A few nights after Bam Adebayo stunned the NBA with a historic 83-point performance against the Washington Wizards — the second most in league history and far surpassing the franchise’s single-game scoring mark long associated with Dwyane Wade — the Miami Heat legend found himself thinking about a very different kind of legacy.
Wade, who congratulated Adebayo on the milestone, says moments like that still feel surreal even after a career full of them.
“Everything that happens on the court is like superhero stuff, ” Wade tells The Hollywood Reporter over Zoom. “It’s not real life. Real life is when you go home and you’re a dad. That’s where the real responsibility is.”
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Those responsibilities are at the center of The Dads, a feature documentary premiering March 14 at South by Southwest. Directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Luchina Fisher, the film follows fathers of transgender and gender-expansive children as they navigate a rapidly shifting political climate and the deeply personal stakes that come with it.
Inspired by Fisher’s Emmy-winning 2023 Netflix short of the same name, the film expands the story into a yearlong chronicle of several families confronting rising hostility toward trans people across the United States. Through retreats in rural Maine and Minnesota, protests and intimate family moments, the documentary asks a question confronting many parents today: stay and fight, or leave?
The feature version was backed in part by Elevate Studios, the storytelling arm of the Elevate Prize Foundation, with the Ali Forney Center — the nation’s largest nonprofit serving LGBTQ homeless youth — partnering on outreach and resources for audiences. Wade joined the project as an executive producer through his company, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, helping bring visibility to a story that largely unfolds far from arenas and celebrity headlines.
For Wade, the subject is deeply personal. His daughter Zaya, 18, publicly came out as transgender in 2020, placing the retired NBA superstar and his family in the middle of a national conversation about parenting, identity and acceptance.
Zaya is Wade’s child with his ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches, and Wade has navigated the journey alongside his wife, actress Gabrielle Union, who has also been outspoken in support of Zaya and LGBTQ youth. “When it first became public, honestly, there was a lot of silence,” Wade says of the reactions he got within the basketball world. “A lot of guys didn’t know what to say. And I understand that. Sports culture hasn’t always had these conversations, so sometimes people just stay quiet because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. But for me it was never about getting approval. My job is to support my child.”
The Dads centers on a group of fathers navigating extraordinary circumstances. Among them is Stephen Chukumba, a widowed New Jersey father raising four children, including his transgender son Hobbes; Ed Diaz, a San Antonio contractor who ultimately decides to relocate his family to Canada; and Wayne Maines, whose daughter Nicole Maines made national headlines years ago after coming out as transgender in elementary school, and has since forged a successful acting career, appearing on shows like Supergirl and Yellowjackets.
For Fisher, the film offered an opportunity to explore masculinity and parenting from a perspective rarely seen on screen. “Fathers are often absent from the narrative,” she says. “What fascinated me was watching these men question everything they thought they knew about gender, about parenting and about themselves.”
The urgency behind the film’s premise has only intensified as new laws affecting transgender Americans continue to emerge. In Kansas, a recently enacted law invalidates driver’s licenses and birth certificates that reflect transgender residents’ gender identities and requires new documents listing the sex assigned at birth.
The measure also restricts restroom access in certain government buildings and allows individuals to file complaints over alleged violations. More than 1,000 residents have already been affected, and lawsuits challenging the law are underway.
“When we started filming the feature, the dads were cautiously optimistic,” Fisher says. “But after the presidential election, the tone shifted dramatically. Some families began seriously considering leaving the United States because they were worried about their children’s rights.”
While the documentary confronts those political realities, Wade says its most powerful moments come from something simpler: watching fathers learn from each other. “These dads are regular guys,” Wade says. “They’re not activists by profession. They’re fathers who love their kids and are trying to figure things out together. When they finally meet other dads going through the same thing, you can feel the relief in the room.”
That spirit of learning and vulnerability is something Wade believes resonates far beyond the film. “As men we’re often taught that we’re supposed to have all the answers,” he says. “But what these dads show is that it’s OK to learn. It’s OK to ask questions. It’s OK to grow.”
That lesson has also shaped Wade’s own experience as a parent. Now a college student, Zaya is entering a new chapter that Wade says has brought a sense of newfound freedom. “She’s doing great,” he says. “What’s been really beautiful about her starting college is that she gets to walk into a space where she doesn’t have to introduce herself through her story. For a long time our family’s journey has been very public. Now she can just meet people, make friends and be herself.”
For Wade, that sense of normalcy is ultimately what matters most. “As a parent, that’s the goal,” he says. “You just want your child to feel safe enough to live their life and be happy.”
If The Dads resonates with audiences, Fisher hopes it will broaden the conversation about fatherhood itself. “In a time when everything feels so divided,” she says, “these fathers remind us that the starting point is actually very simple. It’s love.”