Add Cardi B to the long list of celebrities supporting Zaya Wade, daughter of Dwyane Wade and stepdaughter of Gabrielle Union, after Zaya came out as transgender.
The rapper, 27, defended the 12-year-old’s transition in a recent Instagram Live video. “I feel like people are saying that this kid is too young to transition, but it’s like, how old is too young?” she asked in the vid. “What is the age limit for you to know that that’s what you want to be?”
Cardi told fans she recently watched a short documentary about trans youth on YouTube. “If you’re born like that, then you’re going to forever be like that,” she observed. “What’s the point of you being older and then transitioning and being like, ‘Damn, I should have been through this. I could have found my happiness if I been through it.’”
She went on: “Let people find their happiness, especially kids, let them feel comfortable. People are born like that, like that Lady Gaga [lyric], ‘I was born this way’ — that s—t is f—king real. … Please try to understand, especially when it’s a child. … When you hold a secret, it just feels like such a burden. You might as well [be] free and let it out. … Speak your truth. Speak it.”
Dwyane, 38, opened up about his daughter coming out during his interview on the February 11 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “[She] said, ‘Hey, so I want to talk to you guys. I think going forward, I’m ready to live my truth. And I want to be referenced as she and her. I would love for you guys to call me Zaya,’” the former NBA star recounted.
That same day, Union, 47, posted a Twitter video of Zaya talking with her father about living an authentic life. “Don’t even think about [being judged], just be true to yourself,” Zaya explained. “What’s the point of being on this earth if you’re trying to be something you’re not? It’s like you’re not even living as yourself, which is, like, the dumbest concept to me. Be true and don’t really care what the stereotypical way of being you is.”
The former America’s Got Talent judge reintroduced her child in the caption of the video. “Meet Zaya. She’s compassionate, loving, whip-smart and we are so proud of her,” she wrote. “It’s OK to listen to, love & respect your children exactly as they are. Love and light good people.”
Zaya’s coming-out was met with an upswell of support from other celebrities, including Jessica Alba, Mindy Kaling and Jamie Foxx. “Her brain and spirit [are] on another level,” Alba, 38 — Union’s costar in the police procedural L.A.’s Finest — wrote via Instagram. “We should all rise to that consciousness.”
