In her new book “Being Jazz,” Jazz Jennings writes about being an everyday kid with a difference.
As a very small child, Jazz Jennings knew that something was wrong with the way adults were acting toward her. Her parents dressed her in boy clothes, gave her trucks, and said things like “Good boy!” But Jennings knew that they were wrong. She was a girl, though her body said otherwise.
For most of her toddlerhood, Jennings (known then as Jaron) fought against anything that was remotely masculine. At 2 years of age, she asked her mother when the “Good Fairy” was coming to change her into a girl; Jennings’s mother then realized that this “probably wasn’t a phase.”
As Jennings grew up, she became an inspiration for many with gender dysphoria. She and her father fought for her right to play soccer with other girls. She was up-front with friends, Barbara Walters, and others about being a girl in a boy’s body, and she had plenty of haters, but she learned who her friends really were.
Who’d ever have thought that bathrooms would be such a hot-button issue in 2016? Jennings has, perhaps; she’s been dealing with potty parity nearly all her life, which is just one of the topics she tackles in “Being Jazz.”
It’s obvious that this is one exceptionally upbeat book. There’s almost no poor-me-ing here; even when she writes about struggles and occasional anger, Jennings’s cheery optimism is front-and-center. She gives props to her family for this, praising their easy acceptance and unconditional support, and acknowledging that many trans teens don’t enjoy the same familial benefits.
That praise can almost be expected, but I noticed one refreshingly unexpected thing: because of her honesty and openness, Jennings has become a role model, a status of which she seems nonchalantly abashed but secretly delighted, with a tone of pride there, too. (She was one of the grand marshals of last month’s Pride Parade in Manhattan, and she is the star of TLC’s docu-series, “I Am Jazz.”) Who could fail to be charmed by such straightforward authenticity?
While this book is supposedly for teens ages 12-and-up, I think a transitioning 20-something could certainly benefit from what’s inside this book. For sure, its buoyancy and optimism makes “Being Jazz” all kinds of special.
“Being Jazz,” by Jazz Jennings [272 pages, 2016, $17.99].
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill with two dogs and 12,000 books.
