When Sapphic Pop Stars Find Boyfriends
"I Kissed a Girl" has finally come full circle.
When I was in Lesbos for the Queer Ranch Festival a few weeks ago, I participated in a workshop called the Sapphic Pop Choir. I was the only American in the group, with most others from nearby European countries, including England, Germany, France, and Belgium. So English was the standard language for us to sing in, and led by the director of a Berlin-based group called D Major Dykes, we separated ourselves into ranges. We started with a song everyone knows: “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”
It had been so long since I had sung with a choir, and channeling Whitney Houston with a group of international queers in Sappho’s homeland was exhilarating. We then sang several rounds of an original Queer Ranch Kanon, which was equally fun, before the director handed out sheet music for the final song: Fletcher’s “Girls Girls Girls.” Not everyone was familiar with it—mostly just the younger girls. I had only heard it a few times myself, namely when I saw Fletcher perform at LA Pride a few years ago. The track famously riffs on Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” in the chorus:
I kissed a girl and I liked it
Sipped her like an Old Fashioned (ah-ah-ah)
I kissed a girl and she liked it
It's better than I imagined
Ooh, she took my heart and my number
Don't think I'll recover
'Til she's in my covers coming over tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
Yeah, I really, really liked it
Interestingly, where the song varies in notes, the choir defaulted to the more familiar original. Katy Perry’s version has become ingrained in us at this point — a song played both earnestly and ironically at Sapphic events as well as in the broader world. There’s an entire TV show named after it in the UK, and Fletcher is just one artist to sample it for content. (Personally, I prefer Jen Foster’s “I Didn’t Just Kiss Her.”)
Fletcher is part of the TikTok generation, where Sapphics gather to discover and support artists like her and, maybe you’ve heard of her, Chappell Roan. It is the fandom that helps shape the algorithm through which certain artists rise above the rest — and Fletcher, being a conventionally attractive hot girl, airing out her dyke drama through song after song certainly didn’t hurt. (Again, I’ve seen her live, and her vocals are nothing spectacular.) It was more about her brand that people were buying into — the Sapphic break-up that was “Becky’s So Hot” and the way all of her music seemed to pass the Bechdel Test. A woman after our own hearts!
And like any brand that switches things up on consumers, buyers are likely to be pissed when the messaging takes a hard left turn.
Last week, during the second week of Pride month, Fletcher released a new song that again riffed on Katy Perry.
I fell in love (I fell in love)
And it wasn't with who I thought it would be (Oh)
And I'm scared to think of what you'll think of me
His lips were soft
I had no choice, I kissed a boy
The song, aptly titled “Boy,” was released alongside press wherein Fletcher discussed her fears that fans wouldn’t appreciate her having a boyfriend. And she’s not wrong — over the last week, my Instagram feed has been filled with frustration, not just about Fletcher (whose official visual for “Boy” is literally the male gaze), but over JoJo Siwa finding love with her Celebrity Big Brother co-star Chris Hughes and paparazzi photos of Billie Eilish making out with Nat Wolff on a balcony in Venice. Fletcher’s ode to her boyfriend, though, felt particularly egregious considering that, unlike Jojo, fans took her seriously and, unlike Billie, Fletcher was more directly involved with and invested in her Sapphic fandom. (Billie was already way too big of a star even to have that kind of relationship with her fans on apps like TikTok and Instagram, and since coming out, she has vowed never to discuss her private life or sexuality again.)
Fans who aren’t operating out of pure biphobia (or the notion that Fletcher has betrayed them by having a cis dude boyfriend as opposed to a trans guy or lesbian boyfriend) seem to feel duped. Dropping a love song that laments how scared she is to say she’s found love with a “boy” during the most harrowing, homophobic June in recent history is a choice, and it sets Sapphic fans up on the defensive from the jump. Fletcher has always identified herself as queer, but she’s also more than leaned into "lesbian” when it $uited her. And though that Sapphic pop moment seemed significant (as it was and is), it’s curious that it’s followed up with a strongly dude-centric moment just as American companies are removing their support from all DEI initiatives, including LGBTQ organizations and Pride celebrations. I’m not doubting that JoJo, Billie, or Fletcher are in love with their boyfriends, but their relationships being so publicly touted (and celebrated in some circles) is reflective of something like a backlash.
Arguably, being so Sapphic didn’t benefit Billie in the industry sense. As the biggest star among the three, her 2024 album Hit Me Hard and Soft (which contained “Lunch”) was 0 for 7 at the Grammys, where she was notably in the crowd for Charli XCX’s performance of “Guess” instead of on stage performing her Sapphic verse from the remix. However, Billie has always been a little boy crazy, and while JoJo has been staunchly lesbian, she is also a former child star who is most often treated like a joke, even (and maybe even more so) within the community. It seems to me, from a strictly outsider perspective with no skin in the Siwa game, that JoJo just wants someone to care about her genuinely. I’m not saying none of her other lovers have — at 22, she’s already had more girlfriends than I have — but she comes off as desperately seeking someone to fill a void inside her that only she can. (To quote RuPaul, “If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”) And should Chris Hughes be The One for the rest of her life, I suppose we should be happy she found the kind of love and support that any of us deserves. She’ll still be queer — they all will — but likely she won’t be the gay pop mascot she once claimed to be, and that’s probably for the best.
If you consider the flip side of this scenario — when previously assumed straight girls like Lindsay Lohan find love with a woman — Sapphics are so psyched to add more to the roster that we tend to throw our full support behind these individuals, going all in. Which is why it’s inevitably heartbreaking when or if they inevitably break up and date men again, especially if, like Lilo, they consider it a one-off. So I understand the impulse to champion an artist for being out and proud as a lesbian, the way Renee Rapp is, or the way artists like Tegan and Sara have been and continue to be. But I also see why it can be to their detriment if a select portion of their fan base celebrates them solely for their Sapphic identity.
As a bisexual, Doechii has a girlfriend right now, but if she traded her in for a boyfriend, would she be less of an artist? Of course not — she also doesn’t utilize her identity as her “whole thing,” and I sincerely doubt she’d release a song and media campaign suggesting she’d be condemned for it. As personal as she gets in her music, judging her fanbase is not her style — neither is continuing to utilize Katy Perry’s pop song about barsexuality as a gimmick.
“I Kissed a Girl” has finally come full circle with “Boy,” as a queer woman anticipates ostracism for kissing a guy rather than the sometimes dangerous (though potentially titillating) nature of girls kissing in public. If Fletcher is nervous about losing her fan base over a boy, then she should carefully consider what and who her career has been built upon. Fans deserve more respect than her suggestion that she’s correcting her course from the “chaos,” “toxicity,” “bitterness,” and “Sapphic drama” she claims she’s become known for.
In another funny case of timing, I was watching some screeners of the new Ultimatum: Queer Love the other day when the new couples were discussing celebrity crushes.
“I just think Fletcher is messy,” one said.
“Fletcher is messy, but she’s still hot,” said another. “You can’t deny that. She’s just the right amount of gay. I love it.”
Perhaps ‘mess’ has always been Fletcher’s true brand — the Sapphic bit is just one part of it. And like JoJo Siwa being for the straights, maybe that’s for the best. At least now, fans will know what they’re purchasing. Buyer beware!