MIAMI BEACH.- Former NBA star Dwyane Wade returned to South Florida on Thursday to fight another battle. Wade, a Hall of Famer, spent more than 14 seasons as a point guard for the Heat de Miami, with which he won three championships. He got Miami-Dade County nicknamed “Wade County.” And he still leads the franchise in all major areas, from points and rebounds to personal fouls.
But the fight he outlined Thursday at The Elevate Prize Foundation’s Make Good Famous Summit, after receiving the Catalyst award from the nonprofit Elevate Prize association, would be the most personal of all.
“We’ve done a lot of great things here, so it wasn’t easy to leave,” Wade told The Associated Press in an interview before the awards ceremony. “But the community wasn’t here for Zaya, so the community wasn’t here for us.”
Wade’s daughter Zaya turns 17 next week. She defined herself as transgender in 2020, amid legislation against people of this orientation in Florida and other states.
That law led many transgender adults to flee Florida.
Wade’s family sold their home in Florida last year and moved to California.
Upon receiving the award, Wade shared it with Zaya, whom he credited with inspiring the creation of Translatable, a new online community designed to support transgender children and their families.
Impact beyond the Heat and the NBA:
“The question was presented to her as: ‘If there was one thing you wanted to change in this community, what would it be?’” Wade recalled. “And for her, everything was directed at her parents, at the adults, directly at us. It’s not the children, it’s us. And so she wanted to create a space that felt safe for parents and their children. That is Translatable and it is the creation of it.”
Wade hopes that Translatable, funded by the Wade Family Foundation, will provide a community that “supports growth, mental health and well-being, and that this space will generate more conversations that lead to greater understanding and acceptance.”
The former basketball player revealed that he will use the 250,000 in unrestricted funds that the prize includes in Translatable.
Source: AP
