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Dwyane Wade‘s given a lot to the city of Miami.
Over the course of his 14 years in South Florida with the Miami Heat, he gave the city three championships and renewed the city’s passion for basketball.
But earlier this week, he went there not to support the franchise rather than his daughter.
Back in 2017, Zaya came out as trans, and Wade has been attentive to the LGBTQIA+ community since. That’s why he attended the Elevate Prize Foundation’s Make Good Famous Summit Thursday. The sum t awarded him the Elevate Prize Catalyst Award and revealed that while the city was good for him, his daughter’s safety was reason enough for them to leave.
“We’ve done so many great things here, so it wasn’t easy to leave,” Wade told The AP prior to the ceremony. “But the community wasn’t here for Zaya, so the community wasn’t here for us.”
Wade is referring to dangerous and hateful rhetoric against the community, such as the Don’t Say Gay law, which prohibited schools from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as book bans.
So, the family relocated in 2023 to much more liberal California, allowing Zaya to find a community.
Now that she’s on the proper track to do so, Wade explained she wants to focus on educating parents, and that starts with the creation of Translatable, a non-profit online community that aims to support transgender youth.
“The question was presented to her as, ‘If you have one thing that you want to see change in this community, what would it be?’” Wade said of her finding her purpose. “And, for her, it goes right to parents. It goes right to the adults. It goes right to us. It’s not the kids. It’s us. And so she wanted to create a space that felt safe for parents and their kids. That’s what Translatable is, and it’s her baby.”
