Learn All About Jaclyn From 'I Am Jazz,' One of Jazz's Trans Friends Featured on the Show

Season 8 of I Am Jazz has shown audiences that Jazz Jennings' life post-transition is just as riveting and drama-filled as her life growing up. Although Jazz finished her first year at Harvard and is home for the summer, she's still coping with ongoing mental health challenges — while at the same time testing the dating waters, asserting her independence from her parents, and navigating life as a young, transgender woman.

So now, Jazz is using her visibility to help some of her friends who are going through transitions of their own. Among the friends featured on TLC's I Am Jazz is Jaclyn.

In Season 6, Episode 3, "Born This Way," Jazz introduced viewers to her friend Jaclyn, who wanted to have top surgery but had to contend with her unsupportive family.

On a trip to Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, Jazz met up with her friends, Noelle and Jaclyn. "[Jaclyn] was telling me that the last time she was here, she was still a little boy," Noelle says to Jazz, who also says she hasn't been to the butterfly park in years.

While everyone was having a good time watching and petting the insects, the conversation quickly shifted to the more sober issue of insurance — namely the way that insurance wouldn't cover the $25,000 cost of Noelle's gender-affirming surgery.

About her own experience transitioning, Jaclyn candidly shared that "taking the hormones has not worked in the way that I would have liked it to, like, my chest isn't where it's supposed to be." She adds that her gender dysphoria "has been pretty bad."

"It's gotten to the point where I don't want to go to work, I don't want to get out of bed, I don't want to do anything. I just want to stay in bed and wait until I blossom into a female," Jaclyn admitted.

And while she's recently been approved for top surgery, Jaclyn told her friends that her "grandma is trying to hold [her] back," adding that "there's still a part of her that wishes [Jaclyn] were still her grandson."

"I just really want my grandma to accept me for who I am," Jaclyn explained, saying that she loves her grandmother a lot and doesn't want her upcoming surgery to affect their close relationship.

Jazz and honestly the whole Jennings family have made it their mission to champion and advocate for trans youth across the country. So when Jeanette heard that Jaclyn was having a hard time getting her grandma on board with her transition, she kindly offered to go meet with Jaclyn's mom and grandmother.

"I really feel that it's important to meet with Heather because when you have a child with gender dysphoria, it's heartbreaking," Jeanette said on the episode. "Too many children are lost to gender dysphoria because they hate themselves so much."

Heather, Jaclyn's mom, explains that her mother, Nora, is having a lot of trouble coming to terms with Jaclyn's decision to transition.

"I need my mom to understand that, number one, it's not a phase, number two, your feelings are valid, but three, my daughter's wholeness is ... I care about that a little bit more than trying to validate someone else's feelings," Heather tells Jeanette. "And I want my mom to put her opinion down for a second."

When Jeanette, Jazz, Jaclyn, and Heather meet with Jaclyn's grandmother, Nora tries to explain to the group where she's coming from. Her view is that no one likes their bodies during adolescence and that her granddaughter ought to wait until she's an 18-year-old adult to get the life-altering surgery.

"It's just kind of hard to wait when you have this trapped feeling," Jaclyn explains to her grandmother, who is having trouble accepting views that differ from her own. Meanwhile, Jazz is so frustrated that Nora isn't listening to her granddaughter, she has to excuse herself from the conversation altogether.

Fast-forward to Season 8 of the TLC series, and Jazz is home for the summer from Harvard. The first episodes saw Jazz attend a beach party with Jaclyn and then go on a lunch date with Jaclyn and another trans friend, Mya.

On their ride to grab smoothies and lunch, the women discussed breast implants because Jaclyn was finally preparing to undergo breast augmentation since she had turned 18.

Hopefully, everything went well with Jaclyn's breast augmentation — and hopefully, we get to see even more of her and Jazz supporting each other this season!

Catch new episodes of I Am Jazz on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST on TLC and on Discovery Plus.