Roommates, Zaya Wade has officially entered her teen years! She is currently celebrating her 13th birthday and her stepmom Gabrielle Union posted a heartfelt message to her on Instagram to celebrate. However, things turned a bit controversial when Hill Harper posted his own birthday message—but referred to Zaya as a “young man”…the comment was deleted and he offered an apology.
In the age of social media, once you post something to the world it stays there—regardless of your attempts to delete it. That’s what happened to Hill Harper, who deleted his comment underneath Gabrielle Union’s birthday post to Zaya Wade after facing intense backlash for referring to Zaya, who is transgender, as a “young man.”
Hill Harper’s initial comment read:
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“Happy Birthday young man!! Read “Letters to a Young Brother”!!! Your mom wrote something in it!! You’ll love it! Have a great day!!”
After deleting that comment, he issued the following apology:
“I would like to apologize for my post. I am responsible for what gets posted and I made a horrible error. I misgendered my friend’s child and I am so sorry to Zaya and the entire Wade family. It was not my intention to misgender and misrepresent her in any way. I celebrate Zaya. As a family friend I feel so bad that I may have taken away from the celebration. Zaya’s courage and strength is something I celebrate. And there was absolutely no malicious intent to my post.
I am human and I am learning and often trying to do too many things which leads to mistakes like this one. I am sorry. I’m sorry to those my post offended, that was certainly not my intention. There are many challenging things going on in the world right now and I certainly didn’t intend my birthday wish to be a negative distraction and certainly didn’t want it to take away from a celebratory birthday for Zaya. I extend my heartfelt apology to Zaya, the Wade family.”
As we previously reported, Zaya Wade came out as transgender earlier this year.
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