Jazz Jennings is a popular American YouTube personality, spokesmodel, television personality, and LGBT rights activist who is an honorary co-founder of the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation, which her parents created in 2007 to assist transgender youth. In 2013, Jazz founded Purple Rainbow Tails, a company in which she fashions rubber mermaid tails to raise income for transgender kids. She also hosts a series of YouTube videos about her life, named “I Am Jazz”. She appears in the TLC reality TV series, I Am Jazz, which began in 2015 and specializes in her daily life with her family and the challenges she encounters as a transgender person.
Jazz is one of the youngest publicly documented people to be identified as transgender. She rose to fame in 2007 when an interview with Barbara Walters aired on 20/20, which led to other high-profile interviews and appearances. Christine Connelly, one of the board of directors for the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, stated, “Jazz was the first young person who picked up the national spotlight, went on TV, and was able to articulate her perspective and point of view with such innocence.” Her father and mother noted that Jazz was clear on being female as soon as she could speak.
