I am a Kitty Dimbleby fangirl.
21 years ago DH and I shook whilst reading an article by her detailing her experience of growing up with Hirshsprungs. Just the day before biopsy results ruled this out as the cause of our baby's failure to thrive.
A couple of weeks later we were stuck on a children's surgical ward. DD needed more tests but the surgeon had decided she was too underweight. There was a flu epidemic so she could not be moved to the main ward, and she was too ill to be discharged.
It was a major London teaching hospital with children from all over, each with a tragic story. An intelligent girl essentially locked in following a birth accident, an abused and starved toddler with an inspiring foster mother, cerebal palsy children needing major surgery to increase their mobility. Post op screams through the night and some life and death panics.
And a lovely teenager back in hospital after a life time of medical intervention. Kitty.
I remember her worrying about missing teenage stuff, including GCSEs and A levels, and me thinking that with her intelligence, resilience, empathy and maturity she would be fine. I also remember her talking about the children's ward friends, often with cystic fibrosis, that she had lost over the years.
Jazz Jennings is about the same age now as Kitty was then. Both have had repeated surgeries, some of which have not worked out as intended.
Kitty's article is fine. But I think there is a better one about whether a confused gender identity is sufficient reason to intervene medically with an otherwise healthy child or young person.