Gabrielle Union Says Her Family Tries To Create A Safe Space For Daughter Zaya, But Admits As A Queer Person “she has to fight every day to be seen, to be loved, to be nurtured”

Gabrielle Union Opens Up About Real-Life Parenthood & Portraying A Mother Who Rejects Her Gay Son In Upcoming Film ‘The Inspection’

Gabrielle Union has a new film coming, and her on-screen role is nothing like the one she plays in real life.

Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection is based on his own heartbreaking story of a young, gay Black man who joins the Marines and does whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would otherwise reject him. It stars Gabrielle Union and Jeremy Pope.

Gabrielle Union said it was particularly challenging to separate being a mother, producer, and performer because Elegance Bratton‘s mother passed away during filming.

“As a mother, I just wanna be part of healing for a child. I wanted to be there as a mother except that wasn’t my job and it was kind of difficult to separate me as a mother, me as a producer and me as an actor because I just wanted to hold him. I just wanted to make everything OK as most mothers want. But I had a job to do and I had to stay focused on the task at hand.”

She added,

“There were times it felt cruel but that is the truth of the story and it was our job to tell the truth. But I also needed to find her compassion and find common ground that we share. I used to be a judger of my characters and I would act out that judgment on screen and here, I didn’t want to do that. I needed to know that there is some kind of common ground that we could find and that is the fact that we’ve both been willing to sacrifice things that are very important to us — whether that be our children, whether that be our scruples and, at times in my life, my soul, for an opportunity, for money, for a relationship, for access, to be seen, to be chosen — we will all barter with something and just because bartering with my children was not my ministry, I still found that common ground.”

Playing the role of a mother who rejected her child for being himself was a significantly different experience for Union. She and husband Dwyane Wade have four children together: Kaavia James, 4, Zaire, 20, Zaya, 15, and Xavier, 8.

Union has been extremely honest with her fans about her journey to motherhood, admitting how it wasn’t an easy process. The actress previously disclosed in her autobiography, “We’re Going to Need More Wine,” that she had nine miscarriages and three years of fruitless IVF procedures. She and Dwyane Wade eventually decided to have a baby via surrogate, leading to Kaavia‘s birth in 2018.

Since the family presented Zaya (previously Zion) to the world in February 2020, the couple and the rest of the family have established themselves as highly well-known celebrities who support the LGBTQ+ community. During the interview, Union opened up about creating a safe space for the transgender child.

She said,

“Zaya’s still a child of this world and we try to create a loving safe bubble in our home, in her school and community with our extended family but she’s still a queer person in this country, in this world and she has to fight every day to be seen, to be loved, to be nurtured, to be thought of as worthy. I’m glad that [fans get] a snippet of the joy that exists but always know that it is a struggle, and she is not completely unlike Elegance in the sense of the yearning for loved ones to see them and love them completely without condition.”

The Wade‘s are currently in the middle of a battle with Zaya‘s birth mother, Siohvaughn Funches, who is accusing the basketball athlete of exploiting their child for financial gain. She wants the courts to prohibit Zaya’s “name and gender change” until she turns 18.

Union added that Kaavia has taught her that you can have all the hopes and ambitions for your children, but they are who they are and, as a mother, it’s your job to love and teach them and try to give them the world. It’s a message that likely applies to her relationship with Zaya as well.

The Inspection will be in theaters starting on Nov. 18.

What are your thoughts on what Gabrielle Union shared? Let us know in the comments!

[VIA]