Jazz Jennings, the transgender reality-star of I Am Jazz, is set to undergo gender reassignment surgery in June.
Jennings made the announcement in a video on her YouTube page, telling her fans that she is “super excited for it.”
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“I am so looking forward to it,” Jennings added. “I’ve been ready for this my entire life. I’m going to have a vagina!”
The 17-year-old then went on to explain that the procedure is different from a typical gender reassignment surgery, telling fans that it is actually somewhat experimental.
“Because I started the blockers so early, I never went through puberty,” Jennings detailed. “I got this implant in my arm… it blocks testosterone in my body so I don’t develop as a male and get a beard, mustache and deep voice. That’s why I’m able to be so feminine. I didn’t have growth in that region.”
“Because there is a lack of tissue, they really didn’t have enough material to construct the entire vagina so they’re using a special procedure,” she continued, adding that doctors will work around the issue by extract her peritoneal lining, a thin membrane surrounding the stomach.
“They take that out through my belly button,” Jennings revealed. “They use that and harvest that and use it to create the vaginal canal. It looks like real vagina tissue and it feels like vagina tissue. It allows them to make a bigger canal.”
The reason this procedure is experimental, as well as “concerning,” is because it has not been performed on “hundreds” of patients, Jennings explained.
“Something could go wrong,” she added. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. Overall the results are going to be good and hopefully everything turns out well. I don’t anticipate problems. I will cross that bridge when I get there.”
Finally, she added that the surgery will be filmed for her TLC series, I Am Jazz, but there is no word on when that will air. Season four of the series only recently concluded, so it could be anywhere from 8 months up to a full year before season five airs.
Jennings is a trans activist who was previously diagnosed with gender identity disorder, prompting her transition from male to female. She has been very vocal about her journey, even opening up in the past about suffering with depression.
“Depression can be dark, but the light always remains,” Jennings once tweeted out to her Twitter followers. “Life is worth living. It can be challenging, but we must conquer those obstacles.”
