By L. Graciella Maiolatesi
Retired NBA superstar, Dwayne Wade, will go to battle for his children.
And he’s preparing for a HUGE fight.
Wade recently filed a petition to legally change his daughter’s name from “Zion” to “Zaya,” requesting to refer to her as “female” in all future documents. Zaya came out as transgender in 2020, sharing she was “ready to live [her] truth.”
Zaya’s truth is beautiful because it’s SO Black!
Black-LGBTQIA+ identities predate enslavement and colonization. Inside 2400 BC Egyptian tombs, two men’s remains were found, embraced like lovers.
Ghana’s Dagaaba people traditionally assigned gender based on spiritual energy versus anatomy. The Igbo and Yoruba people of Nigeria traditionally believed in multiple genders.
Black-LGBTQIA+ activists, politicians, and artists — like Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Andrea Jenkins, Gladys Bentley, James Baldwin, Alvin Ailey, Audre Lorde, Josephine Baker, Queen Latifah, Lena Waithe, Billy Porter, Alice Walker, and countless others — continuously shape Black culture and our fight for liberation.
Pre-colonization, African countries didn’t persecute people for sexuality or gender, unlike anti-LGBTQIA+ violence and murder seen throughout Africa today. Black liberation is tied to Black-LGBTQIA+ identity — “othering” our own people is white supremacy at work.
Like Zaya, we must live unapologetically. Like Wade, we must support community members with different identities from us, understanding these differences don’t make them less Black.
