Dwyane and Zaya Wade

Dwyane Wade is a highly known Basketball athlete who played for the Miami Heat for the majority of his basketball career before retiring in 2019. He is a 3x NBA champion and an NBA finals MVP. He has also represented the United States in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic games, taking home a gold medal in 2008. In 2019, Wade received a lot of controversy for an instagram post of his family. Wade’s son Zion who is 12 years old was dressed very feminine and fans started to question as to why Wade would let his son dress like that and why at such a young age. 

In a podcast interview with Showtime Basketball, Wade spoke on Zaya and referred to his son as her. This was the first time that he referred to his son in the opposite pronoun. In the interview he spoke on the important role he must play in his sons life. Giving Zaya the full support she needs is important to him as a father. He spoke on how growing up Zaya was not fully on the “boy vibe” that his other son was. Wade asked himself “What are you going to do if your son comes home and tells you he’s gay? What are you going to do? How are you going to act? It ain’t about him. He knows who he is, it's about you. Who are you.”

The importance of Dwyane Wade being openly supportive of his son regardless of the platform that he has and the response that he may receive from it is very important. Wade is using his platform to put more awareness of the LGBTQ community to the world is very powerful. It’s important to him to speak on his son being a black transgender individual. This is also very empowering as a parent. Wade letting Zaya express herself as who she identifies at such a young age in her life is an amazing thing to do as a parent. I hope that Wade expressing the support he has for Zaya encourages many other parents of transgender individuals to allow them to be who they want to be. Many transgender individuals who are wanting to come out about their identity often feel very restricted of who they can be in their homes. Hearing the story about Wade and Zaya is very relieving to see that parents are being open to their children being who they want to identify as. 

-Diana Martinez