Denver's Queer Parents Aren't Worried About ABBA

The video arrived on the internet last week like clockwork: a pregnant woman joking that she hoped her child would be "a little gay," and within hours, conservative media outlets were howling about the collapse of Western civilization. The clip sparked the predictable cycle of fury, thinkpieces, and breathless warnings that somehow, someway, parental hope could rewire a child's sexual orientation like a light switch. In Denver, the reaction was mostly eye-rolling. Local LGBTQ parents and their allies know what the science has said for decades: sexual orientation isn't something that gets installed through musical preference, parental wishing, or environmental exposure. Yet the viral panic reveals something worth examining—not whether playing ABBA to a fetus will produce a gay child, but why so many people remain convinced that queerness is something that happens *to* you rather than something you *are*. Denver's queer community, now in its fifth decade of sustained visibility, has watched this particular anxiety resurface repeatedly. The concern isn't new. It's the soundtrack that changes. In the 1980s, it was supposedly the gay agenda in schools. In the 1990s, it was Ellen coming out on television. Now it's a woman with a sense of humor and a TikTok account. The viral video actually illustrates something more interesting than the homophobes realized: a parent expressing openness to her child's authentic self, whatever that self might be. That's not indoctrination. That's the opposite of indoctrination. That's a parent saying, "I'll love you no matter what." Denver's LGBTQ families have spent decades making that same declaration in a state that, until relatively recently, wasn't always eager to listen. Colorado didn't repeal its sodomy law until 2003—sixteen years after the Supreme Court had already signaled the direction of constitutional law. Denver itself didn't establish a domestic partnership ordinance until 2005. Marriage equality didn't arrive until the Supreme Court forced the issue in 2015. Those weren't ancient history. They're recent enough that people currently raising teenagers in Denver remember when legal recognition of their relationships didn't exist. What's shifted, at least in Denver proper, is a kind of exhausted acceptance that queer people exist, that queer families exist, and that none of this requires explanation or justification. The panic about parental influence misses the actual story: the generational difference in how openly parents can express support for their LGBTQ children without fear of legal or social consequence. A woman joking on the internet about hoping her kid is "a little gay" would have been unthinkable in most American contexts thirty years ago. Not because the sentiment didn't exist—plenty of parents loved their queer kids then too—but because saying it publicly would have invited genuine danger. That she can say it now, that it can go viral, that it can spark debate rather than lead to immediate social exile, represents a genuine shift in what's possible. Yet the conservative response to the video reveals how much anxiety still attaches to the idea of parental acceptance. The implication in their outrage is that parental openness to queerness is somehow corrupting, that a child needs to be protected from the knowledge that being gay is something a loving parent might celebrate. Denver parents—queer and straight alike—have largely moved past that framework. The city's school district includes LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. Several elementary schools in Denver have hosted Pride celebrations. Local organizations like PFLAG Denver have operated in the area for decades, helping families navigate the process of supporting their queer children. None of this has turned Colorado's children gay. What it has done is create an environment where some kids feel less alone, where some parents feel less confused, and where the possibility exists that a young person might figure out their identity without waiting until adulthood to do so. The real scandal, if there is one, is that this remains controversial anywhere. That a parent's hope for their child's happiness—regardless of how that child identifies—still provokes national freakouts says more about the people doing the freaking than about the parents doing the hoping. Denver's queer community has learned to live with these cycles of panic. They arrive with predictable regularity, sparked by celebrities, TikTok videos, or whatever cultural moment has briefly captured national attention. The response is usually the same: a collective shrug from people who have actual lives to live, families to raise, and relationships to nurture. The viral video will disappear from the discourse soon enough. Something else will trigger the next round of conservative anxiety. But in Denver, where queer families have spent decades building lives and raising children in a city that has, however imperfectly, learned to accept them, the joke was always obvious: parents don't make their kids gay. Kids are just gay sometimes. And in an increasingly accepting Denver, that's becoming less of a scandal and more of a fact. The real question isn't whether ABBA can turn a child gay. It's why anyone still thought it mattered if it could.