Dwyane Wade offers message for Trump administration on trans kids

AUSTIN — Dwyane Wade is a basketball star, a philanthropist and father of a transgender daughter, Zaya. He’s been outspoken in his support for the 18-year-old, and amid an increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQ+ rights, he’s walking the walk. He executive produced a documentary called “The Dads,” which premiered March 14 at SXSW.

It chronicles a group of fathers of transgender and gender-expansive children over the course of a year at retreats in rural Maine and Minnesota, where they bond over their shared experience. The United States has roughly 2.8 million transgender people, according to the Williams Institute. That’s less than 1% of the country’s population.

If the title “The Dads” sounds familiar, that’s because it comes from the Emmy Award-winning 2023 Netflix short of the same name. This follow-up feature documentary’s tone shifted to one of anger and frustration as these dads grappled with the fallout of President Donald Trump‘s reelection to the White House and the Supreme Court decision that upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Some dads of trans and nonbinary kids asked themselves the question: Is it better to stay in the country and fight for my kid, or pack my bags?

“Sometimes you think you’re alone on the journey of life, a lot, especially in this,” Wade said of what drew him to the project. “I thought I was alone, and then I realized there’s other dads out there. There’s other dads of color out there. You just never know the community.”

Satisfaction with LGBTQ+ acceptance has ticked down in the United States after climbing for a decade amid debates about gender-affirming care and transgender athletes.

“We need to understand what the human toll is on these families. All of these laws, all of this misinformation, all of this hate, and they are the antidote,” director Luchina Fisher added of the titular dads. “They are showing what unconditional love looks like in action.”

The choice to be a part of the documentary was “a no-brainer” for Wade. “I’m so glad we did it,” he adds, “because it needs even more uplifting today than it did yesterday.”

Wade has choice words for anyone – from parents having trouble accepting their trans kids, to the Trump administration – who don’t understand his perspective.

“I always keep it simple,” he said, “I think everything in our world can be solved with a four-letter word called love. That’s what I lead with. That’s what I try to give to every human being, every person that I meet. We all are in this world trying to figure it out. No one has the answers to it. We got a lot of questions. We don’t have all the answers. I don’t subscribe to anything or anyone trying to treat someone less than.”

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Wade knows that everyone in this world has their “own uniqueness.” “That’s the beauty in this world, is that we all are not the same. I I dislike the ones who try to make us all be the same, because that’s just impossible.”

Fisher had a few words for the administration directly: “Watch the film. Please see what this is costing families. No one should have to choose between country and family. These dads are patriots. They just want to protect their families like other fathers, and they’re doing the best that they can. We need everybody, allies, to stand up for these families so that they can live and let their kids flourish and thrive just like other families.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dwyane Wade, the Trump administration and trans kids in ‘The Dads’ doc