Jazz Jennings has a surgery date and it’s coming up fast! The I Am Jazz star is set to have gender confirmation surgery on June 26.
With that date coming up quickly, it’s not surprising that Jazz is experiencing a range of emotions. From nervousness about possible complications to complete joy about finally having a vagina, Jazz has been sharing it all.
The first major news that Jazz shared in a new video titled “Preparing For Gender Confirmation Surgery” is that she is going to becoming a regular YouTuber.
It’s not quite clear yet if her TLC show is going away or if this will just be an added way to engage with her fans and friends online. Either way, we’re getting more Jazz since she promised a couple of new uploads a week.
Now back to the gender confirmation surgery that has Jazz “super excited!” She explained why she was willing to put such a personal part of herself on TV and share it with the world.
“If I put out this information for people to see, they won’t need to ask any more questions. And also, it’s educational within the community as well. A lot of parents who have transgender kids are like, ‘What do I do? I don’t know much about this process.’ And seeing our show kind of helps them figure out what steps they could take to help their kids and what the journey might look like in the future,” LGBTQ rights activist Jazz explained.
“It’s crazy to me. I’m going to have new genitalia. Like penis to vagina. That’s some serious s**t, y’all!” Jennings said, adding, “I can’t believe it, I’m going to have a vagina!”
On Season 4 of I Am Jazz, viewers watched Jazz’s journey to determine if she even could have gender confirmation surgery. Due to her use of hormone therapy at a young age, she didn’t go through puberty. As a result, doctors feared there wasn’t enough tissue to use for the surgery.
It turns out, that won’t be an issue now thanks to another procedure Jazz will be having in order to ensure she has enough tissue for a successful operation.
“The only concern I do have is that I’m getting a different procedure,” Jazz explained. “Because I started the blocker so early, I never went through puberty…basically it blocks testosterone in my body so that I don’t develop as a male and get like a beard, a mustache, deep voice, and that’s why I’ve been able to be so feminine. But because of that, it caused me to be so suppressed that I didn’t have growth in that region.”
“And because there was a lack of tissue, they really didn’t have enough material to construct the entire vagina, so they’re using a special procedure where they extract my peritoneal lining, which is basically this thin membrane that surrounds the stomach and it’s regenerative, so it’ll regrow and whatnot. But they take that out through my belly button and…then they use that and they harvest it and use that to create the vaginal canal.”
That sounds really intense but Jazz is ready to accept the challenge. However, there is something she admitted that she’ll certainly miss. She talked about being able to pee standing up and how many benefits come from that.
“The one sad thing is, though, peeing standing up is something really cool and I don’t think I appreciated it enough that I’ve been able to pee standing up,” Jazz mused. “But now I’m not going to be able to pee standing up.”
Jazz Jennings gender confirmation surgery and recovery is expected to be filmed for Season 5 of I Am Jazz when the series returns to TLC.