Dwyane Wade was in doting dad mode as he took in his 12-year-old daughter’s school concert this week.
The NBA veteran captured segments of the show in a short video posted to Instagram last Sunday, showing Zaya, who is transgender, and her classmates onstage as he and his wife, Gabrielle Union, danced and clapped along in their seats.
The performance, he wrote, brought him and Union “great joy and happiness.”
On Monday, he shared a post-performance snapshot of Zaya, beaming as she held several bouquets of celebratory flowers
The posts came just weeks after Wade opened up about Zaya’s transgender identity in an ESPN documentary, “D. Wade: Life Unexpected,” as well as a series of emotional interviews.
“Zaya, early on, knew two things,” Wade told “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Feb. 18. “She knew ‘straight’ and she knew ‘gay.’ But Zaya started doing more research. … She went down the list and said, ‘This is how I identify myself. This is my gender identity.’”
The athlete said he and Union, who is Zaya’s stepmother, saw the moment as an opportunity to “sit down with our daughter and find out who she is and what she likes and not put something on her.”
“As parents, we put our hopes and our fears on our kids,” he said. “With Zaya, we decided to listen to her. She’s leading us along this journey.”
Union, similarly, had nothing but praise for her stepdaughter, calling her “whip smart” and “compassionate” in a Feb. 12 tweet.
“It’s OK to listen to, love and respect your children exactly as they are,” she added.
