As if social media isn’t already flooded with 2016 throwback posts, Hayley Kiyoko is giving us one more huge reason to be nostalgic. On Feb. 10, 2026, the official trailer for Hayley Kiyoko’s Girls Like Girls movie was released, and the queer corner of the internet is sharing their excitement with 2015 throwback posts.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Girls Like Girls movie and wondering why the trailer has queer women everywhere in their feels, I’ll catch you up. On June 24, 2015, Kiyoko released the music video for her song “Girls Like Girls,” which depicts two teenage girls coming to terms with their queerness and falling in love. Many Gen Z queer women today credit the music video for being the first time they saw their identities represented on screen. Just two days after the video’s release, gay marriage was federally legalized in the United States, and “Girls Like Girls” was no longer just another pop song — it was a trailblazing anthem that represented a major triumph for the queer community. Following the song’s release, Kiyoko earned the iconic nickname “Lesbian Jesus” from her fans as a thank you for uplifting the lesbian community with her art.
Fast forward to May 26, 2023, when Kiyoko released Girls Like Girls the novel, based on the song and music video. The book is a young adult coming-of-age story that expands the characters from the music video: A new-in-town teenage girl, Coley, falls for Soya, a girl who has a boyfriend. Almost 10 years after the song’s release, the Girls Like Girls book served the same purpose: to give young queer girls the opportunity to see themselves represented in media, possibly for the first time.
Now, it’s 2026, and Kiyoko is blessing us with another expansion of the Girls Like Girls universe. The Girls Like Girls movie will adapt the book to the big screen, following the love story between Coley (played by Maya da Costa) and Sonya (played by Myra Molloy). The Girls Like Girls movie will be released in theaters on June 19, 2026 — and fans are more than ready for it.
Since the Girls Like Girls movie trailer dropped, fans have started a new trend on TikTok to share their excitement. Fans are posting a photo of themselves from 2015 with the caption “‘Girls Like Girls’ the music video,” then a photo of themselves now, with the caption “Girls Like Girls the movie.” It’s a sweet, sapphic twist on the 2016 nostalgia trend that recently took the internet by storm, and it shows just how long fans have stuck by Kiyoko’s side to see themselves represented in music and film. But the winner of the trend is definitely Kiyoko’s fiancée, Becca Tilley, who used a shot from her contestant days on The Bachelor as her throwback 2015 photo, and an engagement shot with Kiyoko as her 2026 photo. An iconic glow-up, if you ask me.
While the Girls Like Girls movie trailer has the internet fully reminiscing about the “Girls Like Girls” music video, the movie is about so much more than nostalgia. As straight love stories continue to take center stage in mainstream media, Girls Like Girls unapologetically demands viewers’ attention: It’s here, it’s queer, and it offers big-screen representation for a new generation of young adult lesbians and sapphics. It also hits home for those of us who have been fans since Kiyoko’s “Girls Like Girls” music video — a testament to how far we’ve come with on-screen lesbian representation, and how far we still have to go. Hopefully, one day, we’ll see lesbians on screen so often that it’ll no longer feel groundbreaking.
Kiyoko discussed the Girls Like Girls movie in an Instagram post, sharing her personal connection to highlighting Asian lesbians onscreen. “Being a half Japanese/half white lesbian, I’d never seen myself on the big screen in theaters,” she wrote. “[Seeing the Girls Like Girls trailer in the movie theater was] the first time in my life my existence was not only acknowledged, it was shown loudly. Proudly.”
Girls Like Girls will be released in theaters on June 19, 2026.