AUSTIN — Dwyane Wade is a basketball star, a philanthropist and father of a transgender daughter, Zaya. He's been outspoken in his support for the 18-year-old, and amid an increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQ+ rights, he's walking the walk. He executive produced a documentary called "The Dads," which premiered March 14 at SXSW.
It chronicles a group of fathers of transgender and gender-expansive children over the course of a year at retreats in rural Maine and Minnesota, where they bond over their shared experience. The United States has roughly 2.8 million transgender people, according to the Williams Institute. That's less than 1% of the country's population.
If the title "The Dads" sounds familiar, that's because it comes from the Emmy Award-winning 2023 Netflix short of the same name. This follow-up feature documentary's tone shifted to one of anger and frustration as these dads grappled with the fallout of President Donald Trump's reelection to the White House and the Supreme Court decision that upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Some dads of trans and nonbinary kids asked themselves the question: Is it better to stay in the country and fight for my kid, or pack my bags?
