Robert De Niro's daughter shares the advice he gave before she transitioned

When Airyn De Niro announced her transition at the end of April, she did it on her own terms, with beautiful pink locs and a conversation with Conde Nast’s magazine Them. She didn’t have the opportunity to do so publicly before that.

Airyn, at 30, is an “aspiring model and voice actor studying to be a mental health counselor,” Them shares. She actively chooses to keep a low profile–her parents are actors Robert De Niro and Toukie Smith–and they made a mindful choice to raise her “out of the limelight,” she says, which she also says she has been grateful for. They wished she could have “as much of a normal childhood as possible,” she said. And Airyn has sought to earn her way in the world on her own merits. But when a tabloid commented on her recent appearance and misgendered her, she wanted to take back her narrative. With the support of her parents, she says, everything has been much easier.

After the Them article came out, Airyn made a statement thanking everyone for their support, her parents included. She’s not quite so used to being in the public eye, she said, but wanted to express her gratitude just the same. “I also want to say thank you to my mom and dad for supporting me and accepting me, and always being there when I need them,” she said. “I could not have asked for better parents.”

Robert De Niro made a public statement supporting Airyn and her journey as well. “I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is,” De Niro told Variety. “I love all my children.”

As Airyn has said, this is par for the course. “With my dad, he’s like, ‘If you want to live your life as a woman, that’s fine.’ There’s no problem with it. He’s a very much [a] live and let live guy,” she told PinkNews.

The elder De Niro’s support didn’t end there, either–the actor also offered to go with his daughter to medical appointments when she was beginning to take hormones, and had some advice for his daughter as she moved forward: “He was just like, ‘Just make sure you watch over your health and you’re going to somebody who knows what they’re doing,’” Airyn told PinkNews, adding that the actor is “very big on the health and safety of his family.”

As much as something like this has become news, it’s also wild that it is. Parents are supposed to love their children unconditionally. Just the same, Robert De Niro and Toukie Smith have become among the many celebrity parents actively showing up for their trans and nonbinary children in the press as they live their truths, along with the likes of Cynthia Nixon, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade, Charlize Theron, and Sting, Them shares. In doing so, they help set an example of what supportive parenting looks like.

It’s heartening to know that as Airyn traverses the world, she will have the support of the people closest to her, too. Which is how it should be.