Jazz Jennings, the 19-year-old boy who identifies as a girl and has been a transgender celebrity since 2007, shared a picture of his scars from transgender surgery on Tuesday. He took pride in what he called his “battle wounds.” His mother encouraged this mutilation of his body, saying his scars are “beautiful.”
“These are my scars on full display in 2019,” Jennings posted on Instagram. “I’m proud of my scars and love my body just the way it is. I call them my battle wounds because they signify the strength and perseverance it took to finally complete my transition.”
Jennings’ mother called his scars “beautiful.”
“My sweet girl, you are the strongest and bravest of all the souls I’ve even known and I’m blessed to be your mom,” she wrote in a comment on the Instagram post. “Your scars are just as beautiful as you the rest of you. I love you with all that I am. You make me proud everyday.”
Jennings was diagnosed with gender dysphoria (the persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex) at age four, and his parents started treating him as a girl in social settings at age five. His first public appearance came before he was ten — an interview with Barbara Walters in 2007. Then came a documentary in 2011, a book called I Am Jazz in 2014, a television show by the same name starting the following year, and another book in 2016.
In June 2018, he went under the knife for a surgery to remove his male genitalia, which was altered to create a synthetic female version. He chose the anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) same-sex marriage Supreme Court decision for the experimental surgery.
That October, however, he went public about the complication he experienced amid the surgery — a complication that required a second procedure.
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“There was just an unfortunate event and setback where things did come apart, and there was a complication,” Jazz recalled during an interview with ABC News. “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.”
Despite the complication, the transgender hero described his surgery as being “a dream.”
“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,” Jazz told ABC News. “I’ve gone through the whole medical process, and 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.”
