Over the weekend Dwyane Wade and his wife Gabrielle Union won the prestigious Presidents Award at the NAACP at the 54th annual Image Awards in Los Angeles. Media Take Out confirmed that the couple won the award for their work in the Black community.
During their acceptance speech, both Dwyane and Gabrielle chose to speak almost exclusively about their transgender daughter Zaya and Black LGBTQIA rights. As Media Take Out reported, on Friday, a court granted Dwyane Wade and Zaya, over the wishes of Zaya’s mother, the right to change the teenager’s gender legally.
It was a pretty impassioned speech.
Zaya Wade was born Zion Malachi Airamis Wade, the child of former National Basketball Association player Dwyane Wade and Siohvaughn Funches. After her parents divorced in 2007, her father married actress Gabrielle Union in 2014. She has an older brother, Zaire, and two younger siblings, Xavier and Kaavia.
When Zaya was 12, she came out as transgender to her family, and one year later – she came out to the world. Since coming out, Zaya has received praise from the media and dozens of lucrative endorsements. But not all has been good for the teenage trans-person.
Zaya has been under heavy scrutiny by some in the Black community. Her mother, Siohvaughn Wade has also called into question how “authentic” Zaya’s transgender status is. In legal documents filed last year, Siohvaughn claimed that Dwyane and Gabrielle Union are pressuring the teenager to be female, for financial gain and clout.
Dwyane and Gabrielle have vehemently denied Siohvaughn’s claims.
