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"Dancing with the Stars professional Lacey Schwimmer has insisted that her partner Chaz Bono is being unfairly criticized by some viewers. A series of transphobic comments were posted on ABC&amp;#039;s official message board after it was announced this week that Bono will compete in Dancing with the Stars&amp;#039;s new season. Schwimmer has addressed the controversy, telling The Insider that she finds the attacks on Chaz to be &amp;quot;disappointing&amp;quot;. The dance pro explained: &amp;quot;No human is perfect, so why are they pointing out what they perceive to be an imperfection in someone else? It&amp;#039;s not cool. We&amp;#039;re all taught to not bully, or harass, and treat everyone as equals yet all these people are doing exactly the opposite.&amp;quot; Schwimmer went on to reveal that she was very happy when she found out she&amp;#039;d be paired with Bono. &amp;quot;I was absolutely thrilled. I&amp;#039;ve always been a huge supporter of the LGBT community and I couldn&amp;#039;t be more excited to have Chaz. Not only is he Sonny &amp;amp; Cher&amp;#039;s child but he&amp;#039;s also a generally cool person,&amp;quot; she said. Schwimmer added: &amp;quot;This is my sixth season - the producers know that I&amp;#039;m very open-minded and really accepting of everyone. Ever since Lance [Bass] was on the show, it opened the door for the LGBT community to be accepted in middle America and it&amp;#039;s about time. It&amp;#039;s 2011, let&amp;#039;s evolve a little bit here.&amp;quot; Bono&amp;#039;s mother Cher also defended her son against the transphobic slurs, saying that he showed great &amp;quot;courage&amp;quot; in signing on for Dancing with the Stars. Bono has said that he hopes competing on the reality series will increase acceptance for the transgender community. Dancing with the Stars premieres Monday, September 19 at 8/7c on ABC in the US. The show will also air from Friday, September 23 at 9pm on Watch in the UK.  &amp;gt; Chaz Bono: &amp;#039;Cher thinks Dancing with the Stars appearance is cool&amp;#039; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/dancing-with-the-stars/news/a338243/dancing-with-the-stars-lacey-schwimmer-chaz-bono-backlash-not-cool/>