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Kids & Family

Chaz Bono Named Person of Year for Gay Pride Festival

Christopher Street West names the transgender son of Sonny and Cher as its 2012 Person of the Year. Bono will be honored during the LA Pride festivities held June 8-10 in West Hollywood.

Chaz Bono has been named Person of the Year by Christopher Street West, the organization which puts on LA Pride each year.

Bono, a West Hollywood resident, will be honored during the annual gay pride festivities which take place in West Hollywood June 8-10.

The transgender son of celebrity superstar Cher, Bono has been in the media spotlight in the past year due to his very public transitioning from female to male. His memoir Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man was released in May to coincide with the premier of Becoming Chaz, a documentary film about his transition.

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Last fall, Bono participated on the hit series Dancing with the Stars, providing unprecedented visibility of a transgender man to millions of TV views.

“I wanted to show America a different kind of man,” Bono said of his decision to do the show.

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As a toddler in the 1970s, a young Chastity Bono appeared each week on her parents TV variety show, The Sonny and Cher Show. Millions of Americans feel like they’ve known Bono his entire life, thus making the impact of appearing on Dancing with the Stars as a transgender man even more profound.

Conservative values groups pressured ABC to disqualify Bono from the show, but the network refused. Bono danced each week until being eliminated in week six of the 12-week competition.

“The massive impact Chaz has had on our society as a respectable, generous and very public transgender man is untold. For this, we are thrilled to present him as 2012 Person of the Year and are extra pleased to celebrate him here in his hometown,” Christopher Street West said in a press release announcing Bono.

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