During a recent interview with People, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade opened up about when their 13-year-old daughter Zaya came out as trans. Union said that she immediately reached out to “everyone” she knew that was identifying as trans on social media. She said, “When it became apparent that Zaya might be perhaps a part of the LGBTQIA community we had to learn more. I was pretty well versed in most things but as she got older and once she identified as trans, I didn’t have as many resources and people that I knew personally.”
She continued, “So I just reached out to everyone that I knew from my Instagram list and social media. When I say everyone responded with love, resources, information — literally connecting us with different organizations — and it was pure love.”
Gabrielle added, “I think what people responded to is that we weren’t coming into it like ‘We’ve got all the answers,’ or ‘It’s got to be our way.’ It was like ‘We’re gonna mess up, we’re gonna say the wrong thing — please read us for filth because you should, and we should just take it and learn instead of being sensitive Sallys. We gotta just listen and humble ourselves and be led.’ So that’s pretty much what we did.”
Wade also chimed in, saying, “My focus when it comes to any of my kids is to let them know who they are so that when other people’s opinions about them are formed, it’s not hitting them.” Later, he continued, “If we allow our kids to be their true selves, we don’t have to worry about them conforming with anything or anyone. Why wouldn’t we push our kids to be their authentic selves?”
Union added, “I was raised to assimilate. I was raised to conform. But we are raising our kids to know they are worthy because they exist. We don’t want them to ever shapeshift for anyone else’s approval or acceptance. We want them to be free to be who they are.”