LGBTQ stars offer messages of inclusion
Young artists show there’s never been a better time to be out and proud
It’s #20GayTeen, and LGBTQ artists are thriving in the spotlight. ❚ At last week’s MTV Music Video Awards, pop newcomer Hayley Kiyoko tearfully accepted Push Artist of the Year, which is chosen from MTV’s monthly featured “push artists.” She dedicated it to her fellow queer women of color and shouted out the above hashtag in her speech. Bisexual singer Halsey scored a top-5 hit in January with “Bad at Love,” which references male and female lovers, while Troye Sivan is currently climbing the charts with latest single “Bloom,” which is less than subtle in its allusions to gay sex. ❚ And with other queer up-and-comers including Kehlani, King Princess and Years & Years’ Olly Alexander cultivating huge fan bases on social media, there’s never been a better time to be out and proud in music.
“There’s always been LGBTQ people making music, but they just have not been able to be out,” says Jeffrey Masters, host of podcast LGBTQ&A. “This is the first crop of musicians who are openly queer and paving the way for younger kids to come up, because people like Hayley Kiyoko are leading the charge.”
Kiyoko, 27, first broke out in 2015 with viral hit “Girls Like Girls,” whose video depicts a girl stealing a guy’s girlfriend. She released her debut album, “Expectations,” in March, which explores LGBTQ themes on songs such as “Curious” – a deceptively bouncy anthem about gay individuals who stay in straight relationships to mask their true feelings – and “Wanna Be Missed,” in which she questions a female lover’s devotion and uses same-sex pronouns throughout.
Having grown up with few queer role models, save for sister duo Tegan and Sara, Kiyoko says that she feels a responsibility to show her mostly young fans someone who is comfortable in their own skin, earning her the nick- name “Lesbian Jesus.”
Starting out in the industry, “I went through a lot of experiences of performing in front of straight male executives and them needing to be attracted to me, or this and that, to be interested in my art,” Kiyoko says. Even now, “media outlets are like, ‘Oh, you’re going to do a video about a girl again?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s my story, and that’s never going to change.’ So that’s always been a fight for me, to normalize these feelings and let people know that it’s not a concept – it’s my life.”
Sivan, 23, similarly strives for authenticity on his critically acclaimed second album, “Bloom,” out Friday, which is largely inspired by his relationship with model boyfriend Jacob Bixenman. Pairing diary-like lyrics with dreamy electro-pop hooks, standouts “My My My!” and “Lucky Strike” are unabashedly gay love songs. (“My boy like a queen ... he knows how to love me better,” he sings on the latter.) Album opener “Seventeen,” meanwhile, finds Sivan reflecting on his teenage years, when he was still struggling with his identity and meeting up with older men from dating app Grindr.
“My whole goal for this album was to be honest and write songs that are accurately depicting experiences of mine, no matter how specific or queer they are,” Sivan says. “With my first album (“Blue Neighbourhood”), I was really conscious of the fact that I was putting out this album to so many people who maybe wouldn’t understand. I wanted to hold people’s hand a little bit, and this time around, I wasn’t as concerned with that.”
Sivan also embraces femininity in his gender-bending “Bloom” video, in which he writhes and struts in a twopiece floral gown and full makeup. The experience, he says, felt radical, “just letting myself be (me).”
While he has dismissed the notion of being a so-called “gay icon” (“I’m one voice of so many that are missing,” he told Another Man magazine in May), he understands the power of his platform as one of the most prominent openly gay male singers in music right now and continues to speak out about LGBTQ issues and representation.
“My approach has always been if people are asking me about it, that means people are still curious about those conversations, and they’re really important ones to have,” Sivan says. “It’ll be nice in five years when everyone’s kind of bored of it, and just listens to the music or whatever. But until then, I’m more than happy to help facilitate some of those conversations.”