Jazz Jennings gets real on dating as a trans teen

15-year-old trans star Jazz Jennings has opened up about her dating life, laying out some hard truths about romance as a trans teenager.

Jennings, who has her own reality show, laid her love life out in an op-ed for Harper’s Bazaar, admitting that dating while trans isn’t always easy.

“Let’s face it, your average straight cis-gender teenage boy isn’t going to pursue a relationship with a trans-girl.

“Even if he does find her attractive, it could be social suicide if he acts on his feelings. I know this, because this is my life.

“I don’t mean to sound harsh, and I know for a fact that there are some boys who don’t mind dating girls with male genitalia, but the majority won’t.”

She admits that even teenage staples like Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle become trickier to navigate when you’re trans.

Luckily, there’s a happy ending to it all. Jennings has managed to find a guy who isn’t hung up on her being trans, and is happy to see her for who she is.

“He’s one of those special human beings who looks at a person through his eyes and not those of his peers. He really doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and told me that if he received some slack, it didn’t matter because I was worth it.

“How could I say no to that?”

They went on a first date (to “a butterfly park”), and it sounds like they might be going out again.

It’s welcome good news for Jennings, who was recently targeted by a hate group and told to “kill herself” in a radio phone-in gone wrong.

She’s also opened up about her dating history before, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this year.

“If boys like me and I like them back then, yeah, it’ll happen. But for the most part boys aren’t really accepting of me because I’m transgender. And therefore not many guys have crushes on me, at least at my school,” she said.

“They don’t see me as a girl.”

• Dec 01 2023

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