Transgender teen Jazz Jennings, the
star of TLC's I Am Jazz, was profiled on ABC News' Nightline
as she underwent gender confirmation surgery.
Jennings, 18, had the surgery in June.
“When I was 2 years old, I went up to
my mom and asked her, 'When is the good fairy going to come with her
magic wand and change my penis into a vagina?” Jennings told
Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang.
“It was like a dream,” she said of
the surgery. “This is a moment that I had always envisioned and
just experiencing it was so surreal. I was like I can't believe this
is happening.”
She said that going on hormone blockers
when she was 11 lead to complications.
“Being on the blockers is something
that I don't regret at all,” Jennings said. “But the only, you
know, downside to it was that I didn't have enough growth down below.
So there wasn't enough tissue to work with when it came to the
surgery. And it was very challenging to find a doctor, a surgeon who
was willing to perform the operation on me just 'cause I'm such a
difficult case.”
Jennings said that doctors used a new
technique to create “a patchwork vagina, Franken-vagina.”
“So yeah, as long as it's functional,
that's all that matters,” Jennings
said. “And I want it to look somewhat pretty, just 'cause it's
my body.”
“This is really the last thing that
will validate my identity as a woman. There is nothing else after
this. I just get to be myself, be in the body that I've always
wanted. And then I can live my life as just Jazz,” she added.
The fifth season of I Am Jazz,
premiering Tuesday, January 1, will document Jennings' final journey.