Parenting is never easy, but doing it under the glare of the spotlight comes with unique challenges. For celebrity parents, some of the most personal moments in their children’s lives often become public.
That was recently the case for Jennifer Lopez after reports emerged that one of her twins had come out as transgender and was using a new name.
Lopez is far from the first high-profile parent to raise a transgender child. Over the past decade, many celebrities have spoken openly about the experience, sharing both the joys and challenges of supporting their kids.
Some have used their platforms to advocate for greater understanding and acceptance, while others have simply emphasized the importance of listening to and respecting their children’s identities.
From actors and musicians to television personalities and activists, here are 10 other celebrities who have publicly supported and celebrated their transgender children.
#1 Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez’s two children, whom she had in 2008 with then-husband Marc Anthony, graduated from Windward School in Los Angeles on May 29, 2026.
The Dance Again singer attended the ceremony with her mother, Guadalupe Rodríguez, and her ex-husband Ben Affleck’s son (with Jennifer Garner), Samuel Affleck. Anthony was not seen at the celebration.
Days later, an Instagram account unaffiliated with the school started sharing the college plans of Windward School graduates. Among them was Lopez and Anthony’s son Oskar Muñiz, who was previously known by a different name.
The now-deleted post shared a childhood photo of Oskar’s and claimed that he would be attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York City next, pursuing a degree in Theater and Studio Arts.
The post had tagged a private Instagram account whose profile picture is a photo of Oskar. The account’s bio features the symbols representing transgender identity (⚧︎) and male homosexuality (⚣) and reveals that the owner uses he/him pronouns.
The post was liked by Garner.
Lopez has been referring to Oskar using gender neutral pronouns (they/them) since 2022, but has yet to publicly talk about her son’s coming out.
However, she has recently talked about her children becoming adults and leaving home. She admitted on Jimmy Kimmel Live! during a May 2026 appearance, she said she had been “crying for two months” over it.
In another interview with Extra, she said that Oskar and her other son, Max, were accepted to all five colleges they applied to, and both received scholarships to their schools of choice.
“They have ADHD, and so they learn differently, and there were struggles and times, and I’m just so proud of them because they did what they said they were gonna do, and they’re good people,” Lopez said. “They’re loving, good-hearted people.”
Image source: jlo/Instagram, OliLondonTV/X
#2 Adjoa Andoh
British actress Adjoa Andoh and author Howard Cunnell’s son, Liam, now in his late 20s, came out as transgender in his early teens.
Over the years, the Bridgerton actress, who plays Lady Agatha Danbury on the hit Netflix show, has spoken about raising a transgender child several times, including at a TEDx Talk in December 2014.
“My son is a walking manifestation of substance dualism,” Andoh said on the stage.
The idea of substance dualism, or mind-body dualism, was first formulated by the Renaissance-era French philosopher and scientist René Descartes, who held that the mind is a nonphysical, non-spatial substance concerned with human consciousness and self-awareness, distinct from the physical brain, which is the seat of intelligence.
“Looking out at a reflection of himself and seeing a girl’s body staring back at him, an image his brain reports as faithful, but his mind, knowing it to be the wrong image, revolts against — a mind trapped in a wrong body,” Andoh continued.
“So, as a family, we’re following our son’s mind, and bearing witness to his mind’s assertion that he is indeed a boy — a boy in his behavior and tastes from his earliest childhood.”
She went on to describe how Liam suffered from “loneliness and isolation” when puberty hit, and it was “heartbreaking” for her to witness. It was watching the BBC documentary, The Boy Who Was Born a Girl, that helped him find the language to understand and explain the gender dysphoria he was experiencing.
Andoh’s TEDx talk drew heartfelt reactions from the queer community at large.
“Such a powerful love letter to her son, the LGBTQ community, and us all. Bravo!” one person had said. Another wrote, “Ma’am, I came here after watching Bridgerton, and as a trans son myself, this almost made me cry. Thank you for this. I can’t describe how much it means.”
In a 2014 interview with The Royal Gazette, Andoh advocated for a stronger support system for transgender youths.
“I think whichever way around you are transitioning — from female to male, or male to female — there is the opportunity for you to be ab*sed and excluded,” she said.
In December 2022, she reiterated her warning in a conversation with Red Magazine.
“Self-h*rm and de*th among young trans people are disproportionately high,” she said. “Why on earth are we creating a society that means people feel so reviled and unallowable that they would rather end their lives?”
“For me, your gig as a parent is to raise your child up, keep them from falling under a bus, and teach them to do unto others. I’m a mother, and I want all my children to thrive; it’s a no-brainer.”
Image source: adjoa.andoh/Instagram, Dave Benett/Getty Images
#3 Tia Carrere
True Lies and Lilo & Stitch actress Tia Carrere revealed in May 2025 that her son Jude, then 19, had come out as transgender. She had him in 2005 with her ex-husband, Simon Wakelin. He was previously known to the public as Bianca.
Carrere called Jude, who has made several public and red carpet appearances with his mother, an introvert.
“He doesn’t love the spotlight,” Carrere told People magazine. “He’s more introverted, so he definitely won’t go into acting or singing as I did.”
“But he’s a great artist. I don’t know what he’ll do! Maybe become a doctor or work with animals. He’s working with animals right now.”
“He’s very matter-of-fact,” she added. “He knows who he is, and he’s very happy.”
She playfully patted herself on the back a bit for raising a son who was a good person and a great friend.
“He’s such a sweetheart, he’s like the therapist to all the other kids,” she said. “When his friends go out drinking or partying too hard, he’s always the designated driver, that kind of caring friend you can always lean on.”
“I did a good job with that. But I don’t want to congratulate myself too much! He’s his own person!”
Carrere spoke about Jude earlier in 2023 as well, praising him for his individuality and ability to stand out in a crowd.
Describing Jude as a “hippie kid” who loved “going to Goodwill,” Carrere said, “I’m really thankful that I think, somehow, I had a hand in making a child that doesn’t feel like [he] has to fit in with everybody else, doesn’t feel like [he] has to wear the same clothes, do the same thing. [He]’s a real individual.”
Image source: tiacarrere/Instagram, Tommaso Boddi/ Getty Images
#4 Jennifer Garner And Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s 17-year-old middle child, Fin, previously known to the public as Seraphina Rose, came out at a memorial service in April 2024. Fin uses they/them pronouns.
The funeral was for Garner’s father, William Jack Garner. It took place at Christ Church United Methodist in Charleston, West Virginia, and was live-streamed on Facebook.
Fin showed up in a black pantsuit, a white shirt, and a black tie, sporting a buzz-cut hairstyle, and introduced themselves by their new name for the first time in public. They went on to read a bible verse to the gathering.
“Hello, my name is Fin Affleck,” they said, and then read out Chapter 16, Verse 8 from the Book of Proverbs: “Better is a little with righteousness, than a large income with injustice.”
Netizens speculated that the teen had already come out as transgender when photos of them with their mother, Garner, went viral in February. In the pictures, the child was carrying a backpack with “FIN” written in white.
Affleck and Garner married in 2005, split in 2015, and finalized their divorce in 2018. Their oldest is Violet Anne, 20, and their youngest is Samuel, 14. Fin is close with their siblings as well as the children of Jennifer Lopez, whom Affleck married in 2022.
Lopez’s 18-year-old son Oskar, who also came out as transgender during his graduation last month, shares a close relationship with Fin. The two have been spotted together out in public in Los Angeles.
While Affleck and Garner have not publicly commented about their kid coming out, the Love, Simon actress spoke about how she was raising her kids with “open lines of communication” when it came to gender identity or s*xuality.
Image source: Jeff Vespa/Getty Images, OliLondonTV/X
#5 Tommy Davidson
In 2024, actor and comedian Tommy Davidson admitted that while he immediately accepted when his child, Jerzey Saint Wilson, came out as transgender at 15, it took him a while to adjust to the idea of having a son instead of a daughter.
In an appearance on the Touré Show, Davidson said that he had been exposed to the LGBTQ+ community since childhood: “I knew trans people growing up, and my brother is gay.”
“Trans people are aligning with who they really are,” he said. “They are not changing, but outwardly it looks like they are changing. It took me a while to wrap my mind around that.”
“My wife [Desiree Davidson] and I had a child. We found out that the child was a girl, so we prepared for what a girl is to us,” Davidson added.
He also said that he occasionally struggles with Jerzey’s pronouns and unintentionally deadnames him.
“It doesn’t make me a bad guy,” Davidson insisted. “I’m still adjusting.”
Earlier in the interview, the In Living Color star said his mother instilled in him an acceptance of nonconformist identities.
“I saw a man who acted like a woman and kinda looked like a woman but kinda was a man,” Davidson said, recollecting a childhood memory. I asked my mother, and she gave me the perfect answer.”
“I asked, ‘What is he? Is he a man or a woman?’ She said, ‘You know what, honey, he’s kinda both.’”
“What she did was condition me not to reject others, not to reject someone that was not like me,” he explained, stressing that it was important for him to hear it put in such simple terms as a kid.
Image source: DCP Entertainment/YouTube, jerzey.saint/Instagram
#6 Robert De Niro
In March 2025, paparazzi and tabloids outed Robert De Niro’s daughter, Airyn, after she stepped out in pink locs and heels to meet her father. However, she regained control of the narrative in a tell-all interview with Them magazine a month later, in which she discussed her transition.
Ayrin, previously known to the media as Aaron, and her twin brother Julian were born to Raging Bull actor and actress Toukie Smith in 1995 through surrogacy.
Ayrin told the outlet that she was ostracized by her peers while growing up, both for her feminine mannerisms and bigger-bodied appearance.
Even after she came out as a “gay man” in high school, she felt like she did not fit into the mold of existing beauty standards. She said she felt “unwanted” and “undesirable.” Witnessing other trans women open up about their journeys made her realize, as an adult, that she could follow in their footsteps.
After coming out, she was worried about her family’s reaction: “I think part of me is concerned that [my family] will maybe still think of me as the person I was before the transition.”
However, she had nothing to worry about.
In a statement to Variety in April 2025, De Niro said, “I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Ayrin as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is. I love all my children.”
De Niro earned widespread praise, especially from the trans community, for his vocal support of his daughter.
“Before anyone says, ‘Duh, this should be the bare minimum,’ this is a tremendously progressive and loving stance for someone 81 years of age,” one user said.
In October, Ayrin admitted to Them that her father’s support had been “nonstop” ever since she came out, and that she was “grateful” for it.
“I talked to him about it very recently, and I told him I wanted to do some touch-ups here and there, just so I can feel more confident in myself,” the 30-year-old said.
“The way he spoke to me about it was very affirming in a way, because he was saying things like, ‘You’re a good-looking kid. You don’t need to do anything to change yourself.’”
“But I explained it to him from the perspective of a trans woman, especially one who started transitioning late — like, I didn’t develop the way that a cis woman does, that’s why I’m more interested in doing some procedures to make me feel at home in my body,” Ayrin recollected her conversation with her father.
“He understood that perspective, and he was accepting. He just really wants me to be careful and know where I’m going. So, he says, like, I don’t need it. But he supports me if I want to do that, which is the best thing any trans kid could ask for from their parent.”
As a mixed-race aspiring model and voice actor studying to become a mental health counselor, Ayrin’s goal is to advance mental health advocacy and community support for people of color and the LGBTQ community.
Image source: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube, airyndeniro/Instagram
#7 Naomi Watts And Liev Schreiber
Actors Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber had two children during their 11-year relationship — Sasha in 2007 and Kai in 2008 — before splitting in 2016. They remain friends and are often spotted co-parenting their kids.
Now 17, Kai never had a formal, grand coming-out event, but had been femme-representing since childhood and transitioned during her teenage years.
Liev Schreiber publicly discussed her gender journey and pronoun change in May 2025.
“Kai was always who Kai is,” the Ray Donovan actor told Variety. “But I suppose the most profound moment was her asking us to change her pronouns. To be honest with you, it didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me, only because Kai had been so feminine for so long.”
“Kai is such a fighter,” he added. “It’s important that she goes, ‘Hey, I am trans,’ and, ‘Look at me.’”
While his own experience with Kai had been bumpless, Liev admitted he is hesitant to dish out advice to other trans parents.
“I don’t know the answer for your kid,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like for you to be a trans dad. I don’t know how you were brought up. I don’t know what religion you encountered or what your spirituality is. And for me to tell you what I think about my kid feels like an overstep.”
He lightheartedly added that “teenagers are a headache” regardless of their gender: “They’re such a pain so much of the time, and Kai is as feisty and outspoken as they come.”
Liev’s words resonated with the LGBTQ sphere, and many said they wished they had received a similar response from their parents when they came out.
“Good parenting from him. It’s not that hard to just love your kids,” one netizen reacted to Liev’s comments. Another said, “I wish I had a dad like this. Good on him.”
Liev, Kai, and the rest of their family work closely with the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit that provides housing and support for homeless LGBTQ youth.
Kai, who made her runway debut for Valentino in March 2025, wants to become a supermodel and has been practicing her walks in the kitchen for years, she told Interview magazine in June 2025. She walked at the New York and Paris Fashion Weeks last year.
“Struggling with gender identity from a young age most likely had something to do with it,” she said. “I always wanted to grow up and be a beautiful, glamorous, influential woman, like Marilyn [Monroe].”
Image source: Todd Williamson/Getty Images, kaischreiberrr/Instagram
#8 Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron, who had always wanted to adopt, brought home Jackson in 2012 and August in 2015.
“I was always aware that there are so many children in this world who don’t have families… I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something. This was always my first choice, even when I was in a relationship,” she told Elle magazine in 2018.
She admitted that it was often a lot for her parent by herself, even though her mother, Gerda, helped. But she never regretted the decision.
A year later, Theron revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that she was raising Jackson, who was adopted as a boy, as a girl. The then-seven-year-old had already been photographed wearing skirts and dresses, sporting long, braided hair.
“Yes, I thought she was a boy, too, until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’” Theron said. “So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive.”
“They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be is not for me to decide,” she added.
“My job as a parent is to celebrate them, to love them, and to make sure they have everything they need to be what they want to be. And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that.”
The way she is raising her daughters has a lot to do with her own childhood, Theron revealed. She had grown up in conservative spheres of South Africa during the Apartheid era, and her father passed away when her mother fired at him in self-defense.
“You know, I grew up in a country where people lived with half-truths and lies and whispers, and nobody said anything outright, and I was raised very specifically not to be like that,” she said.
While she refuses to elaborate on Jackson’s personal gender journey, she told Pride Source magazine in 2019 that it was important to her that the press used the right pronoun for her.
“I think it became harder for us the older she got, that people were still writing about her in the wrong pronouns, and also I was still talking about her in the press using the wrong pronoun,” she said. “It really hurt her feelings.”
As an actress, Theron has portrayed multiple queer characters onscreen and has often advocated for LGBTQ rights.
Image source: charlizeafrica/Instagram
#9 Mel B
Born in April 2007, Angel, the child of former Spice Girl Mel B (Melanie Brown) and actor-comedian Eddie Murphy, changed pronouns to he/him on social media after turning 18 in 2025.
While neither Mel nor Murphy has publicly spoken about Angel’s transition, insiders told the Daily Mail last year that both were fully supportive.
“It’s a decision Angel made, and Mel has been understanding, likewise Eddie,” a source told the magazine. “There was no big event to mark it. Angel just wanted it to be known what pronouns are now suitable.”
Mel wrote a heartfelt message for Angel on his 18th birthday.
“Happy birthday to my Angel,” she wrote. “I cannot believe you are 18. You are so special, and so bright and so talented! I couldn’t be prouder of watching you grow and become the person you are, but you’ll forever be my baby.”
“I hope you keep chasing your dreams and be kind to everyone around you like you always have been, my Angel. Love you always.”
Angel was the subject of a high-profile paternity debacle after his birth.
After the couple’s whirlwind romance in 2006, Mel fell pregnant and said Murphy was the father. Murphy famously cast doubt on the claim, saying, “I don’t know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test.”
Following a paternity suit filed by Melanie and a DNA test, Murphy acknowledged fatherhood and came to a $35,000 child support settlement with Mel in 2009. They have been amicable ever since, according to reports.
During a 2019 appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, Mel said that Murphy “apologizes to this day” about initially denying paternity.
“He wishes he had never said it because that baby was planned; we planned that baby together, and we were madly in love, and it just went wrong, dramatically went wrong,” she said.
Mel has two more kids — Phoenix Brown with first ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar and Madison Brown with second ex-husband Stephen Belafonte. None of the three allegedly cares that she used to be a Spice Girl, she told Morgan.
Murphy has ten children in total, including Angel.
Image source: officialmelb/Instagram
#10 Marlon Wayans
Actor-comedian Marlon Wayans’ oldest child, whom he had with ex-girlfriend Angelica Zachary in 2000, came out as transgender in November 2023.
Wayans himself made the news public during an appearance on The Breakfast Club, revealing that his child, previously known to the media as Amai, had “transitioned into a son” and now goes by Kai.
“As a parent, I just want my kids to be free. I want them to be free in spirit, free in thought, free to be themselves … The more you live your truth, the happier your existence,” Wayans said. “And I’m just so proud of them for being them.”
He also revealed that he was working on a new stand-up set centering on Kai’s transition and his own “my transition as a parent going from ignorance and denial to complete unconditional love and acceptance.”
“I think there are a lot of parents out there that need to have that message,” he said.
In September 2024, Wayans blasted Elon Musk for his estranged relationship with his trans daughter Vivian, who came out in 2022 and has since said she wants to have nothing to do with her billionaire father.
Musk told Jordan Peterson in an interview that he lost his “son” and “he” was “k*lled by the woke mind virus.”
“I don’t like what he be saying about his trans child, that made me mad,” Wayans said on the Club Shay Shay podcast. “You don’t treat them babies like that. You don’t disown your baby. Love your child!”
In the same episode, he admitted that while Kai’s transition was difficult for him at first, he got over it and stepped up for his son.
“As hard as it was, I think that it’s not important. It’s important what you went through; the five steps of grief, but I think it’s important that you get to acceptance,” Wayans said. “And I’m proud to say it took me a week. And it felt like forever, it felt like five years.”
“I’m proud that I got there in a week. I’m sad to say that for some parents and family members, it will take them a lifetime, and they’ll never get to that magical place I’m at, which is just acceptance. It’s still my child, man. That’s my baby.”
In a January 2026 appearance on the We In Miami podcast, Wayans touched on the subject once again.
“You’re supposed to align yourself with your children because you want your children ultimately to be happy,” he said, addressing the parents who refuse to accept their kids as they are. “You can’t beat gay out of someone. You can’t hypnotize someone not to be transgender. You just gotta accept and love them.”
Image source: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube, marlonwayans/Instagram
#11 Gabrielle Union And Dwyane Wade
NBA veteran Dwayne Wade’s 19-year-old kid, Zaya, whom he had with ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches, came out as a trans girl when she was 12.
However, Wade and his current wife, actress-model Gabrielle Union, began to notice signs that Zaya might be “different” as early as age 3.
In a 2021 conversation with People magazine, the couple admitted that they were scared they would “mess up” and “say the wrong thing,” but they reached out to everyone who could help and went on a learning curve.
Today, both are vocal activists in the LGBTQ+ community through their Wade Family Foundation.
“Our home will never be a safe space for bigots,” Union said.
“What I love about our home is that everybody is unique. And we allow their uniqueness to shine,” Wade added.
“It’s our job to be loving, compassionate, protective guides for our children, but their lives are their lives, and we have to respect that,” Union told BuzzFeed in 2022 when asked about her stepdaughter’s journey. “We do not believe in any kind of shaming for existing. That is bizarre, cruel, and harmful.”
However, in a 2025 interview with Marie Claire, she said she believes her and Wade’s parenting was not “revolutionary or groundbreaking,” but simply how it should be: “It just feels like common sense, kindness, compassion. All the things that you wish your parents showed you when there’s some aspect of your life or your personality that may not fit down the middle of the road.”
“It’s who my child was born to be, who her soul dictates she is. It’s my job to keep her safe and protected and educated and loved; and I can love her up in such a way that she can find a community that exists outside of us for the rest of her life.”
Image source: zayawade/Instagram
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