Actress Gabrielle Union and NBA basketball player Dwayne Wade (Mike Blake/Reuters)

Former Miami Heat basketball player Dwyane Wade said on Tuesday during an appearance on Good Morning America that his 12-year-old child, a biological male, has known they were transgender since the age of three.

Wade’s child, Zaya, has “known it for nine years, since she was three years old,” Wade said.


“Zaya started doing more research. She was the one that sat down with us as a family and said, ‘Hey I don’t think I’m gay.’ And she went down the list and said this is how I identify myself: I identify myself as a young lady. I think I’m a straight trans, because I like boys,'” he continued.

Wade and his wife, actress Gabrielle Union, had originally named their son Zion.

“It was a process for us to sit down with our daughter and find out what she likes and who she is,” Wade said. “My daughter was my first interaction when it comes to having to deal with this conversation. Hopefully I’m dealing with it the right way. Inside our home we see the smile on my daughter’s face, we see the confidence that she’s able to walk around and be herself and that’s when you know you’re doing right.”


In a separate interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Wade announced that he and his wife were the parents of a child in the LGBT community.


“We’re just trying to figure out as much information as we can to make sure that we give our child the best opportunity to be, you know, her best self,” Wade said.

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