you know any transgenders?

Wow, but that was an insanely bigoted comment.

I'm sorry, but while I am not trans myself, the whole basis for what you are saying is that trans people should live in the hell of not being the gender they are because you simply find it wrong and icky. Which, while not only being quite moronic, is precisely the same argument used by anti-gay people against us. So far be it to call Chaz the one that are giving the general public the wrong impression, you're giving such an argument from those that would argue against our rights as gays, lesbians and bisexuals validity.

I have a number of trans friends, including two wonderful and beautiful male-to-female women that I used to date. And they are undoubtedly the gender they feel themselves to be. How dare you think that your feelings should come ahead of their lives? I've read up on the topic and discussed it with my trans friends, and I've learnt this is the thing they have to do, there are no other options short of changing their sex. I have so much admiration for their strength.

And men being men and women being women is somehow "natural"? Explain that to my intersex friends, who have been born with chromosomes that don't match the sexes of their bodies, or their hormones, or their genitals don't match either a penis or a vagina. It's attitudes like yours that they had to be one or the other that caused them to have their genitals operated on as infants so they would 'fit' some ideal and ended up mutilated.

I do actually approve of breast enlargement should a woman be doing so by her own uncoerced choice, the same thing as other plastic surgeries. Our bodies, our choices. But body modifcation is a HUGE degree different from those whose gender does not match what sex they were born as. That's like comparing those straight girls who make-out with a chick at a club with those of us for whom loving someone of the same gender is who we are.

Don't like changing sex? Well wonderful, then don't do it. But stop thinking that you somehow magically get to approve or disapprove of someone else whose behaviour doesn't effect you in the slightest. 

And instead of making bigoted comments, how about you simply admire the courage and bravery of someone like Chaz? Who by making such a move in the public eye, is making a stand so that some young transgirl, or transboy, will see that they aren't all alone in the world, they aren't sick for being a boy or being a girl when their genitals tell them otherwise, and don't try to kill themselves.  Or perhaps a parent makes the decision not to kick their trans-youth child out of the house for being who they are.

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