In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, activist, writer and Dancing With The Stars contestant Chaz Bono said he will aim for a functioning penis after considering options ranging from phalloplasty to metoidioplasty. The transgender star will pay his own way to gender reassignment surgery, he told the magazine.
“I could get a phalloplasty, which builds the phallus from a donor site on your body,” said Bono, 42.
“But I’m leaning more toward a metoidioplasty. It’s a procedure that uses what you already have [the clitoris] which has grown larger from the testosterone,” he explains. “You end up with a smaller phallus than with the phalloplasty, but it’s fully functional, it gets erect, and the sensation is all there.”
Bono’s publicist Howard Bragman told ABC News the reality star is considering the surgery when the time is right. “It’s true, it’s something he will consider at the appropriate time. But it’s not something that is imminent and not something he believes will make him a man. He feels comfortable with his own masculinity.”
Bragman added: “Gender is between your ears and not between your legs. And he knows it’s an imperfect surgery and that he will either get something small with some feeling or something normal that doesn’t have any feeling.”
