Dwyane Wade shares heartbreaking reason comments are turned off on trans daughter Zaya’s Instagram
NBA champion Dwyane Wade has said that he fears for his daughter’s safety every time she leaves the house because of anti-trans hate. (AFP via Getty/ Chris Delmas)
Dwyane Wade has shared the heartbreaking reason his trans daughter Zaya has comments turned off on her Instagram posts.
Wade’s daughter Zaya came out as trans in 2019 aged 12 – she’s now 15 and has her own Instagram account, but her parents were careful to make sure comments were turned off.
The former NBA star explained why they decided to limit comments during an appearance on Today on Friday (7 October).
“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.”
He said they approached things differently with Zaya because there’s “a whole different conversation… going on in the world and it’s way uglier.”
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Wade explained: “Zaire’s conversation was about sports. 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.”
Dwyane Wade ‘left the hate out’ of Zaya’s Instagram
He said allowing Zaya to choose who she interacts with in Instagram is important because it allows her to stay mentally well.
“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.
“We know what we are in this world. 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.”
Dwyane Wade and his wife Gabrielle Union have long been supportive of Zaya. In August, Wade filed to have his daughter’s name and gender updated on official records.
Months earlier, he revealed that he fears for his daughter’s safety every time she leaves the house because of anti-trans hate.
“As blessed as it is for my daughter to have parents who can support her, I’m still afraid every moment she leaves the house,” he told CNN’s Poppy Harlow during the TIME100 Summit.
“And not just because of gun violence, but because of the way people perceive her in this world.”
