Chaz Bono is an American LGBT rights advocate, writer, actor, and musician. Bono is the only child of American entertainers Sonny and Cher, though both parents have children from other marriages.

In the early 1990s Bono was outed by tabloid press then publicly self-identified as lesbian in a 1995 cover interview in The Advocate. The process of coming out to oneself and others was a central topic in Bono’s two books: Family Outing: A Guide to the Coming Out Process for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families (1998) tells the story of her own coming out as well as stories of other gay and lesbian people; the memoir The End of Innocence (2003) discusses her outing, music career, and partner Joan’s death from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

On May 7, 2010 Bono legally changed his gender and name. From 2009 to 2010, Bono underwent female-to-male gender transition, as confirmed by his publicist. A two-part Entertainment Tonight feature explained that Bono’s transition had started in June 2008 and would likely be complete in 2010.