Cardi B said Zaya Wade was ‘born this way’. (Getty/Gabrielle Union)
Cardi B quoted Lady Gaga as she stood up for Dwyane Wade’s daughter Zaya Wade.
The “Bodak Yellow” rapper jumped to Zaya’s defence after a number of celebrities made anti-trans comments about the 12-year-old.
Speaking on an Instagram live stream, Cardi told her fans: “People are born like that, like that Lady Gaga song: ‘I was born this way.’
“That s**t is f**king real.”
Addressing the suggestion by Empire actor Serayah McNeill that Zaya is too young to understand her own gender identity, Cardi continued: “But it’s like, how old is too young?
If you were born thinking that you are a girl in a boy’s body, how old do you have to be to keep knowing that that’s who you are?
“That’s who you are. That’s your identity. If that’s who you feel that you are, how old – what is the age limit for you to know that that’s what you want to be?”
Though Zaya has attracted a number of small-minded critics since her father Dwyane told the world she identifies as trans, she has also received a huge outpouring of love.
Dwyane has revealed that the cast of Pose has been helping the family learn more about pronouns and using the correct terminology.
The gay basketball legend Jason Collins has also been in touch with Zaya’s step-mother Gabrielle Union.
He told Yahoo Sports that he was “just so proud” of the entire family, adding: “They need to write a parenting book, because they will help so many families across the world.”
Cardi B admits she used to make transphobic remarks before educating herself.
Cardi B has previously acknowledged using derogatory terms before realising the hurt they caused.
In a series of since-deleted tweets from October 2019, the rapper said: “I’m not transphobic. Ya love dragging that. Have I said some remarks in the past that I apologised for YES I’m from a place that people have closed mindsets so we might now [know what] insults other or not I never disrespected no trans nor nobody from LGBT.”
She stressed that she has supported two people on her “glam team” during their transitions, and underlined the fact that she identifies as bisexual in response to a claim that she “needs the gays”.
A year earlier, Cardi had given a similar apology for using the “tranny”, explaining that she “didn’t know that was a work you cannot use”.
“Especially because my trans friends use it and growing up, my parents never told me that that was a bad word,” she said in a live Twitter video.
“You know, there’s bad words that your parents teach you that you’re not supposed to say. Nobody taught us that. Nobody taught us that in our school.”
During the stream, Cardi also defended her husband Offset, after he rapped: “I do not vibe with queers, I got the heart of a bear, I bust ’em down by the pair,” in a 2017 track.
“I’m not gonna let somebody call him homophobic when I know that he’s not,” she said.
“I’m saying this because I see him around gays, and he treats them with the same respect he treats everybody. He never acts uncomfortable, and he just don’t care.”
Offset also apologised for the lyric, claiming he understood queer to mean “lame people who film you, post it and stalk you”, rather than people who are LGBT+.