Chaz Bono, the transgender (F2M) daughter of pop star Cher, compared states criminalizing the sexual mutilation of children to millions of deaths from AIDS in the 1980s and ’90s.

Chaz — born Chastity Bono in 1969 to Cher and father Sonny Bono, and who came out as a lesbian in 1995, then later began identifying as a transgender man in 2008 — is alarmed by the recent spate of bills restricting transgenderism in schools and among children.

“It’s really scary,” Bono told radical gay website Pink News. “It’s not just LGBTQI people. It’s Asians, it’s African Americans. There’s just this rise in hatred that I’ve never seen before, and I wouldn’t have expected.”

“I’m 54 now, so I lived through a lot of turmoil in the LGBTQ+ community in the ’80s and ’90s,” Bono said, speaking of the millions who died of AIDS in the 1980s and ’90s.

“But I just don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like this. I know it will end eventually because all this kind of stuff always does. But in the meantime, it’s hard to go through,” Bono exclaimed.

“I personally just worry about the LGBTQ+ youth in particular. I hope as adults, we can weather the storm … [but you think of] the kids and the suicide rate being so much higher with LGBTQ+ kids, and it’s disheartening,” the actor added.

Bono’s comments come amid recent laws that are scaling back the radical overreach LGBTQ agenda, especially in schools, including the 2022 signing of Florida’s education bill which bans the transgender and LGBTQ political agenda in schools, a move by the Kansas legislature to ban transgender athletes from playing school sports as girls, and Montana’s recent legislation outlawing transgender medical procedures on minors, among many other examples.

Bono also claimed that some places in the U.S. are unsafe for gay people.

“I don’t think we’ve taken fully a step backwards,” Bono said, adding, “I would just encourage especially young [LGBTQ+] people to know that this is not going to last forever. Just ride this out however you can.”

After appearing on the TV series Dancing With The Stars in 2011, Bono blasted the show for body shaming.

“I was called a basketball, a penguin, an Ewok, and I just didn’t appreciate it… If you want to critique my dancing and give me some constructive advice so I can try to improve the next time that I’m there, that would be great,” Bono said. “But I don’t really know how to be less penguish, and so I kind of took offense to that.”

Bono is now appearing as “Puppy” in the horror film Bury The Bride, now showing on Tubi.

The actor has also been featured in recent films including 3 From Hell, Reborn, Reboot Camp, and the offbeat independent superhero short series The Guardians of Justice.

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