Chaz Bono: How My Sex Change Altered My Relationship

USMagazine, Monday, May 9, 2011, 7:34am (PDT)

For more than five years, Jennifer Elias stuck by love Chaz Bono through thick and thin.

Appearing alongside Cher's eldest child on Monday's "Oprah Winfrey Show," Elias admits "it was really hard" when her partner (formerly known as Chastity) transitioned from female to male.

Added Bono, 42, who announced his momentous decision in June 2009, "We had to really almost re-learn how to communicate and how to be around each other."

"Things had changed," said Bono. "Just me saying the same thing that I would have before with a deeper voice and more of a presence."

"Testosterone," Winfrey chimed in.

"Right," Elias said.

"Suddenly [things] didn't mean the same thing to her. And so we really had to, you know, adjust our -- how we did things and relearn how to be together."

The famous child of Cher and the late Sonny Bono also tells Winfrey that the Hilary Swank film, "Boys Don't Cry," about a biologiocal female who yearns to be male, inspired him.

The Oprah Winfrey Show airs Monday.

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