The Tonner Doll Company, led by Robert Tonner, introduced the Jazz Jennings doll at the International Toy Fair in Manhattan on Saturday.
“Jazz stands for everything I respect from a human nature point of view: She’s incredibly brave, intelligent, warm-hearted and creative,” he said in a statement.
“Although born male, Jazz is a transgender female and has been living as a girl since kindergarten,” the network describes the show on its website. “Parents Jeanette and Greg have spent the years finding doctors to treat their daughter, while fighting the discrimination and misconceptions associated with what it means to be transgender.”
“Jazz is on a regimen of hormone therapy so that she can look and develop like the other girls in her school. But, Jazz struggles with comparing herself, and the lagging pace of her breast development to her friends,” it outlines.
Tonner said that he first learned about Jennings in 2007 when the then six-year-old was featured on “20/20” with Barbara Walters. Years later, after he noted that Jennings was becoming a prominent voice on “transgender” issues, he contacted the teen’s parents to advise that he would like to create a doll in Jennings’ image. Read more
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