NYT on Chaz Bono

[Shana A]

Sunday, May 8, 2011
NYT on Chaz Bono
Posted by John Aravosis (DC) at 5/08/2011 11:08:00 AM

http://gay.americablog.com/2011/05/nyt-on-chaz-bono.html

Interesting piece on Chaz Bono and the documentary "Becoming Chaz," that's apparently airing on the Oprah Network this coming Tuesday.  I'll be be curious to see how people react to Chaz's comment that being trans is a "birth defect." Is that different from being a "biological error"?

    "There's a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they're mismatched. That's all it is. It's not complicated, it's not a neurosis. It's a mix-up. It's a birth defect, like a cleft palate."

As someone gay, I don't perceive my gay-ness as a birth defect.

[spacial]

As someone gay, I don't perceive my gay-ness as a birth defect. I perceive us as different, and unique, and somewhat rare as compared to straight people, but I don't think we're any more a defect than blondes or left-handed people or especially accomplished-singers or math geniuses. Something unique, and less common, happened to make each of them, but I don't think I'd call any of them, or us, a defect.

Probably correct.

While I don't personally subscribe to Chaz Bono's notion of birth defects, (though I equally won't oppose it either), I feel bound to point out to Mr John Aravosis that being transgender is not the same as being gay. Evidence would seem to suggest, it isn't even particularly similar.