I've only seen one episode of this show and then watched some clips on YouTube. What I always hated about it (from what I've seen) is how much they seem to be reinforcing the stereotype of male-to-female transgenders, thriving to look pretty, focusing on body parts and attracting a man. Doing all of this and asking for money they would call it prostitution. Like many people don't already think that about transgenders to begin with. I'm transgender and transitioned many years and, trust, a lot of people think that.

Something I've wondered about, though, regarding the skin tissue and a tiny, non-functional penis is what about intersexed children? I wonder what happens with them. I knew someone who was born intersexed but I didn't know her well enough to ask, all I know is she did have surgery when she was very young (about 2 or 3), and is 50 now and was married three times to bottom-of-the-barrel men that she eventually divorced. I'm not even sure if all of them knew she was intersexed when they married her. If not, that might be saying something about the work that was performed on her genitals as a child.

Stand*Chickie, you transitioned from male to female and kept your male genitalia?

Anyhow, I agree with what you are saying. I was thinking about this earlier today while in the shower (where I do a lot of thinking!) Jazz seems ultra-focused on looking like a stereotypical pretty girl, as if that's the #1 thing to be concerned about in this world. I wonder how she focuses on her school work. She is completely obsessed with gender identity and it seems everything else is in the background. It's a weird and destructive way to live and it's no wonder the suicide rate is so high within the transgender community. Everybody is striving for a perfection that is not realistic. Genetic females have trouble enough trying to maintain the "perfect" feminine look. How would a genetic male pull that off? Furthermore, as all of us age, our looks go to hell anyhow. Physical "beauty" seems to be what just about every episode of I am Jazz is about. Jazz isn't happy with anything. Her boobs aren't perfect, her genitals certainly aren't perfect and all she seems to do is obsess over the superficial which can come off as being quite shallow.

Things are even worse now for poor, misguided Jazz. Currently on the show they are talking about a process called colonosplasty to create her future "vagina." Because Jazz has a tiny penis due to early hormone suppression (so she wouldn't develop from boy to man) she doesn't have enough "tissue" down there to invert the small penis into a vagina with enough depth. The doctor said she only has two inches to work with. Normally it should be in the neighborhood of five inches. So what is this colonoplasty? It is when a section of the colon (!) is sliced out of a person to create a makeshift vagina. The doctor said it would have the benefit of creating its own mucus but that unfortunately for the 1st year, that mucus would be stinky! OK, as I mentioned above, Jazz already has an anus. Why does she need to do all of this? She could have had a nice, orgasmic penis along with a normal sensitive anus that could be used to accept a stiffened manhood should Jazz ever figure out if she wants a man to have sex with her one sunny day. She doesn't even know what gender she is attracted to at this point. I don't even think she will really ever have the desire to engage in sex with either gender if this hormone suppression continues. At 16, she is asexual because her hormones have been totally jacked with to the point of making her genitals useless sexually. A 16 year old person should craving sex like a maniac. To now have a doctor chop off her current non-orgasmic genitals to make way for a non-orgasmic colon-vagina sounds barbaric and pointless.

I think they said on the show that while it is too late to reverse the stunted puberty for reproduction purposes, it isn't necessarily too late to reverse it for penile growth purposes. However, I wonder if they do start giving Jazz testosterone, will that penis become fully functional? If so, I think she should skip all surgeries, grow a normal penis and rock it in whatever way she chooses. She could get with girls and use her nice, normal penis or get with guys and use her butt (and/or penis if the dude she gets with is gay or bi). Everybody on the show is overthinking what should be an easy decision.

Jazz says that her penis disgusts her. That's ridiculous. It's how she was born. Embrace what you have and move on. She can still dress and live as a girl. I really don't get the issue. So much meaningless drama.

In life you will never be happy if you obsess on what you don't have while ignoring or not appreciating what you do have. Get it together, Jazz. Hopefully you will come to your senses... and soon.

@Kewl_Kat said:

Jazz says that her penis disgusts her. That's ridiculous. It's how she was born. Embrace what you have and move on. She can still dress and live as a girl. I really don't get the issue. So much meaningless drama. In life you will never be happy if you obsess on what you don't have while ignoring or not appreciating what you do have. Get it together, Jazz. Hopefully you will come to your senses... and soon.

Jazz sees herself as a girl. If you woke up one day without the genital you had yesterday, you would be shocked. I knew a 5 year-old boy who was adamant that he was a girl. He was obsessed with it. There was no parental influence on this child. In fact, the mother wanted to sign him up for football, but everyone knew that wasn't going to work.

All I have to say is that this obsession is real. I work at a lot of schools, and every blue moon, there comes a child, who is "obsessed" to be the opposite sex.

@Kewl_Kat said:

...and I knew this would happen. I knew it from the moment they started suppressing her hormones. This is her parents' fault, mainly her dad. When Jazz was a "he" she never experienced what having a post-pubescent penis was like because the testosterone suppression and increased estrogen stopped natural puberty in its tracks. How would Jazz know if she liked having a fully functional erect penis, capable of ejaculation , if she never ever experienced it?? Her dad should have explained what it would be like to have a functional penis. I know he didn't because on the show he is always embarrassed about this sort of stuff. But he should have stepped up. So now in the third season, Jazz is like 16 and of course she has never had an orgasm in her life! And from what the doctors are saying in the show, orgasm is like a reflex and you either have it or you don't. I just don't see how she will ever have one now after all the testosterone suppression and the tiny, non-functional penis she is stuck with. Even if they somehow twist that little nubbin inside out, it isn't gonna provide her with any pleasure. How would it? She is and has always been non-orgasmic. She said so herself in the series. I think unfortunately she has reached the point of no return. If she keeps her tiny, non-functional penis, it will just dangle there meaninglessly. If she has the painful surgery, not only will it be a nightmare recovery, it will result in a lifetime of upkeep (constant cleaning and dilation) and sex will never feel good.

There was one episode in which her brothers walked in and noticed she had morning wood, so her tiny penis is functioning in some capacity.

@Poetist said:

There was one episode in which her brothers walked in and noticed she had morning wood, so her tiny penis is functioning in some capacity.

But Jazz says she has never had an orgasm. She doesn't seem to have sexual desire for males or females. All we know is that she hates having a penis. But how will surgically tinkering with her genitals make her happy? Cutting out some of her colon so she can have a 2nd orifice down there? Why?? Much of this is in her head. She needs to accept who she is and roll with it. She will never be happy because she is striving for some false sense of "perfection." Until she is able to get her mindset right, she will always feel depressed.

@Kewl_Kat said:

@Poetist said:

There was one episode in which her brothers walked in and noticed she had morning wood, so her tiny penis is functioning in some capacity.

But Jazz says she has never had an orgasm. She doesn't seem to have sexual desire for males or females.

All I remember is that they said she was sleeping and had morning wood. It's possible, she didn't even know she was aroused.

She needs to accept who she is and roll with it. She will never be happy because she is striving for some false sense of "perfection." Until she is able to get her mindset right, she will always feel depressed.

True but we all strive to better ourselves, it's that never-ending quests we find ourselves at times.

I understand "bettering yourself" but chopping off body parts is ridiculous and it isn't going to solve a thing. It will only make things much worse. Stop the madness. Make moderate changes. Whatever happened to education, exercise and eating healthier? Those are changes with real benefits.

@Kewl_Kat said:

I understand "bettering yourself" but chopping off body parts is ridiculous and it isn't going to solve a thing. It will only make things much worse. Stop the madness. Make moderate changes. Whatever happened to education, exercise and eating healthier? Those are changes with real benefits.

Well, my statement of bettering ourselves was a general one, but in Jazz's case, she probably should chop off that micro peen. There's doubt whether it even can stay aroused, even though her brothers did see her with some wood. In the end, she's too far along in the process to stop, imo, and no amount of exercising, education, and eating will fix her situation.

She has a micro penis, which is smaller than what doctors are even used to working with in gender reassignment. If she were to live her life with it, what purpose would it serve to her? She feels nothing from it?

They can rub testosterone cream on her micropenis to make it grow but Jazz didn't seem on board with that idea. She has some weird penis aversion that is purely psychological and irrational and it should be addressed quickly. She is doomed to live a life of misery. There are tons of testimonials from post-op transsexuals bemoaning the negative repercussions of gender reassignment surgery. There is no going back.

Rub some cream on that nubbin and maybe, just maybe we can get it functioning. Then we'll see how poor, misguided Jazz feels about cutting it off.

Her parents failed her.

@Kewl_Kat said:

They can rub testosterone cream on her micropenis to make it grow but Jazz didn't seem on board with that idea.

I don't think it will grow more than an inch or two with it. She's at 2 inches. That'll still put her in the micropenis category, which is 4 and half inches.

She has some weird penis aversion that is purely psychological and irrational and it should be addressed quickly.

Maybe, her "adversion" is that she knows she is female and she has this male anatomy attached to her. Listen, I don't know how that feels, only Jazz does. It's something that's been in the forefront of her life for years. As I've said earlier, I've seen young children like Jazz. People call them "obsessed", but they start out real young knowing something is different about themselves.

She is doomed to live a life of misery. There are tons of testimonials from post-op transsexuals bemoaning the negative repercussions of gender reassignment surgery. There is no going back.

That's the case for anything in life. Look at breast implants, there are tons of women who wished they didn't have them implanted.

Rub some cream on that nubbin and maybe, just maybe we can get it functioning. Then we'll see how poor, misguided Jazz feels about cutting it off.

It does function. She doesn't want it.

Her parents failed her.

A bit too dramatic on this one. Everyone is watching and the parents are going to the experts. They try to get Jazz into therapy, but she fights it. Therapy is mandatory, and at any point, the therapists believe Jazz is not a good candidate, then the surgery won't happen. So, it's not the parents' or even Jazz' decision. If two therapists say she's not a good candidate, the surgery can't happen.

@Poetist said:

@Kewl_Kat said:

That's the case for anything in life. Look at breast implants, there are tons of women who wished they didn't have them implanted.

Your points started off weak and are getting weaker. Breast implants aren't permanent. They can be removed. Once a penis is removed, it is gone forever. I think you know this but you are now arguing just to argue. Kinda annoying.

@Kewl_Kat said:

@Poetist said:

@Kewl_Kat said:

That's the case for anything in life. Look at breast implants, there are tons of women who wished they didn't have them implanted.

Your points started off weak and are getting weaker. Breast implants aren't permanent. They can be removed. Once a penis is removed, it is gone forever. I think you know this but you are now arguing just to argue. Kinda annoying.

My point isn't weak. If I took away breast implants, I can easily replace it by saying women get hysterectomies. Some women may regret having it, and that cannot be changed. You know what? Life goes on. . . .

All I am saying is that people do stuff to their bodies that they regret and they aren't all named Jazz. I doubt she will feel guilty about snapping off a non-functioning micro peen anyway. You seem to feel some sort of way about Jazz's decision. Personally, it's her choice and her body.

The point you are missing, for some maddening reason, is that Jazz will be less happy if she has a doctor rip out part of her colon to make a second anus. She is too young to understand the repercussions.

Did you ever hear of Dani Bunten Berry? He was a video game designer for Electronic Arts. He thought the ultimate turn-on would be to transform into a woman so he could date ladies as a lesbian. The hormone therapy made him uninterested in women so he started craving men. He became estranged from his children and 5 years later he was dead from cancer. Did tinkering with his hormones cause or exacerbate the cancer? We'll never know. All we do know is that he regretted the decision and warned others of the repercussions prior to his untimely death.

So you don't have to believe me. Listen to people who went through the painful and unnecessary procedure...

After a third failed marriage, Bunten, who had until then been living as male, transitioned to living as a woman. Bunten underwent sex reassignment surgery in November 1992 and afterwards kept a lower profile in the games industry. Bunten later regretted having surgery, finding that for her, the drawbacks of surgical transition outweighed the benefits, and wishing she had considered alternative approaches. She joked that the surgery was to improve the video game industry's male/female ratio and aesthetics, but advised others considering a sex change not to proceed unless there was no alternative, and warned them of the cost, saying "Being my 'real self' could have included having a penis and including more femininity in whatever forms made sense. I didn't know that until too late and now I have to make the best of the life I've stumbled into. I just wish I would have tried more options before I jumped off the precipice.

Danielle Bunten Berry

Jazz has an alternative... it is not to go through with the surgery. She can live as a girl without being butchered, just as Dani described.

@Kewl_Kat said:

The point you are missing, for some maddening reason, is that Jazz will be less happy if she has a doctor rip out part of her colon to make a second anus. She is too young to understand the repercussions.

You seem to neglect the other factor. This is a process. It's not all up to Jazz. She has to pass a psychological screening for two years. So far, she hasn't signed up for anything, because she's not sure of the process. I think she is being very mature -- for a teenager -- in this process.

Did you ever hear of Dani Bunten Berry? He was a video game designer for Electronic Arts. He thought the ultimate turn-on would be to transform into a woman so he could date ladies as a lesbian.

See, right there is the wrong reason! He's not a good example.

The hormone therapy made him uninterested in women so he started craving men.

This guy seems as if he was a gay man, who didn't want to face his reality. He felt if he was a woman, it would be more acceptable to date men. Plus, hormone therapy is not meant for you to have more interest in the opposite sex. Any person can have hormone therapy for multiple health reasons.

Jazz has an alternative... it is not to go through with the surgery. She can live as a girl without being butchered, just as Dani described.

Butchered? My dad lost a finger that was probably bigger than Jazz's nonfunctioning penis.

Even the doctors are saying she doesn't have enough of a penis to work with, and I can't see how keeping it will enrich her life any more than cutting it off.

In Jazz's case, I think her decision is easier than most trans, since she has a nonfunctioning micropenis. It's less than two inches and very narrow in girth. At this point, it is bordering on being an enlarged clitoris.