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Former NBA star Dwyane Wade is being very open about one of the difficult conversations that he had with a dear friend and ex -teammate concerning his daughter, Zaya Wade.
The video clip that Wade showed to us exclusively, which was not yet publicly released before joining the *Conversations With Cam* show, shows that the retired NBA star at 44 was actually having a change in his mental state even before he and his family made the public statement on Zaya being transgender in 2020.
Wade recalled that he became an active listener, especially when the locker room was around
“Before we came out and talked about Zaya in the locker rooms, I started to, like, become a little different. I started listening a little bit differently,” he said.
Dwyane Wade Saw the Locker Room Differently
He explained that he began noticing some of the language and jokes that were common in the “masculine, toxic environment” he had grown up around.
“I wasn’t in on the jokes anymore. I wasn’t laughing, and I was leaving out of the locker room when I would hear certain things,” Wade recalled.
One person he eventually had to talk to was his longtime friend and former Miami Heat teammate, Udonis Haslem, whom Wade affectionately calls “UD.”
Dwyane Wade said Haslem was also part of those conversations and jokes at the time, but Wade started feeling differently about some of the words being used.
“He was in on the jokes at the same time, and this was my brother, and I started feeling a way about his use of words,” Wade said.
The conversation wasn’t necessarily an easy one, but Wade said it became an important moment between the two friends. Haslem, he explained, eventually changed his thinking, his language, and then his actions.
For Dwyane Wade, the bigger lesson was about creating a space where people can actually listen and learn without immediately feeling attacked.
“The power of someone that he trusts to have a safe conversation with him in a safe environment to allow for him to feel safe to support something [and] believe in something that he didn’t grow up knowing anything about or being comfortable talking about,” Wade said.
He added that there “needs to be more spaces provided for those moments.”
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Zaya Wade Came Out Publicly at 12
With the whole Wade family’s support, in 2020, at the age of 12, Zaya came out to the whole world. It was a very open discussion about Zaya’s gender identity issues that year.
As a matter-of-fact, Dwyane Wade himself made his support statement public and mentioned that they were figuring things out together as a family.
He also made it clear that the family wanted to listen to Zaya rather than allow outside opinions to decide who she should be.
“She’s the strong one in this family. She’s a hero,” Wade said in June 2021.
He continued, “It’s our family’s job to make sure that we listen to her. We listen to the doctors. We ask questions, and we formulate our own ideas of how Zaya should be and should be raised in this world, and we don’t allow others to do that for us.”
Later on, Zaya has matured in the limelight and took the bold step of becoming independent, not just as Dwyane Wade’s daughter.
She has built her career largely around fashion and activism. Zaya even participated in Paris Fashion Week for Miu Miu’s 2023 fall/winter collection in her first runway walk.
A 19-year-old Zaya is studying at a university while at the same time developing her own individual road to success.
Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Have Been Zaya’s Greatest Support
Dwyane Wade hasn’t just been sharing his thoughts publicly about the need to support transgender youth, but his wife, Gabrielle Union, has shared her thoughts too, along with the family’s story.
During her 2020 *Good Morning America* appearance, Gabrielle Union Wade revealed that they had received many messages from other families after they came out that they had a trans daughter.
“We have experienced all those ups and downs that other people and other families can identify with, and that’s what makes people appreciate that the two of us were honest and talked about Zaya.” Thank you for being the face and the voice of it because we can’t,” he said.
Wade added that they knew other families were also dealing with children who were trying to understand themselves and figure out who they were.
Creating a safe place was not limited to Wade’s family. In fact, later on, Wade and Zaya decided to open a platform entitled Translatable.
A place that mainly serves LGBTQIA+ youth, parents, and families by offering resources and emotional support.
About Haslem, Wade felt the story reminded him of one of his core messages. The idea, in a nutshell, was that people need an introduction, a safe channel of communication, before getting exposed to something different than what they normally experience.
Why Dwyane Wade Left Florida
Wade has been the subject of various interviews that touched on his decisions regarding his family, mostly due to the prevailing political situation in Florida. During a *Headliners with Rachel Nichols’ show in April 2023, Dwyane Wade was asked about Florida state politicians and policies regarding LGBTQ.
“That’s yet another reason why I’m not a resident there,” Wade replied.
Dwyane Wade explained that while there were things he liked about Florida, including the tax situation and having Miami-Dade County named after him, his family’s comfort came first.
“My family would not be accepted or feel comfortable there. And so that’s one of the reasons why I don’t live there,” he added.
Over the years, Wade and Union have continued to use their platforms to talk about their family, parenting, and the importance of supporting Zaya.
And now, with Zaya 19 and building a life of her own, Dwyane Wade’s latest comments about his conversation with Haslem show another side of that journey not just the public support he gave his daughter, but the private conversations he had with the people closest to him to help them understand her, too.
