Archive

An interview with Jennifer Elia

Becoming Chaz, a documentary about Chaz Bono‘s transition from female to male, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and on TV’s Oprah Winfrey Network. The film takes viewers inside Chaz’s life with his fiancĂ©, Jennifer Elia, as they navigate working his transition into the life they’ve already created together. Jennifer took a moment to chat with us about the process of making the documentary, exchanging Facebook messages with partners of other trans people, and her and Chaz’s hairless cats.

AfterEllen: How did you and Chaz come to the decision to do the documentary?

Jennifer Elia: He wanted to get his story out, and he also wanted to do it in a way where he had control over how it was presented. He was going to do it as a news interview or a news program and that didn’t come to pass. He sort of stumbled into it. I don’t remember if he thought of it or if it was suggested to him to possibly do a documentary. We thought about it and we met with some people and we got some documentary films sent to us and really liked World of Wonder’s work so we thought it might be good for us.

AE: Your life is put on camera just as much as Chaz’s is in the documentary. Did you have any conversations with Chaz about how much you wanted to let them into your life?

JE: No, we just kind of went with it. I was aware of the cameras in the beginning. As the documentary unfolded I became less aware of them and they became more normal to me.

AE: What was the experience like making the documentary overall?

JE: It was great! At first it was a little weird and I wasn’t used to it so I think I was performing a little bit in the beginning. Then I got very comfortable with it, and ultimately it ended up being a cathartic experience. AE: What did you find cathartic about it?

JE: Having a camera there is like having another person there in a way, a person that’s not present. During the interviews I felt it was a good way to express how I was feeling.

AE: I’m guessing that making a documentary about Chaz’s transition wouldn’t have been on the table as an option – or at least as feasible an option – had Chaz not been a well-known individual already. Do you feel the documentary turned you into a public figure in your own right?

JE: Well, I think everyone’s story is very valuable. There are many transgender people who are not attached to a famous family, and there are many people in documentaries that are not famous. … I guess it has [made me a public figure] in some ways. I’m kind of going with it. At first the press stuff was nerve-racking for me and I had some anxiety about it, but with practice I got used to it. We are very lucky, we’re very blessed because we got very good feedback on the film so it’s been a great experience for me actually.

AE: Can I ask how you identified your sexuality before Chaz came out and then how you negotiated your identity, if at all, after he came out to you?

JE: I’ve always identified myself as bisexual, and I continue to identify myself that way.

AE: Because Chaz’s transition happened in the public eye, with the documentary, did that affect the way you perceived the transition? And the transition that you went through alongside Chaz?

JE: I definitely had my own process and my own transition. We had to re-learn a lot of things and we had to relearn how to communicate with each other and how to live together under a new dynamic. I learned that as I was living and as that was being filmed.

AE: I know that in the documentary you said you were afraid that you wouldn’t be sober for the transition. Was that the most difficult part of the transition?

JE: In the beginning, I definitely had a lot of anticipation and anticipatory fear. A lot of it had to do with how the world would perceive Chaz and then perceive me as a result of that. I wondered what my family would think, what our neighbors would think, and I imagined negative reactions. There was a lot of fear in that and we went through counseling and that definitely helped. I knew this was a very big thing for a couple to go through, and I used that as an excuse for me to drink, as only someone with a drinking problem would do. You know, I used it as a crutch. There were definitely difficult times in the transition and I used it as a crutch to fall back on. I was also in grad school, which was tough.

AE: Did you seek support from the trans community and partners of other trans people?

JE: I actually didn’t. I think that would have been a good idea but we didn’t. Well, we do know one couple that is transgender, a woman with a transgender partner and I did talk to her actually.

AE: Was that helpful?

JE: Yes, it was helpful. It was.

AE: Did the transition affect your feelings of belonging in the queer community?

JE: I identify myself as an individual, and I haven’t been very active within our community. I never identified as a lesbian, and I never identified as straight. My social life is a very mixed bag, and I’ve never really identified with just one community so I haven’t really felt any difference. AE: Did your interactions with people in the queer community change as Chaz transitioned?

JE: I think by the nature of the documentary coming out, that being a public entity and having it on TV and being at Sundance, I have received a lot more emails and Facebook messages from partners of transgender people and trans people, and I have responded. I formed more of a community after the documentary.

AE: So you’ve heard from people who were touched by your story and wanted to reach out to you as opposed to Chaz?

JE: I don’t know if they reached out to him as well but I have received emails from people, especially partners of trans men and women who identified with what they saw in the film, and we’ve corresponded and it’s been nice.

AE: That’s great. I know that Chaz said in his interview with Rosie O’Donnell that you being a part of the story has provided people an “every man’s” way into understanding the transition.

JE: Yeah, I appreciate that. I’ve heard that as well so that’s good.

AE: What do you feel has been the best thing about Chaz transitioning?

JE: Because he’s more comfortable with his body and his identity and his outsides match his insides, he’s a much happier person. He’s been motivated and he’s been living his life much more so than the period before that where he was depressed. Being with a partner who is happy definitely helps a relationship a lot. Him being at his best and feeling like he belongs has made our relationship a lot better.

AE: That’s great. I know you talked about Chaz’s new masculine energy in the relationship. That you never saw the relationship as female/female from the beginning and at the same time you talked about the idea of dating his male twin. I’m just wondering how you reconciled those two ideas.

JE: It was a process and, as you can tell in the film, I had a moment where I hit a wall with it. I hadn’t admitted to myself that I was actually going through my own mourning process, mourning the loss of the woman I was with. Once I admitted that in our counseling we seemed to take a turn for the better. I do make the analogy that I have dated both men and women, I just never dated both within the same person. [Laughs] It’s been good.

AE: You always related to him as a male but there was still a loss of him as a woman?

JE: Sure. We always had a male/female dynamic and I treated him, I guess, as male. I felt like he was a man, but there are still hormones involved.

AE: OK. Is there anything you wish you had known before this all happened?

JE: No. I mean, he told me early on in our relationship. I knew it. I knew it within three months of our relationship and even though he didn’t do anything about it, it was always in the back of my mind and I always knew this was going to happen and as I said before I always related to him as a male.

AE: Has your relationship with Chaz changed your thoughts on gender more generally?

JE: I guess I’m more aware of gender stereotypes and how we perceive males and females in society but it hasn’t really changed my perspective on gender. AE: You recently finished a Master’s degree in education at UCLA.

JE: Yeah.

AE: What are you up to these days?

JE: I’m a private teacher for a student right now, and I also tutor students through a federal grant so their families don’t have to pay. I tutor about seven students a week in that program.

AE: That’s great.

JE: I’m going to be teaching an English as a Second Language class this summer, and perhaps I’ll get back into high school English. I needed a break after grad school. I took a different path this year but, in the future, I may go back to teaching within a classroom.

AE: Is high school English what you would like to be doing?

JE: That’s what I have my credential in, high school English, but I’m also working on some writing, as well.

AE: What is it that you’re writing?

JE: I’m working on a book proposal for a memoir of short stories. They are all autobiographical – they’re anecdotes and stories about men and women that I’ve been with and my experience with that and I guess my own journey, which I feel comfortable telling myself.

AE: That’s great. If you end up writing it, I would love to read it.

JE: Thank you, I appreciate it.

AE: I have one last question: After watching Becoming Chaz, I’m curious – what’s with the hairless cats?

JE: When I met Chaz he had three of them and I’d never seen one before. I actually only saw one hairless cat in Austin Powers, and I thought it was a special effect.

AE: [Laughs]

JE: I didn’t even think they existed. [Laughs] I don’t know it’s something he found and he likes them and then I grew to like them. I suppose it’s interesting that he would choose hairless cats. I don’t know. Something we could analyze I suppose. They are very social and I sound crazy but they are very human-like, more so than regular cats. My friends joke that I will end up being a crazy cat lady, which is entirely possible.

 

 

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button