Another key player has spoken out about the outcry that followed the announcement of Chaz Bono as a contestant in the upcoming season of “Dancing with the Stars,” E! Online reports. Bono’s selection was greeted with a flood of angry Internet posts, presumably because he is a transgender man.
The latest to chime in is Lacey Schwimmer, who will be Bono’s pro dance partner on the ABC show.
Schwimmer told the publication: “People need to be OK with this. We need to evolve. It’s 2011. I personally feel that we need to get over it."
She added: “Chaz and I are not going to be focusing on the haters because we know that they’re going to be there. We’re focusing on the positive — and we’ve definitely had so much more positive support — rather than the negative. And that’s what’s important to us."
Schwimmer predicted Bono would shock the audience when he gets out on the dance floor.
"There’s a lot of people against him at this moment because they don’t know too much about him and his whole process," Schwimmer said. "I think that through this show you’re going to see a different side of Chaz. I think people are going to see past, ‘Is he a boy or is he a girl?’ I think they’re going to stop questioning and just accept him for him."
As previously reported, Bono’s mom, Cher, took to Twitter to lash out at the “haters.”
The only objection that I have to including Chaz Bono on the show is that the name of the program is “Dancing With the Stars”, not “Dancing With the Children of the Stars”.
I don’t understand what the controversy is all about. Chaz is transgendered. So what! Didn’t DWTS have a Playmate in a past season? I didn’t hear parents crying about what they will have to tell their children.
John,
If your worried about it being children of the stars, how did you handle Sarah Palin’s daughter? Who would have ever considered her a star?
John, if your worried that Chaz is only the child of a star, how did you wrap your head around Bristal Palin?
Will Chaz have a bono when dancing with the Schwimmer? Where to they get these oddities? Bring back Kathryn and Arthur Murray! Now that’s dancing…and they were stars, too.