Summary Of Bean Trees By Chaz Bono

The major conflict in the text is the author, Chaz Bono, not being able to accept themselves. Throughout the story there are both internal and external experiences that lead Chaz down the wrong path to self-discovery. He allowed outside influences to infiltrate his mind and tell him what he was. Chaz lived in a time where sources for LGBT kids were hard to come across, even worse, he was born to Cher and Sonny Bono, celebrities who had reputations they had to keep. While growing up, Chaz felt like a burden to everyone because of the way he felt inside. As Chaz grew older, he could no longer hide the romantic attraction he felt towards girls. His attraction was more specifically directed towards “girly” girls - ones who were feminine and proud of it. Chaz was the complete opposite of a feminine girl, he was what would be considered a tomboy nowadays. Chaz later explained that his attraction to femme girls was because in the relationships he had he would naturally play a masculine role, it made him feel like he was in a normal straight relationship. “Being a lesbian explained so much: why I wanted to wear men’s clothing, preferred men’s shoes, and didn’t like my female body, especially my breasts.”
For so long, he tried to convince himself he was something he wasn’t. He wanted so badly to fit into the heteronormative standpoint by only dating femme women to match his masculine personality, anything else seemed impossible. Throughout his life as a lesbian, he explained that there was always something nagging at him, telling him that this wasn’t right. Once he realized he was in fact a transgender male, he was afraid. “ Without a doubt, as a child I thought of myself as a boy. But the process of coming to terms with the reality that I was transgender was