Cher has opened up about her son coming out as transgender in a frank new interview, admitting at first that it “wasn’t easy”.
The legendary singer, who has a loyal LGBT+ fanbase, spoke about her experience as a mother when Chaz first came out as gay and then transitioned in a frank new interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“It was very unlike me to, in the beginning, have a problem with Chaz being gay, and it disappeared like that," she recalled.
“Then we talked about transgender for many years. And then [he] would say, ‘No, I don’t want to do it [transition]’."
Chaz, who was assigned female at birth, began transitioning in 2008.
“But it wasn't easy,” Cher admitted.
“I remember calling, and the old (voicemail) message...was on the phone, and that was very difficult.
“But you don't really lose them. They just are in a different shape,” she said.
The “Believe” singer added that Chaz, who is an actor and the first transgender person to appear on Dancing with the Stars, is “so unbelievably happy”.
On people’s opposition to transgender people, Cher added: "I don’t know what the people’s problems are. They are fearful and they just don’t know how to react to it.
"Some of it’s religious. I’m just not sure why it’s such a big thing,” she said.
She added that sometimes people talked to her about their own personal experiences [with transgender people]. “I just say, ‘just relax and you guys’ll get through it together’.”
Cher also spoke about her affinity with the LGBT+ community, recalling a childhood memory at the age of nine. “One day I came home and there were these two men in my living room with my mom and my aunt. They were doing their hair and talking, and I was thinking, 'Why haven't we ever had these kind of guys around? Because these guys are the coolest’,” she said.
“That was my [introduction to] the gay world,” she said, adding that “gay people don't feel like they fit in, and I never felt like I fit in.”
LGBT+ campaigning organisation Stonewall estimates that around one per cent of the population identifies as transgender.
The term encompasses a range of gender identities and expressions, including non-binary, genderqueer and gender fluid.
Transgender people around the world continue to suffer high levels of abuse and inequality, with two in five trans people suffering a hate crime in the last year, and two in five trans young people attempting suicide.
