Tag: dwts 13 pairs

Chaz Bono Says America Needs to See Transgender Contestant on Dancing With the Stars

Transgender activist Chaz Bono has responded to the controversy of his casting on Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13 by saying he thinks America needs to see him on the show. Since the announcement that Chaz Bono would be competing on DWTS season 13, the celebrity offspring of Sonny and Cher has faced numerous attacks from the public and the media for appearing on the show.

Monica Cole, director of OneMillionMoms.com, told Inside Edition on Wednesday that members of her organization would “not be able to watch the show with Chaz on there.” Cole said having Bono on the show “is going to be very confusing for children, and [Bono] should not be included in their cast.”

Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, posted an ‘opinion’ piece on FoxNews.com advising “parents to not allow their children to watch the episodes in which Chaz appears.” Ablow claims that “tomboyish girls and sensitive, less stereotypically ‘masculine’ boys’ could be influenced into believing they have a gender identity issue by watching Chaz Bono on Dancing With the Stars.

“It is a toxic and unnecessary byproduct of the tragic celebration of transgender surgery that millions of young people who do watch Dancing with the Stars will have to ponder this question: Maybe my problems really stem from the fact that I’m a girl inside a boy’s body (or a boy inside a girls body),” Ablow said. He claims Chaz Bono should have received psychotherapy and psychiatric medicine to fix his gender identity issues instead of surgery and hormones to transition from female to male.

Chaz Bono has responded to the attacks against his appearance on Dancing With the Stars season 13 by saying these negative attitudes toward transgenders proves why he needs to be on the show.

“You know, it just kind of shows why for me it’s important to be on the show, because so little still is known about what it means to be transgender,” Bono told ABC News. “And there’s so many just completely inaccurate stereotypes and thoughts that people have.” Chaz Bono’s Dancing with the Stars partner Lacey Schwimmer and his mother, Cher, have both come out in the media to defend his appearance on the show.

“Watching Chaz Bono dance is not going to make your kid transgender,” Bono advisor Howard Bragman told Good Morning America. “But what it can do is possibly save your kids life because young transgender kids, kids with gender identity issues, have a huge suicide rate and if they see one positive influence, one positive role model, this can save lives and that’s why Chaz is here.”

“No way he’s going to back down,” Bragman added. “This has really reinforced his decision to be on the show.”

Chaz Bono Dancing With the Stars Partner and Mom Cher Blast Attackers

Chaz Bono will be making history on Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13 by being the first transgender contestant. Not everyone, however, is all that pleased with the decision to cast Chaz Bono on the show. Even here on our on website, the comments have included some unpleasant responses to the casting news.

“Why oh why would the show cast Chaz Bono? Of all the people in the world I know you could have come up with someone that has not done what he/she did. It is immoral and wrong, wrong, wrong to have someone like that anywhere near the public,” commenter ‘carolyn and paul lupo’ posted on our site. Another commenter, ‘Tom’, simply posted: “Our family will not be watching this season.”

An organization called One Million Moms is asking people to “email ABC Network and let them know that we will not tolerate these subjects being forced into our homes.” A post on the group’s website says the casting of Chaz Bono and Carson Kressley (from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) “is completely unacceptable and Christians should not watch the show, no excuses!”

Some may not be pleased with the decision to cast Chaz Bono on the show, but his Dancing With the Stars season 13 partner is. “I was absolutely thrilled. I’ve always been a huge supporter of the LGBT community and I couldn’t be more excited to have Chaz. Not only is he Sonny & Cher’s child but he’s also a generally cool person,” Lacey Schwimmer told TheInsider.com.

Chaz Bono’s mom, the legendary Cher, is also riled up about all the negativity toward her offspring’s casting on season 13 of DWTS. “Chaz is Being Viciously Attacked on Blogs & Message boards about being on DWTS!” Cher posted on Twitter. “This is Still America right? It took guts 2 do it.”

Cher encouraged fans to go out and show their support of Chaz wherever they could. “Can u guys check out sites & give him your support ? BTW …Mothers don’t stop Getting angry with stupid bigots who fk with their children!”

Not only does Cher think Chaz belongs on the show, she thinks he will become a fan favorite. She said on Twitter that she would “bet VAST MAJORITY of People will LOVE CHAZ on DWTS! … it’s took Fkg Guts 2! Chaz isn’t exactly the ‘Gotta Dance Gotta Dance’ kinda Guy.”

Chaz Bono thanked mom Cher for her support via Twitter last night, saying: “Thanks for all your support mom. The haters are just motivating me to work harder and stay on DWTS as long as I possibly can.”

Dancing With the Stars Cast Will Not Feature Same-Sex Couples

Despite the recent addition of a transgender celebrity to Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13, there will be no same-sex couples on DWTS any time soon. While adding transgender man Chaz Bono to the cast this season stirred up questions about possible same-sex couples in the future, executive producer Conrad Green is totally against the idea.

“We’ve discussed (such) pairings in the past,” Green said, according to Today.com. “But the traditional role in ballroom (dancing) is for men to have a female partner, so that’s what we’ll do.” Queer Eye for the Straight Guy star Carson Kressley will be dancing with a female partner this season, which has irritated some gay activists who thought he should be partnered with a guy.

“I’m surprised when people get upset about the partnering,” DWTS senior producer Deena Katz said. “This is not a social dancing show, it’s a dancing competition. A man should dance with a woman, no matter what your sexual orientation, in ballroom. If I’d put Chaz with Mark [Ballas], for example, it would have looked like I was trying to make controversy. We’re not setting people up on dates.”

So although Chaz Bono is transgendered, he now identifies as a man and partnering him with professional dancer Lacey Schwimmer still keeps the couple as a traditional male/female pairing. Not everyone is comfortable with that interpretation, however. The casting of Sonny and Cher‘s offspring has some DWTS fans declaring they will not be turning in this season.

Although Dancing With the Stars execs seem to be against the idea of a same-sex couple on the show now, they did previously attempt to recruit Portia de Rossi in 2010 with an offer to let her dance with a woman. De Rossi, who married to talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, turned down the proposal. The only same-sex couple to be featured on a version of Dancing With the Stars so far was Gili Shem-Tov and Dorit Milman, who appeared on the Israeli version of the show.

Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13 premieres Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Pregnant Man Says Chaz Bono Stole Dancing With the Stars Season 13 Spot

The Pregnant Man, otherwise known as female-to-male transgender Thomas Beatie, is blaming Sonny and Cher offspring Chaz Bono for stealing his spot on Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13. Beatie, who is known more often now by the nickname ‘The Pregnant Man’, says he wanted to be on the show but thinks he was rejected in favor of the more famous Chaz Bono.

Thomas Beatie became known as The Pregnant Man back in 2007 when he decided to get pregnant because his wife was infertile after he had gone through a female-to-male sex change. He has since given birth to two additional children. Although not the first person to have a baby following a female-to-male transition, Beatie is debatedly the first person legally recoginized as a man to give birth after transitioning.

Thomas Beatie told TMZ.com he reached out to Dancing With the Stars several months ago in hopes of securing a spot on the show. He never heard back about the idea but now he wonders if season 13 producers thought they’d go for a more famous transgender guy instead — Chaz Bono.

Beatie said he understands why Dancing With the Stars would not want to cast two transgender people on the same season, but he’s still dissapointed. He told TMZ.com he really “wanted to try my new body out. I’m an athlete and I know I would have excelled.”

Chaz Bono will be competing on Dancing With the Stars season 13 with professional dance partner Lacey Schwimmer. The Dancing With the Stars season 13 premiere takes place on Monday, September 19 at 8PM ET/PTroutine.

Dancing With the Stars 2011 Season 13 Cast and Pairs Announced

The official list of Dancing With the Stars season 13 cast and pairings has finally been completely released. Three new professional dancers will be debuting this season, including Maksim Chmerkovskiy‘s brother, Valentin Chmerkovskiy.

A mostly accurate leaked list of Dancing With the Stars 2011 season 13 cast members went around the Net on Monday. The official list aired during Bachelor Pad was nearly identical, except for Queer Eye‘s Carson Kressley is on the real list instead of Ryan O’Neal on the leaked list.

The new dancers for this season include Val Cmerkovskiy, Tristan MacManus and Peta Murgatroyd. MacManus and Murgatroyd were both part of the six-member Dancing With the Stars Troupe introduced last season.

On Wednesday, ABC announced the Dancing With the Stars season 13 professional dancers and who they would be partnered with. Here’s the list:

  • Mark Ballas and The Hills star Krstin Cavalleri
  • Cherly Burke and Keeping Up with the Kardashians brother Rob Kardashian
  • Maksim Chmerkovskiy and women’s soccer star Hope Solo
  • Tony Dovolani and actress Chynna Phillips
  • Derek Hough and former talk show host Ricki Lake
  • Kym Johnson and actor David Arquette
  • Karina Smirnoff and All My Children soap star & Iraq war veteran J.R. Martinez
  • Lacey Schwimmer and transgender advocate Chaz Bono
  • Anna Trebunskaya and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley
  • Tristan MacManus and and legal commentator Nancy Grace
  • Peta Murgatroyd and Ron Artest
  • Val Chmerkovsky and model & former George Clooney ex-girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis

The Dancing With the Stars season 13 premiere takes place on Monday, September 19 at 8PM ET/PT and will feature the competitors performing either a Viennese waltz or cha cha routine.

So who is your favorite pairing of the season? And who do you think will eventually take home the top prize? Let us know in the comments section below.