Chastity Bono's sex change
What changing her gender from female to male will do for Cher's daughter
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Chastity Bono will be able to "do something as a man which she could never do as a woman in California," said TMZ. The daughter of Cher and the late Sonny Bono recently announced that she's undergoing a sex change procedure, which will allow her to "ask a judge to legally change" her gender from female to male, thus permitting Bono to then legally marry his longtime female partner. "Exact same person—totally different result. Go figure."
We're really happy for Chastity, said Ted Casablanca in E! Online, and we wish her nothing but the best of luck. But what we don't understand is why Chaz's publicist is asking for privacy for her client while she undergoes the sex change process. "Before all the news broke, Cher and her offspring did supposedly shop the very painful operation required around as a reality-TV show."
Everything about Chastity's sex change procedure is preposterous, said Laura Higgins in Opposing Views. No matter what, she "will always really be a woman"—"changing one's name, cross-dressing, ingesting hormones naturally produced by the opposite sex, and electively amputating healthy parts of one's sexual anatomy don't really change one's biological sex."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
6 exquisite homes with vast acreageFeature Featuring an off-the-grid contemporary home in New Mexico and lakefront farmhouse in Massachusetts
-
Film reviews: ‘Wuthering Heights,’ ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,’ and ‘Sirat’Feature An inconvenient love torments a would-be couple, a gonzo time traveler seeks to save humanity from AI, and a father’s desperate search goes deeply sideways
-
Political cartoons for February 16Cartoons Monday’s political cartoons include President's Day, a valentine from the Epstein files, and more