Basketball star, Dwayne Wade has never shied away from openly supporting his son, Zion who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community.
The former NBA player who is married to Hollywood actress, Gabrielle Union had on Monday, October 14 shared a photo of his son, Zion along with Union and their daughter, Kaavia. His caption of the photo was what attracted backlash as he wrote “My girls”.
Mixed reactions trailed the photo he posted on his Instagram story with many fans slamming him for referring to his 11-year-old son as a girl. While some fans appreciated Wade’s reference to Zion as a girl, others took issue with the reference.
“He’s calling him a girl,” one critic said of the caption. “[Zion is] like 11-years-old,” the commenter noted.
Another fan was more neutral about the caption.
“I think he’s just accepting/ allowing his child to be gender fluid and is calling the child by the pronouns she’s most comfortable with,” the social media follower reasoned. “No harm in that.”
Following the backlash that trailed the photo, the celebrity dad deleted the photo but his wife, Union came to his defence. After a critic shared the photo and wrote,
What y’all think about this?”
Union replied,
“Looks like love to me. I truly hope that everyone gets the love, support and hugs they deserve. Also Kaav ain’t with the dumb shit. Peace & Blessings good people.”
It would be recalled that some few months ago, Wade and Union supported Zion by attending the Miami Gay PRIDE parade. They took several pictures with Zion to capture the essence of the day. Wade’s attendance was met with criticism from some quarters as they opined that he should not be supporting his son at a pride event but he shut the, down by telling the press that his job as a father is to love his children unconditionally. In a chat with Variety, he had said:,
I don’t really talk about it much because it’s Zion’s story to tell. I think as a family, we should support each other,” he added. “That’s our job. And my job as a father is to facilitate their lives and to support them and be behind them in whatever they want to do. So the same effort that I’m going to put into Zaire Wade wanting to be a basketball player, [making sure] he has the right trainers, eats right and has the right time with me on the basketball floor, is the same time I give Zion with the things he wants to do.”
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