Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Jazz Jennings ‘not afraid’ of Trump administration’s anti-transgender plan
South Florida teen trans advocate Jazz Jennings reacted on social media to news that the legal term of transgender could possibly be eradicated under President Donald Trump‘s administration.
The New York Times recently reported that a draft of a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services seeks to define gender as a biological condition determined at birth as male or female and not by choice.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the draft memo reads, according to the newspaper. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
Across the country, transfollows gender advocates including Jennings have spoken out against the proposed plan.
“I am not afraid. Us transgender and gender nonconforming people have been declaring our existence for so long and have only continued to grow stronger in our voices,” the star of TLC’s “I Am Jazz’’ shared in a video on Twitter and on Youtube with the hashtag #WontBeErased. “If we were ever going to be ‘eradicated,’ it would’ve happened long ago.”
Jennings, 18, added, “It’s not fair that we keep saying that this is who we are, and we are not hurting anyone, and yet people try to take away our rights. So it’s not going to happen.”
Jennings has been one of the most visible faces of the transgender community. In kindergarten, she began living as a girl and became one of the youngest people to publicly identify as gender dysphoric in 2004.
“I was born biologically male but I’ve known I was a girl my entire life,’’ she said in a video to fans.
She has used her story for advocacy, co-writing the children’s book “I Am Jazz” in 2014 and her 2016 memoir, “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen.”
Her reality show, which her home and school life as a trans teenager, returns 10 p.m. Jan. 1 and then will move to 9 p.m. Tuesdays starting Jan. 22. The show will chronicle her journey before and after her gender confirmation surgery from last summer.