Part 4: Our Hall of Fame

Any celebration of the The Advocate's founding in 1967 must honor the heroes for LGBT rights that we've covered for 45 years. With one honoree named per year, the list will be announced in parts and culminate in an event in Los Angeles this month.

BY Advocate Contributors

March 28 2012 11:16 AM ET

The public has followed Chaz Bono since birth, really. He was born Chastity Son Bono in 1969 to very famous parents, Sonny and Cher. And on the day in 2010 that he legally changed his name and gender the TV cameras were there once again. A documentary about his transition called Becoming Chaz aired on Oprah Winfrey's network, and a memoir titled Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man told his story so others couldn't do it for him.

Bono sensed, or hoped, the public was finally ready for a story like his. But he has since become a lightning rod for attacks on transgender people, heightened by his casting on the family-friendly, prime-time reality show, Dancing With The Stars. “All I can do is share my experience, and you’re either going to relate to it or not,” Bono told The Advocate in a 2011 cover story before the show. “It wasn’t my job to make other people feel OK about this. It was time to take care of myself. When that clicked it was full steam ahead.”
-Lucas Grindley