HAYLEY KIYOKO

Hayley Kiyoko is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. Kiyoko identifies as a lesbian. Her music is focused on her story and emotions she's experienced while coming to terms with her identity. The "This Side of Paradise" music video focused on her struggles with expressing her true self and the "Gravel to Tempo" music video draws on her experiences with having crushes on girls while growing up. In a 2016 interview, she expressed her frustration about not connecting to people the way she wanted.

When Lily May-Young, one of the co-writers for "Girls Like Girls", asked Kiyoko about something about herself that no one knew and she was afraid to sing about, Kiyoko wanted to sing about the fact that she likes girls, but was struggling to be out about that. Through her music, Hayley works to normalize lesbian relationships in a society and music industry that she sees as being very heteronormative: "If you see two girls falling in love and normalizing that, then [people] can go, 'I can fall in love, too. I can be that person. I can look like that. I can get a girl that looks like that.' If they see that, then they can believe it. It's just how we are."

After seeing the impact her music has on her fans, Hayley regretted not being open about her sexuality sooner.

Since publicly coming out, Hayley has been an advocate for LGBT rights. For Pride Month 2017, Kiyoko partnered with MeUndies to promote their "Celebrate" campaign. Each pair of underwear sold had a portion of the profit donated to the Los Angeles LGBT Center. In 2018, Kiyoko critiqued Rita Ora's song, "Girls", for its depiction of same-sex attraction and harmful implications for the LGBT community. After 78 bras were thrown at Kiyoko during the Expectations Tour, she and Neara Russell donated them to I Support The Girls, an organization which supports homeless women, to support homeless LGBT youth. In her acceptance speech for Push Artist of the Year at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, Kiyoko dedicated her win to queer women of color. She marched in a Pride parade for the first time, attending the 2019 World Pride Parade in New York City as the float ambassador for W Hotels Worldwide.

Hayley Kiyoko is a Certified Proud Icon due to her mission to normalise queer relationships in the mainstream media industry.