Transgender teen growing up in spotlight talks about bullying, depression

June 17--At age 15, Jazz Jennings is a fresh-faced poster girl for transgender rights, with two Barbara Walters interviews to her credit, as well as a children's book, a popular YouTube channel and an award-winning TLC reality show, "I am Jazz."

She's met President Barack Obama, who told her, "I'm proud of you," and chatted with Jennifer Lawrence.

But her refreshingly candid new memoir, "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen," paints a more nuanced picture, adding bouts of depression, awkward first kisses and brushes with bullying to the upbeat "be true to yourself" narrative that fans have come to know and love.

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"I think it was really necessary that we added those aspects of my life because it really resonates with the fact that I'm just a normal person," Jennings said by phone. "Just like everyone else, I'm not perfect; I go through challenges as well."

The author, activist and reality star writes that she always knew she was a girl trapped in a boy's body. As a toddler, she rearranged her onesies to look like dresses. At age 2, she asked her mom when the Good Fairy was going to wave a magic wand and transform her into a girl.

Her mom, Jeanette, who has master's degree in clinical counseling, did some research and discovered that Jazz was showing strong signs of gender dysphoria, or a very deep and pervasive dissatisfaction with your birth gender. Mental health professionals used to try to change young children with gender dysphoria, but now they often help them live as their desired gender.

With the support of a therapist, Jazz started dressing as a girl at home, but her parents held off on letting her wear dresses outside their home because of concerns about her safety.

Finally, when Jazz turned 5, her parents told her she could wear a sparkly girls bathing suit at her birthday party.

"It was the happiest day of the first five years of my life," Jazz writes in the memoir. "There was no nervousness or fear about how people might react. I couldn't stop smiling because everyone would finally see my real, authentic self in such a beautiful bathing suit."

When "20/20" contacted the Jenningses in response to a local newspaper article, they at first said no to an interview. They eventually agreed after Jazz's mom became convinced that an interview could help other families, and they got assurances that their privacy would be protected.

Barbara Walters came to the Jenningses' home in Florida, talked to Jazz in her bedroom and recorded her singing a song from "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella." Jazz's life didn't change much when the special aired in 2007, but her parents got a flood of mail from parents of other transgender children.

Jazz went on to be named one of Time magazine's Twenty-Five Most Influential Teens of 2014. In April, her TLC show shared the GLAAD Media Awards' best documentary series honor with Caitlyn Jenner's "I Am Cait." And on June 26, Jazz is scheduled to appear as the youngest grand marshal ever at the New York City Pride march, which celebrates gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

Both in writing and in conversation, Jazz is cheerful, confident -- and seemingly unstoppable. When she and her third-grade best friend had a falling out, Jazz walked up to another pal and asked, "Hey, do you want to be my new best friend?" The girl said yes, and Jazz marched on, excelling in class and on the soccer field, and enjoying the support of her parents and doting older siblings, Ari, Griffen and Sander.

In sixth grade she was about to watch a play with her class when she heard the boy directly in front of her say, "Have you heard of this boy in the sixth grade that thinks he's a girl? I think his name is Jazz or something."

"HELLO," Jazz responded. "I'm sitting right behind you. Don't talk crap about me!"

Asked where she gets the strength to speak up for herself in situations like that, Jazz laughed: "I honestly have no idea. You have to know when not to do that," she said. In the case of the boys at the play, a teacher was nearby, which helped. Jazz told the teacher, who made the boys change seats.

Jazz writes about how she dealt with a bout of depression when she was 12, and how an antidepressant helped her feel better. She's doesn't get depressed because she's transgender, she writes; there's a family history of depression on her mother's side.

Toward the end of the book, she writes about battling depression again as a teenager, and the "existential dread that there is no meaning to life, that nothing matters because everyone dies someday and we're all just insignificant specks floating through the great unknown."

She's much happier now, she said in the interview. She and her school friends have drifted apart, but she has great friends outside of school: "I love them so much, and I can just be myself around them, so that's very important to me."

Academics remain important to her, too, with her mother kidding her (during a conference call with the Tribune) about her perfectionism: "Sometimes she gets upset if she gets, like a 97, instead of 100."

"No! That's not true," Jazz said. "That was me in middle school; now I think an A's an A."

Her mom paused, not buying it: "You like a high A."

"It's a good trait!" Jazz said, laughing. "In college it's a different system with A-minuses and A-pluses. I'm going to be prepared for that."

Jazz, a 10th-grader, says she isn't sure what the future holds for her, but she knows she wants to continue sharing her story.

"I always say I want to leave this world in a better state than when I arrived, and I continue to live by that message," she said. "So I'm going to do what I can to make the world a better place, but also just make sure that I'm happy as well."

nschoenberg@tribpub.com

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