By all accounts, Phillip Phillips’ hit song “Home” is nothing but wholesome. But a recent trend on TikTok has warped it to give a new, queerphobic meaning: kicking out LGBTQ+ children.
The chorus of “Home” ends with the phrase, “I’m gonna make this place your home.” In Phillips’ song, it’s a sweet, simple message of belonging. But for the trend, prospective parents are joking that if their kids come out as queer, they’ll give them a new home: an adoption center or a mental institution.
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If the trend is supposed to be a joke, it’s not a funny one. As reported by the Trevor Project, 28% of LGBTQ+ youth have experienced homelessness or housing instability, while 14% have slept away from their parents or caregivers because they were kicked out or abandoned (with 40% of that demographic having been kicked out or abandoned due to their queer identity).
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Thankfully, other folks on TikTok pushed back on the trend with their own videos. One viral response reads, “This trend would be a whole lot funnier if there weren’t actual queer kids in [foster care] as we speak [whose] parents didn’t want them for this reason.”
Others borrowed the trend’s structure, but ended with pictures of homes rather than mental institutions. “[Y’all] are so weird for having conditions on your love for your child,” one user wrote. “I’d rather have my son than lose my daughter forever.”
Another user pointed out that parenthood isn’t about molding a child to your image, but supporting them in their own identity. “You guys are aware that you’re not [guaranteed] what kind of child you’re gonna get right? That’s part of what you sign up for when you become a parent,” they wrote. “Putting hypothetical circumstances on the love you have for your child is weird.”
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