Jazz Jennings is the Florida teenager who became a YouTube star and role model for America’s transgender youth, and was recently revealed to be one of the new faces of Clean & Clear’s “See The Real Me” ad campaign! Click here if you missed it!
The teenage transgender now has her own gig too, as she made her reality TV debut last night, welcoming the cameras into her home and giving the world a glimpse at what her life is really like with her family and Jazz in particular, who describes herself as ‘an average teenage girl who just happened to be assigned male at birth.’ The first episode of her new TV show I Am Jazz premiered on TLC.
‘I face most of my discrimination from the boys because they think that they’re gay for liking another “boy”,’ Jazz explains. ‘And they just overall think that I’m disgusting and weird. I’d like to be respected for who I am.’ ‘Guys kind of shy away from her because she is transgender,’ adds Jazz’s brother Griffin in the episode.
‘She wants guys to like her. Whether she’ll date them or not, she feels like she’s missing a part of her life because guys don’t look at her, or they walk away from her,’ adds Sander. ‘They’ll give everyone else hugs, but give her a high five.’
In the first episode of the 11-part series, each of the Jennings clan described their experience with having a transgender family member, while showing flashbacks of Jazz before her transition, as well as clips from the family’s daily life today.
The show follows Jazz and her family as they deal with her transitional process – as well as experiencing the same drama that affects all American teens.
Jazz, had lived as a girl since she was just five years old, and she is one of the most vocal transgender youths, as she and her family continue to preach the rights of transgenders. She had previously appeared in a documentary about her life and published a book, also titled I Am Jazz, on her experiences.
The teenager who was diagnosed with gender identity disorder at an extremely young age was supported by her parents to begin living as a girl at just five years old. In the debut episode of the new show, Jazz recalls the day she was taken into the doctor about her gender identity.
‘They took me to the doctor’s and she had two dolls,’ she explains. ‘One of the dolls was a girl, and had girl parts, and one doll was a boy and had boy parts.
‘She said “which do you have right now?” And I pointed to the boy doll. Then she said: “Which do you want?” And I pointed to the girl doll.
