Who Is Ahmir Steward? New Details About Jazz Jennings' Boyfriend
Jazz Jennings has a new boo.
Instagram Jazz Jennings has a boyfriend! The star of the TLC reality show I Am Jazz — which follows Jennings and her family "dealing with typical teen drama through the lens of transgender youth — recently introduced viewers to her new boyfriend, Ahmir Steward.
The 19-year-old and Jennings, 18, met off-screen, but it looks like their love story to continue to play out on her show. Fans are already expressing their excitement over Jennings' new relationship and showed their support via Instagram.
"Catch a new episode of #IAmJazz tonight at 9 PM on @tlcto meet someone who holds a very special place in my heart," she wrote on an Instagram photo of her and Steward. "Thank you @ahmirsteward for going on this incredible journey with me; you are one of the kindest, most creative, and brilliant people I've ever met! I hope you all like him as much I do!!"
"Yassss, queen!!!" Perez Hilton wrote. "You deserve this!"
"Y’all to cute!!!" another person wrote "YESS JAZZ GOT A MAN!! I love you jazz."
So who is Ahmir Steward? Here's everything we know about Jazz Jennings' boyfriend.
1. Jennings just underwent surgery.
Jazz Jennings went gender confirmation surgery right after she turned 18 and was thrilled be finally be in the body she always thought she belonged in. It's a big deal, seeing as how she's one of the youngest publicly-documented people to be identified as transgender. She was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria at 5 years old.
And she didn't expect to meet someone so quickly after her surgery.
“I didn’t expect that to happen to me right after surgery,” Jennings told her parents on the show. “But, with [my boyfriend], something just feels right.”
2. He initially reached out to her.
As we said, their love story began off-screen. Jennings told her fans that after she created a new email to give to her YouTube subscribers, Steward introduced himself. Apparently, his brother had shown him her YouTube channel, and he wanted to talk to her.
“He just seemed like a really good guy,” she said, adding that she was hooked by his first email. Jennings doesn't reveal all of the contents, but something about it was enough to get her to respond.
“Something compelled me to reply and he just seemed very sincere in the message and it all just blossomed from there.”
3. They first met in Philly.
Jennings said she noticed that he tagged one of his Instagram posts in West Philly, and then they made plans to meet up when she was in the city.
“Ahmir and I met in Philly at the Transgender Health Conference," she said. "And since then, we’ve just kind of formed this bond. We are talking and keeping in touch every single day.”
4. He has some serious aspirations.
When Jennings' parents met Steward, they did the typical parent things and started grilling him. He's graduated high school but he hasn't started college yet. At first, he wanted to join the Air Force, but that plan didn't work out.
Even though he's not currently enrolled, the man still has dreams. He told some of Jennings' friends that he wants to be the President of the United States one day.
“Back in Philly, my mom is friends with the mayor somehow, so I feel like that would be somebody who could mentor me in some way,” he said. “Saying that you have to be a lawyer or go to school for, like, history or political science or whatever, I feel like you don’t really have to. Because nobody can tell you what’s wrong with the world besides yourself.”
5. He wasn't someone Jennings thought she would date.
The teen admitted that Steward "isn't the textbook definition" of the kind of guy she thought she would date, after expressing interest in dating a boy who identified as transgender.
“I’d love to meet a cute trans-boy who will be my true love, or possibly my soul mate,” she wrote in a 2016 essay published in Harper's Bazaar. “However, the dating pool is less than limited, because I’m the only ‘out’ transgender girl in my school. I feel that there are others lurking, some may be stealth, while others just aren’t ready to come out. So, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it will be a while before I experience love. I’m okay. I’m a patient person. I can wait for my Prince Charming.”
But nonetheless, she seems pretty taken with Steward, who is cisgender (meaning his gender identity matches the gender he was assigned at birth).
6. Her family seems supportive.
Her parents are happy for her, but they're naturally a little wary considering how fast it happened after her surgery.
“Jazz has talked about being in love for so long, and right after her surgery, she’s found a boy,” said her mom, Jeanette Jennings. “It seemed like it happened overnight, and we’re all kind of, like, shocked. … He’s very sweet, but, like, Jazz is diving right into this. Quickly.”
While Steward's date is on board and even let him visit her while he was down in Florida, his mom is not reacting well to their relationship. So much so that he might move out of her home.
“My mom is not actually as accepting as I originally thought she would be,” Steward said. “She didn’t acknowledge you for who you were. She would say ‘he’ and ‘that’s a man because he was born a man.'”
"The most hurtful thing my mom said was that Jazz was still a man and that I would be gay for being in a relationship with Jazz. [I] lost it because I’m not gay. I’m not attracted to men. And Jazz is a female, so it just didn’t make sense to me.”
Emily Blackwood is a writer and editor living in California. She covers all things news, pop culture, and true crime.