When celebrities needed attention, they used to simply fake a mental breakdown and go to rehab. Now, they’re coming out as the jubilant parents of transgender children.
Former professional basketball player Dwyane Wade this week said on Ellen that his 12-year-old son Zion recently came to him and his wife, actress Gabrielle Union, to say that he now wants to be called “Zaya” and go by female pronouns.
“We are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ-plus community,” he said, before telling the story of his son’s gender evolution. “So, once Zaya, our 12-year-old, came home — first Zion, I don’t know if everyone knows, originally named Zion, born as a boy — came home and 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,’ and I would love for you guys to call me Zaya.'”
We might all just say best of luck to Wade and his family with whatever issues might arise out of that situation. But he’s only the latest celebrity moved to share with the world how content he is, elated even, to have a transgender child.
After actor Mario Lopez made the grave mistake last year of saying aloud that parents might be more cautious about immediately affirming any gender dysphoria experienced by their child, Cindy Barshop of the Real Housewives ran to People magazine to shame him and introduce her own transgender child.
Barshop told the magazine that one of her two 9-year-old twin daughters, Jesse, is now living as a boy.
She said that after Jesse heard what Lopez said, “He said, ‘Why don’t you tell him that we learn about this in fifth grade and he needs to go back to fifth grade.’”
Rounding out the news item was a photo of Barshop with her twins at a pool. The transgender boy was wearing boys swim shorts and no top. Because he’s a boy, now, right?
A few months earlier, actress Charlize Theron told the Daily Mail that the reason her son had been photographed in public wearing dresses was because he had in fact told Theron he was a girl.
“Yes, I thought she was a boy, too,” Theron said. “Until she looked at me when she was 3 years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’ So, there you go. I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect, and I want to see thrive.”
Her role as the adult, she said, was “to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be.”
The need for attention has driven celebrities to glorify publicly a serious (and really dangerous for children) issue. It reeks of some kind of extreme narcissism.
In Privileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People, I document at great length the depression and trauma, both psychological and physical, that often accompany transgender people. It’s one thing for a mature adult to weigh these various complicated issues. But it’s another to act as if a 9-year-old is in a position to make such a momentous life-changing decision.
But celebrities needing a profile boost don’t seem to care. They know that our current culture rewards proud victims, particularly when it comes to race, gender, sexuality, and, in this case, gender identity.
Wade and other celebrities will get a little positive attention for parading their transgender children in the national media, but nobody should mistake their preening for bravery. They’re feeding a self-obsession at great expense to their own children.
