Jazz Jennings
A writer and television personality whose childhood became part of a wider conversation about trans young people.
Jazz Jennings was born in Florida in 2000. With her family’s support, she began living as a girl in early childhood. An interview with Barbara Walters on “20/20” in 2007 introduced her experience to a national television audience when she was six.
Her family also established the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation to support trans young people. As Jennings grew older, public attention followed ordinary milestones alongside the obstacles placed in her way, including her campaign to play on a girls’ soccer team.
In 2014 she and Jessica Herthel published the picture book “I Am Jazz”, offering children a story drawn from Jennings’s life. The reality series of the same name began in 2015, making her family’s conversations, school years and transition part of a long-running television narrative. Her gender-affirming surgery in 2018 was also discussed publicly.
Jennings has spoken about being pansexual and about depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. Those disclosures added complexity to a public image formed unusually early. Her work and visibility have given young viewers a point of recognition while also revealing the pressures of growing up under sustained attention.