Dwyane Wade recently restricted comments on his daughter, Zaya Wade’s Instagram account to protect her mental health.
“For Zaya’s mental health and privacy we’ve decided not to allow the hate into her comments,” he tweeted Thursday. “Thank you for wanting to spread and send her love.”
For Zaya’s mental health and privacy we’ve decided not to allow the hate into her comments. Thank you for wanting to spread and send her love ? https://t.co/tmjMUGtcVf
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) September 29, 2022
Back in May, Zaya told People that she received harsh comments online from people who criticized her physical appearance.
“As a trans person, once I came out, there was a lot of hateful comments about how I should grow my hair out long or fit into a certain version of femininity, even though that’s not true at all,” she said. “That kind of advice is just trying to break you, but don’t let it.”
New doo! New you!
On Sept. 17, Zaya graced social media with a gorgeous new look for a new campaign for Tiffany &Co.
The 15-year-old usually wears her hair in a short-cut style.
Zaya, who is transgender, captioned her post “ dreams do become a reality.” Her father Dwayne Wade recently petitioned the Los Angeles court to legally allow her to change her name to Zaya, . since she told her family that she wanted to go by female pronouns from the age of 12.
Since announcing her transgender status in 2020 with the help of her father, she has become a trans youth advocate and has stepped into the limelight, modeling clothes for high-end fashion brands such as Gucci, Fendi, Stella McCartney, and Ivy Park.
Zaya has always been open about the importance of living your truth. In a video shared by Gabrielle Union in 2020, she spoke about owning your individuality.
“[To anyone] who is afraid they’re going to be judged, I would say don’t even think about that,” she said in the video. “Just be true to yourself, because what’s the point of even living on this earth if you’re going to try to be someone you’re not? It’s like you’re not even living as yourself.”
She added, “It’s worth it. “I feel like it’s very worth it when you reach that point of yourself. Like you can look in the mirror and say hi to yourself, like nice to meet you, instead of, ‘I don’t really know who I am.’
Wade and Union have embraced their daughter’s trans identity.
“We didn’t know a lot about transgender, we didn’t know a lot about lesbian and gay, and queer, we didn’t know a lot about the initials everyone say,” Wade said in an episode of I Am An Athlete podcast. “But what we had to do is we had to go educate ourselves so she’s [Zaya] educated us on a life outside of the Black community.”
Wade is also the father of two sons; Zaire, 20, and Xavier, 8, from a previous relationship. He and Gabrielle share their daughter, Kaavia, 4.
