Political and social activist Chastity Bono – the only child of entertainers Cher and the late Sonny Bono – began undergoing a sex change shortly after her 40th birthday on March 4.

“Cher is very supportive and has known about Chastity wanting to do this for a very long time,” a source tells PEOPLE. “This will be a long process but it’s something Chastity has wanted to do for many years.”

Bono’s spokesman, Howard Bragman, told TMZ, which first reported the story, “Yes, it’s true – Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity.

“He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by his loved ones. It is Chaz’s hope that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue, just as his ‘coming out’ did nearly 20 years ago.”

He added, “We ask that the media respect Chaz’s privacy during this long process as he will not be doing any interviews at this time.”

Cher ‘Flipped Out’

According to a 1998 PEOPLE article about Bono, at the time she published her book, Family Outing, a guidebook of real-life examples (including her own) that showed young gay people the rewards and pitfalls that accompany being open about their sexuality, Bono first decided to tell her parents she was gay when she was a freshman at New York University in fall 1987. Father Sonny took the news in stride, but mother Cher did not.

“I flipped out,” Cher told PEOPLE. “I’d always had this idea that she would get married and have a family.” And though Cher had won acclaim for her portrayal of a gay woman in the 1983 film Silkwood – and has counted upon gay audiences for being among her staunchest fans – she banished her daughter from her Manhattan apartment. Later, when Chastity decided to abandon her studies to pursue a career as a rock singer, she chose to keep her homosexuality a secret.

It didn’t work. While she was trying to launch a career with her band Ceremony in 1990, a weekly tabloid announced Bono’s lesbianism to the world. Besieged by reporters, she also felt betrayed by members of the gay community, who had tipped off the tabloid.

“It was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me,” she said in 1998. Bono felt completely at sea. “I closed my blinds at home,” she said. “I didn’t have a life, really.”

Parents Accepted

In 1992 she began a serious relationship with “Joan,” a woman 20 years her senior, which ended tragically when the woman lost a battle with lymphoma and died in 1994. Finally, in 1995, Bono publicly embraced gay activism by posing for the cover of the gay magazine The Advocate, proclaiming herself “out at last” and taking a high-profile job with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

Bono’s activism transformed her relationship with both parents, sparking pride in her mother, who “got to see me as a full person for the first time,” said her daughter. But Sonny was by then a Republican congressman whose conservative agenda did not include gay causes such as legalizing same-sex marriage. “He accepted me, but his politics didn’t,” Chastity recalled. (Sonny Bono died in January 1998.) “I didn’t talk to him about it, but I was angry

Kenneth Starr and Shannon Minter, lead attorneys in the California Supreme Court case that will decide the fate of same-sex marriage in the state, are as different as the competing sides they represent.

Starr, dean of Pepperdine University School of Law, is best known for leading the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern.

Since then, the former federal judge and U.S. solicitor general has dedicated himself to conservative causes, including writing briefs for the Mormon church in a previous gay marriage case in California.

Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, is a transsexual who spent his first 35 years as a female. He was a lead counsel in the state Supreme Court case decided last May that allowed same-sex couples to marry, a ruling that was reversed in November when voters approved Proposition 8.

Starr and Minter will square off Thursday in the most closely watched California Supreme Court hearing in a generation. They’re set to deliver oral arguments in three suits in which supporters of gay marriage contend that Proposition 8, which limits marriage to a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

Minter, 48, representing gay rights groups, will be the first attorney to address the court in San Francisco. Starr, 62, will deliver the final arguments on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign.

Gay rights groups, the city of San Francisco and other local governments contend that Proposition 8 is not an amendment to the state constitution, but an illegal revision that should not have been placed on the ballot without the Legislature’s approval.

Minter calls Thursday’s proceedings “much bigger” than the case last May that invalidated Proposition 22; approved in 2000, it also limited marriage to a man and a woman.

“This is now about whether a majority can take away an inalienable right from one group of Californians,” Minter said. “If the court were to say it’s OK … then no one’s rights would mean very much.”

Starr did not respond to interview requests. But his co-counsel, Folsom attorney Andrew Pugno, disagreed with Minter’s contention that Proposition 8 should never have been on the ballot.

“Minority rights exist only because the majority decided to protect them by adopting a constitution,” Pugno said. “If the court misinterprets those rights, it’s the people’s job to correct that by clarifying the constitution.”

In court papers, Starr contends that voters have the power to define marriage under the state constitution and that the court must accept their decision.

“Proposition 8′s brevity is matched by its clarity,” he wrote. “There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions.”

State Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office will be represented in court by attorney Christopher Krueger, is also challenging Proposition 8 — but on different legal grounds from Minter.

Brown contends that the California constitution declares certain rights to be fundamental, such as liberty and equality, and that the court held in last year’s case that marriage was one of those rights.

The attorney general maintains that legal protections given to minorities and others can be taken away only if the state can show there is a “compelling interest.” Proposition 8, Brown said, lacks that compelling interest.

In his court papers, Starr accuses Brown of overreaching with his legal argument.

“We will not mince words,” he wrote. “The attorney general is inviting this court to declare a constitutional revolution.”

As solicitor general, Starr argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Frank Schubert, who managed the “Yes on 8″ campaign, calls him “one of the nation’s top jurists.”

“He brings an extraordinary degree of credibility on constitutional law, which is ultimately what this case hinges on — whether or not people have the right to amend our constitution,” Schubert said.

Starr was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan and served as solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush. He became a national figure as an independent counsel appointed by a three-judge panel to investigate the Clinton White House.

Minter, 48, arrived in San Francisco in 1992 as a law student for an internship at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Since then, he has been lead counsel in dozens of groundbreaking legal victories, including a successful wrongful death lawsuit filed by the partner of a lesbian who was mauled to death by a neighbor’s dog in San Francisco.

As a child searching for his sexual identity in a conservative Texas town, Minter said, he often feared for his physical safety and “experienced a lot of rejection.”

Minter said he’s passionate about marriage because he was not accepted by some members of his family until he got married eight years ago to a woman with whom he is raising a daughter.

“I see Shannon as someone who has committed his life to tackling injustice,” said Jenny Pizer, Minter’s co-counsel and an attorney for the gay rights group Lambda Legal. “He’s chosen to take on deeply painful social injustice problems through the law.”

Unlike gay and lesbian marriages, California recognizes marriages involving transsexuals. Minter said he was pained “by the injustice.”

FOR ALL those who considered transexuality a case of abnormality and as a case of mental and physical disorder, I’d like to inform that they are wrong. Australian scientists recently found that transexuality can be explained biologically, as it is caused by a genetic component.  

Confirming the above claim, Prince Henry’s Institute researcher Lauren Hare said, “We think these genetic differences might reduce testosterone action and under-masculinise the brain during foetal development. There is a social stigma that transsexual is simply a lifestyle choice. However, our findings support a biological basis of how gender identity develops.” 

The research was carried out on DNA samples of 112 male-to-female transsexuals, which were compared with the samples from 250 men. The team constituting of American and Australian scientists say, “It is known that longer versions of the androgen receptor gene are associated with less efficient testosterone signaling and this reduction in the action of the male sex hormone may have an effect on gender development in the womb and contributes to the female gender identity of male to female transsexuals.”

Transexuality is a gender identity disorder (GID), where a person feels that he/she is trapped in the body of the wrong sex. The person wants to have the opposite of his biological sex. For years, transsexuals have been treated as a hindrance to the society. Finding the truth about oneself and then getting the acceptance from the near and dears of a person is highly important yet an extremely difficult job.

Most people dismiss the claims made by transsexuals as a mere mental problem or confusion. Instead of getting them into therapy for clearing their doubts about their gender, they are treated as retards.

It’s time to take notice about such issues and get the person into the GID therapy as soon as possible. Life of a person can be destroyed or made by one such decision. Just because of ignoring such problems, most of the people get to know about this after getting married or having kids…which in turn plays havoc on the lives of the ones close to them. So instead of lending deaf ear to it, it should be treated, so that one can lead a normal life from the very beginning. 

Although the scientists said that further research would be required to support the claims, it’s indeed a reason for all the transsexuals of the world to cheer up and for the people to change their attitudes towards them.