Author: Amelia Zeve
The Disney child actor turned lesbian icon, who changed my life: a tale as old as time
Hayley Kiyoko changed my life.
I say that often, about things big and little—it’s common for me to quip anything from phrases like “wow, I just had the most incredible self-evaluative journey and discovered things I never knew about myself… that changed my life!” to things like “man, that [arguably mediocre] breakfast burrito… that changed my life.” It’s a phrase I overuse, which understates the value when I actually mean it. And so, in this instance, I just want to make it overwhelmingly, extravagantly clear:
I mean it.
Like so many queer girls before me, Hayley Kiyoko was one of the first times I’d ever seen myself reflected in media. I’ve talked in past articles about my experiences in seeing other sapphic ladies in movies and TV shows, but I never thought music was a realm in which I’d find girls loving other girls too. To me, music seemed bold, unapologetic, and brave. It seemed… untouchable for queer people, or at least queer people like me. At that point in time, I was closeted, afraid, and, honestly? Really alone in my battle with my sexuality.
So, during one of my very standard YouTube binge sessions in my second year of high school, I was powering through suggested video after suggested videos when suddenly, something on the sidebar caught my eye. The name of a video that resonated with me, pinched something deep down inside my gut, but not a video title I had ever seen before. I blinked at the screen. Could that be right? Did it really say “Girls Like Girls” – Hayley Kiyoko? I had to be sure. So I played the video.
And the feeling I had in that moment, the trepidation and anxiety and fear mingling with so much longing and and recognition and so much damn hope,is what I say when I mean Hayley Kiyoko changed my life.
It was a gut-punch feeling back then, watching that video, and it still is now. Thinking back to how it felt to be curled up on my bed, wrapped in a blanket with headphones in so nobody in my family could hear that the lyrics were (gasp) GAY, crying buckets because I’d never felt valid like that before. I was a girl who liked girls… like boys do. Nothin’ new.
The music video for “Girls Like Girls” was a gut-punch for me, too. A girl falling in (at-first) unrequited love with her best friend? Too real of a mood. Thinking about that song, and that video, and how it felt to watch them for the first time, gives me a wash of chills every time. I came back to that song after every heartbreak, every up and down, every long sunset drive where I’d blast it with the windows down and just try to figure out who the hell I was. Like so many of Hayley’s fans, I spent so much of my early life in the dark of a metaphorical closet, feeling so alone until I found her. And I know it sounds so cheesy, I know how cliche it sounds. But it’s just one of those feelings that’s so raw and vulnerable and special to me that I wouldn’t want to change it or edit it at all. And for so many other people, for so many other girls who like girls, that song hits in the same vulnerable parts of their heart, too.
So, Hayley, this is my love letter—this is ourlove letter. I speak for so many people, people who used your music and your identity to feel comfortable in who they are, and so many people who are listening to your music right now, emotional af,trying to fit the pieces of who they are together. On all your social medias, you go on about how grateful you are for your fans, but the reality is we’re more than just grateful for you. Your music taught us to be loud, unapologetic, confident, taught us not to change. So, thank you. Generations of girls who like girls will find solace in your music, find solace in you.
Hayley Kiyoko will be stopping in Seattle, at a sold-out show at the Showbox. She’ll be here on Thursday, April 19th (aka the second coming of our Lesbian Jesus!). The event is all-ages. And if you’re ready to be surrounded by sobbing queer people for an entire evening, than this is your event. Hayley Kiyoko will be stopping in Seattle as one of the stops off her “Expectations” tour, following her debut album.
AMELIA ZEVE | #sorrynotsorry this got so emotional | KXSU Arts Reporter