“With Pride:” Media Coverage of Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union's Black Parenting of Zaya

Abstract

In 2020, former NBA player Dwyane Wade discussed how his child, Zaya came out as transgender. He used his platform to generate discussions about Black parenting specifically parenting a child in the Black transgender community. In the past 3 years, Wade and his celebrity wife Gabrielle Union have shared their parental journey of Zaya through social media and mainstream media. This study explores the identity complexities of critical race parenting through media platforms. By openly using social media and mass media to support Zaya, they opened the world to the journey of parenting a transgender Black child. The study addressed the significance of social media as an educational and activism tool in marginalized communities as a way to confront media stereotypes of Black families.