GABRIELLE UNION-WADE & DWYANE WADE STAND FOR TRANS RIGHTS @ NAACP AWARDS

Wade spoke of the lessons he's learned by being the father of a trans girl.

Gabrielle Union-Wade and Dwyane Wade gave an inspiring speech in support of transgender rights and their trans daughter Zaya while accepting the President’s Awards at the 54th annual NAACP Image Awards over the weekend.

Wade has been an outspoken advocate since his daughter Zaya came out a couple of years ago. Zaya legally changed her name and gender last week. Union, Zaya's stepmother, has also been a powerful advocate herself.

NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson told Variety at the awards, “I love the way they stood up and are standing up for their child. He added, “We have five kids — for me it’s very significant for a father to stand strong, a mother to stand strong in support of their child.“

Speaking directly to his daughter, Wade said: “Zaya, as your father, all I’ve wanted to do is to get it right.

“I’ve sat back and watched how gracefully you’ve taken on the public’s scrutiny. And even though it’s not easy, I watched you walk out of that house every morning…as yourself. I admire how you’ve handled the ignorance in our world. I admire…that you face every day. To say that your village is proud of you is an understatement.”

He thanks her, too for teaching him that “communication with my mouth isn’t enough, I have to also communicate with my two ears and my two eyes.”

“As your father, my job isn’t to create a version of myself or direct your future. My role is to be a facilitator to your hopes, your wishes, and your dreams. Zaya, you’ve made me a better human just simply by being who you were born to be — a baby girl, Zaya Wade," Wade said. "So baby, thank you for showing the world what courage looks like. I’m proud that I was chosen to stand in place as your father and thank you so much NAACP for this incredible honor.”

After Wade, Union began her speech by recognizing the history of the NAACP.

Union said it was humbling to be on that stage “surrounded by friends and heroes, OGs and icons, all working to advance the lives of black people.” She said the organization has, for over a century, led through “relentless challenge, pain, triumph, and change, and now stands with us again, at the foot of a very new era of activism, a new era that demands our collective answer to one simple question. Will we fight for some…or will we fight for all of our people?”

Her question was answered with shouting applause.

Union then went on to “name a couple of hard truths:” “First, the intersection of Black rights and the rights of the LGBTQIA trans and gender non-conforming people continues to be rough — that’s a huge understatement. Even as we demand equality at the top of our lungs, we consistently failed to extend our advocacy to protect some of our most vulnerable among us.”

Second, she spoke about the dangers that Black trans people face.

“Black trans people are being targeted, terrorized, and hunted in this country, every day everywhere…and there’s rarely a whisper about it,” Union said.

Speaking for herself and for her husband, she said “We honestly don’t approach this work as activists or leaders, but as much as we do this as parents, as parents who love our children and would do — will do, whatever the hell we can to keep them seen and secure and safe.”

Union-Wade added: “This is a conversation worth having in ways that can actually build bridges, right? That don’t fan the flames of hatred or division, that don’t enable lawmakers or justice systems to look the other way when Black trans people are under attack.” She paused, then said, “That don’t drive more young people to hate themselves or harm themselves…that don’t cost people their lives!”

“So we are humbled,” she concluded, “and we are hopeful for the future. I am hopeful—we are hopeful—that we may witness a real shift, in the fight for justice, the moment the movement makes room for everyone. Everyone. Thank you.”

SOURCE: ADVOCATE

🙌🏽 DWAYNE WADE FIRES BACK AFTER EX-WIFE ACCUSES HIM OF EXPLOITING ZAYA 🏳️‍⚧️

 

Once again, the legendary basketball player is showing exactly how to be a good parent to a trans child.

Yesterday, Page Six reported that Dwyane Wade’s ex-wife was accusing the former NBA star of exploiting their trans daughter Zaya and her gender identity for financial gain.

In court documents where Siohvaughn Funches-Wade legally challenged Zaya’s name change, Funches-Wade alleges that Wade “is positioned to profit from the minor child’s name and gender change with various companies through contacts and marketing opportunities including but not limited to deals with Disney.”

“I have concerns that [Wade] may be pressuring our child to move forward with the name and gender change in order to capitalize on the financial opportunities that he has received from companies,” she continued.

Wade reluctantly made a post on Instagram slamming the allegations as “serious and harmful.”

“While none of us are surprised by Siohvaughn’s attempt to fight Zaya’s identity and her unwavering attempt to drag my name through the mud, I’m very disappointed that she continuously finds ways of centering herself and HER needs, without regard to her children,” Wade wrote.

“I’ve given her the opportunity to reach out to Zaya’s teachers, doctors, and therapists over the years and even meet her friends, so she could get her own understanding of our child’s needs for her LIFE,” Wade continued. “She won’t do it! She has not been to a school, recital, graduation, school dance, play date, practice, parent teacher conference, etc. and Zaya has given her every opportunity to try to get to know her. She won’t do it!”

“Zaya is not that same 3 year child anymore and she’s screaming that to the world but most importantly to her mother! No one in our house would ever force Zaya or any of our children to do anything against their will, much less force an identity on them,” he added. “This isn’t a game for my family and definitely not for Zaya. This is her life!”

Once again, Dwyane Wade is showing exactly how to be a good parent to a trans child. He’s standing up for his daughter’s right to be herself and make decisions that she wants to. He’s providing her with the resources to be best informed and allowing her to be her most authentic self.

We could really use more parents like him.

SOURCE: ADVOCATE

HOW DWAYNE WADE IS PROTECTING HIS TRANS DAUGHTER'S MENTAL HEALTH FROM NASTY INSTAGRAM COMMENTS

Dwyane Wade opened up on Friday about why his family decided to turn off the comments on his trans daughter Zaya’s Instagram account.

In an interview with the Today show, the former NBA star it was a matter of protecting the 15 year-old’s mental health. Wade said the family wanted to leave “the hate out of it.”

Zaya came out three years ago as trans. Now that she has her own popular Instagram account, Wade said she’s vulnerable to the effects of being a public figure on the popular social platform.

“Well, we have a 20-year-old, Zaire, who went through it a few years before Zaya, of jumping on social media and all of the negativity that comes with social media and the comments,” Wade said.

“And so we went through it once and we saw how it affected him.”

For his daughter Zaya, Wade said, it’s “a whole different conversation… going on in the world and it’s way uglier.”

“Zaire’s conversation was about sports,” explained Wade. “Zaya’s is about what a lot of people don’t even understand and get.”

“And so we sat down with Zaya about being on social media. Her, my wife, and I, we just talked about, we want to make sure if she’s going to be on social media, if she’s going to show people some of her life, it’s going to be the people that she wants, that’s in her circle.”

Wade told her it was important to make those choices about who she was interacting with to protect her own mental health. Part of that was disabling the “noise” that comments could bring.

“Everybody on the outside, that noise on the outside, that [doesn’t] matter. What matters is the voice that you allow in your circle,” he said.

“And so that’s the people we wanted to follow her journey and follow her life. And so that’s what we did and we left the hate out of it. There’s enough of that in the world. She gets enough of it. We didn’t want it to be on her comments so she can read it.”

Wade and wife Gabrielle Union have been vocal in their support of Zaya’s transition since she came out at age 12. This year, Wade petitioned a Los Angeles court to change their daughter’s name.

As the daughter of public figures, Zaya has already been attacked by anti-LGBTQ extremists, even before her Instagram was a concern. In 2021, Zaya was the subject of a far-right rant by notorious Black Trump supporter Candace Owens.

“We know what we are in this world,” said Wade. “Mental health is a very – this is an important topic in this world. It’s very important for us as parents to protect the health of our kids, both physically and mentally, so we wanted to do that.”

SOURCE: LGBTQ NATION

DWAYNE WADE OPENS UP ABOUT JOURNEY TO ACCEPTING TRANS CHILD, ZAYA

Over the past year and a half, the Wade-Union family has served as a possibility model for accepting families. In late 2019, Dwyane Wade began opening up about his then 12-year-old child referring to them with she/her pronouns before later revealing to the world that she would be called Zaya moving forward. Not long after, Zaya had a coming out of sorts in a custom red carpet look utilizing colors of the genderqueer flag. Since, she's launched her own Instagram account — always under the supervision of her parents — and both Dwyane and Gabrielle Union have been speaking out on trans issues, and inclusive parenting. Now, Dwyane is going deeper on the behind the scenes process on getting to this point.

"I'ma tell y'all something," he said as a part of a group conversation on the I Am Athlete channel. "[When Zaya was] three years old, me and my wife looked at each other was like 'What if? What if she comes home one day and says dad I'm gay or dad I'm this or that." 

"So what I did was I prepared myself and said what are you going to do?"

According to Wade, when Zaya was younger she, like many children used to dress up in women's clothing. While Dwyane initially thought little of it, as it persisted he began preparing himself for the conversation that eventually arrived five years later. 

"Growing up in the inner city of Chicago, in the hood, you're told that boys do this: boys play football, boys play basketball, boys play baseball, boys date girls ... whatever the case may be," Dwyane explained. "I'm no different, I'm raised that way. I'm in the locker room, I'm saying all the things that people say." The athlete explained that he said those things as that was what was normal to his environment. But when Zaya was eight years old, she had an assignment in class where everyone got to explain who they were. On Zaya's assignment, the child wrote that she was Black, and also that she then identified as gay. Dwyane credits her feeling comfortable enough to write this at the time to the fact that the teacher was a queer woman.

"At that moment everything that I was taught went out the window and my sole job and responsibility was to make sure that this kid grew up knowing that they are supported and loved by the father and the other parent," Dwyane explained. "That's my only job."

Dwyane said this changed him in many ways. He not only changed the way he talked, but how he listened to things, and challenged people when he saw something as an issue. It also pushed him to do research, reaching out to friends of Gabrielle as his own circle of those who identify as LGBTQ+ was non existent.

Clip begins around 1:03:00

"I realized I needed to be better I needed to do more and I needed to educate myself," he said. This realization came in part from Zaya being in tears and in fear when she came out to her parents after the school assignment. "It's not our job and our responsibility to tell you who you are. You are going to be who you're going to be. It's my job to try to put you in the best positions to help you reach that goal to be who you want to be."

Dwyane said it's been a constant process of learning and researching, of having conversations with Zaya and then educating themselves to best help her. But it hasn't always been easy. Before late 2019, Zaya didn't appear on social media much as a conscious choice.

"The reason we came out to the world was because I got tired of trying to hide my child," Dwyane said. The basketball star said they stopped posting photos of Zaya because after posting a photo once, there were so many negative comments that they wanted to protect her from that. "[But] it came to the point where I said am I hiding her from it or hiding myself from it."

The conversation was an emotional one with football player Brandon Marshall even shedding a tear.

Ryan Jamal Swain of Pose posted a clip of the interview to Twitter. In it, Wade discusses one of the first scenes of the show where his character Damon is thrown out after his father discovers he might be gay. Dwyane spoke of Zaya's reaction to the scene, which included realizing that she had never had that experience.

"My child has the right and ability to be whoever they want to be in this life and I'm going to make sure of it."

SOURCE: OUT DOT COM

READ DWAYNE WADE'S SWEET MESSAGE TO DAUGHTER ZAYA

Dwyane Wade may have retired from playing basketball last year, but he’s still an active MVP (Most Valuable Parent) for his trans daughter Zaya.

Wade and his wife, Gabrielle Union, have provided a supportive home environment for 13-year-old Zaya, lending public affirmation and fighting off hateful trolls when she revealed she was transgender last year.

Now, the three-time NBA Finals champion and Hall of Fame father is coming out with another public declaration of unconditional love just in time for the holidays.

“Unconditional love, simply put, is love without strings attached,” the 38-year-old father of four wrote to Instagram. “It's love you offer freely.”

It’s just another example of the support Wade and Union have provided for Zaya.

“First of all me and my wife, Gabrielle Union, we are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ+ community and we’re proud allies as well,” Wade said last year in an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show while promoting the ESPN documentary D Wade: Life Unexpected.

He continued, “We take our roles and responsibilities as parents very seriously. So, when our child comes home with a question, when our child comes home with an issue, when our child comes home with anything, it’s our job as parents to listen to that to give them the best information that we can, the best feedback that we can, and that doesn’t change now that sexuality [and gender] is involved.”

Union recently told People she felt “blessed” to live in a country where Zaya had “the freedom to be exactly who she is, who she was born to be, to be her most authentic self.”

Wade and Union have one child together, Kaavia James Union Wade, who recently celebrated her 2nd birthday. Wade also has two sons, Zaire, 18, and Xavier Zechariah, 7. 

The loving couple and parents are using the isolation of quarantine to focus on their family, and providing the type of love and affirmation they need, especially for Zaya.

“You don't base it on what someone does for you in return,” Wade wrote. “You simply love them and want nothing more than their happiness.”

SOURCE: OUT DOT COM

DWYANE WADE REVEALS 12-YEAR-OLD CHILD WILL NOW GO BY ZAYA

There are certain things that truly just warm your heart, and for us supportive parents to LGBTQ+ kids are certainly one of those things. With everything else going on in the world, it feels nothing short of amazing to watch Dwyane Wade, noted NBA star, talk about how he and his wife Gabrielle Union are not only supporting but also empowering their teenaged child Zaya.

“First of all me and my wife, Gabrielle Union, we are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ+ community and we’re proud allies as well,” Wade said in a new interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The spot was to promote a new ESPN documentary based on the basketball player, called D Wade: Life Unexpected. “We take our roles and responsibilities as parents very seriously. So, when our child comes home with a question, when our child comes home with an issue, when our child comes home with anything, it’s our job as parents to listen to that to give them the best information that we can, the best feedback that we can, and that doesn’t change now that sexuality [and gender] is involved.”

In December, Wade did an interview where he referred to the 12-year-old with she/her pronouns. Now, Wade has revealed that one day the child came home and sat Wade and Union down and asked not only to be referred to with those pronouns, but to also be called Zaya, as she comes into her identity.

“So internally it’s our job to one go out and get information, to reach out to every relationship that we have, ” Wade said of his reaction “My wife reached out to everyone on the cast of Pose. We just tried to figure out as much information as we can to help our child be her best self.” Pose, notably, is staffed with many queer and trans people of color in front of and behind the camera, who likely could lend Wade and the rest of the family some advice.

“I looked at her and said you are a leader,” Wade continued, explaining his conversation with Zaya. “It’s our opportunity to allow you to be a voice. Right now, it’s through us because she’s 12 years old, but eventually it will be through her.” DeGeneres went on to note that Wade and his family are currently also doing with with GLSEN, an organization that not only fights discrimination, harassment and bullying against LGBTQ+ individuals, but also works, in general, to make schools a more accepting place for queer and trans kids.

The ESPN documentary D Wade: Life Unexpected, airs Sunday, February 23.

SOURCE: OUT DOT COM

DWAYNE WADE SHUTS DOWN CRITICISM OF HIS SON'S GENDER EXPRESSION

Haters keep taking shots at Dwyane Wade for supporting his son no matter what, and he just keeps shutting them down.

Photos posted over Thanksgiving by Gabrielle Union, Wade’s wife and her son’s stepmother, showed the happy family posing together in a casual atmosphere. But Wade’s 12-year-old son, Zion, had manicured nails and was sporting what some thought was a crop top t-shirt, so the internet police who feel very strongly about establishing gender lanes for people to stay in obviously threw a hissy fit.

“So sad these boys turning into girls…it hurts my heart [and] he’s young,” one Instagram user moaned.

“Why are they encouraging this at such a young age?” another demanded. “[It’s] one thing to accept it but…damn.”

But the love outshone the hate, and many, many people shared their appreciation of how Wade and Union are supporting Zion. And Wade made it perfectly clear that he has no intention of ever doing anything other than exactly that.

“As a parent, my only goal is that my kids feel that I see them, love them and support them,” he wrote.

Both Wade and Union supported Zion as he attended Pride earlier this year, an instance where Wade also took a moment to shut down people who felt it necessary to voice their criticism about him letting his kid explore his identity for himself.

“Once you bring kids in this world,  you have to become unselfish,” he told Variety at the time. “It’s my job to be their role model, to be the voice in my kids lives to let them know you can conquer the world and you have the support of your father…So go and be your amazing self and we’re going to sit back and love you and support you along the way.”

SOURCE: PRIDE DOT COM