(This post may contain disputed claims. We make no assertions as to the validity of the information presented by our Opinion Columnist. We are an opinion blog, not a traditional news outlet, and this post should be treated as such. Enjoy.)A transgender teen named Jazz Jennings achieved fame and fortune at an early age when her parents allowed her to transition from a boy into a girl and document the whole thing for the world to see. Jazz has now had her male genitalia surgically removed, but the procedure didn’t quite go according to plan.
On the new episode of TLC’s “I Am Jazz,” transgender teenager Jazz Jennings can be seen preparing for the sexual reassignment surgery she underwent on June 30 of last year. In order to mark the occasion, she decides — with the help of her mother — to throw a “penis party.”
“I wanna do this party, because I want to have fun with the idea that Jazz is having surgery,” said Jazz’s mother, Jeanette. “This is not fun. There’s nothing fun about this, but laughter is the best medicine.”
Indeed, it’s hard to think of anything “fun” about having your genitalia surgically altered. But that doesn’t stop Jazz from going through with her irreversible plan, much to the dismay of her father, who isn’t exactly on board with having a party to celebrate the fact that his child is preparing to have their penis removed for good.
“I love making my dad uncomfortable and if this penis party is going to do just that, then we’ve gotta have a penis party,” Jazz says in a confessional.
In a trailer for her show released last month Jazz could be seen preparing for the operation which took place on 30 June 2018.
Leading up to the surgery Jazz saw a psychic who informed her that her spirit guides were warning her to wait a bit longer for the procedure.
She did, however, go through with it, and looked thrilled as she was wheeled in on a hospital bed. [Source: Daily Mail]
Jazz’s surgery didn’t quite go according to plan, though. There was an unknown complication during operation, which led her doctor to call her “the most difficult case that I have encountered.” While it’s uncertain exactly what happened, as anyone can imagine, it can’t be easy to turn a penis into a vagina, especially after years and years of a patient like Jazz taking hormones which change the way their body would normally develop.
“This is a moment that I had always envisioned and just experiencing it was so surreal,” Jazz told ABC’s Nightline in October. “This is really the last thing that will validate my identity as a woman. There is nothing else after this.”
“There was just an unfortunate event and setback where things did come apart, and there was a complication,” she went on. “I had to come back in for another procedure, but it was just all part of the journey. The good thing though is that it was only cosmetic and external so it wasn’t too dramatic.”
Regardless of how you feel about the issues presented, the nonchalant nature with which Jazz and her mother treated her impending sexual reassignment surgery is concerning. Jazz may claim to feel “validated” as a woman now that she’s permanently done away with her manhood, but she admitted herself that such a procedure is “only cosmetic.”
