World’s First Transgender Doll Modeled After Jazz Jennings

Jazz Jennings has always known she was a girl — from her interest in dolls and dresses to her insistence to her parents that she had the wrong genitalia.  Now, at the age of 16, she has a doll to call her very own.

The teen star rose to prominence after a 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters, during an episode that highlighted transgender children and their families.  Since then, Jennings’ has become an active advocate for transgender rights, a Youtube star with a solid following, an author of two books, founder of an organization that supports trans youth, and has had several other television appearances, including appearing in an interview with Katie Couric and starring in her own TLC show, I Am Jazz.

Jennings’ posted her excitement on Instagram, writing: “This is the first transgender doll on the market, and guess what?! It’s ME!!”

 

New York-based toy maker Robert Tonner made the doll, spending over two years sculpting and crafting it.  Tonner, creator and owner of Tonner Doll Company, told CBS that after having watched Jennings’ 20/20 interview he was inspired.

“I was so impressed with her and how her parents treated her — they were very supportive when she said she knew who she was. And it turned around my thinking on transgender issues,” he said.  “Jazz stands for everything I respect from a human nature point of view – she’s incredibly brave, intelligent, warm-hearted and creative,” Tonner said in a statement.

The doll is bedecked in the the same clothing that Jennings’ wore for the cover of her memoir, “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen“.  While the original doll wears a pink shirt with jean shorts, a red-carpet ready Jazz doll, wearing a sparkling white ballerina dress is also available.

The dolls will be available for purchase in July.