Hello everyone! My name is Kyle Casey Chu AKA Panda Dulce the drag queen. I am a fourth generation Chinese American and bigender writer and filmmaker. I’m also one of the founding queens of Drag Story Hour. You might’ve heard of me because my Drag Story Hour at San Lorenzo Public Library was stormed by the proud boys, which was unfortunately the inciting incident of the far-right’s national anti-drag movement in 2022.
When I came out in the seventh grade, I looked to San Francisco’s Castro district with a kind of longing. I literally thought, “my life will begin once I’m old enough to go to gay bars” (lol can u imagine). But by the time I turned 21, Pride™ had already lost its glow for me: I no longer related to the gaudy rainbows the way I used to. The Absolut Vodka floats did nothing for me as a sober queen, and the sex party ads, all boasting white bodies that looked nothing like me – personalities that often dismissed me – always felt oddly alienating.
It wasn’t until the library incident that the true meaning of pride, and its enduring radical underpinnings, came into sharp focus. My community stepped up in a big way. My organizer friends quickly assembled comms templates and posts and took over fielding and triaging requests. My drag sisters organized meal trains, my queer fam brought me hot cheetos and watched “Drop Dead Gorgeous” with me. Distant friends even sent me home-mixed teas and crystals. I realized that I’d mistaken Pride™, ruthless profit-centered corporate opportunism and reputation laundering, for the movement that historically undergirds it.
Pride now hits different. It’s a constant conversation and mutualism and care. It’s the drag race references sprinkled throughout our more serious chats. It’s my queer afab platonic life partner driving me out to the east bay to get trained in self defense and my drag sister reTetrising her drag gig schedule to come cook us homemade larb. In a way, the library incident illuminated what I am actually proud of: the people all around me, who rise like the tide to meet hate with like force, an unrelenting love and overwhelming resistance.
In 2022, the proud boys stormed a Drag Story Hour I hosted. They shouted homophobic and transphobic threats at me.
Surprising no one, when the authorities arrived, they were seen chumming it up and laughing alongside the extremists. The cops politely asked the extremists to leave without taking any names. They never even filed a crime report. If I hadn’t spoken to the media, there would be no record of this ever happening.
I couldn’t take this bullshit sitting down. I needed it all to land somewhere, instead of ever-swirling without resolution. So being extra af, I wrote, produced, and starred in a narrative short film based on the incident.
“After What Happened at the Library” was shot on location at San Lorenzo Public Library. As of early June 2025, it has screened at four Oscar-qualifying fests and won a Special Jury Award at Florida Film Festival!
I am so very proud of it, and you can watch the trailer here. And don’t worry, it’s not all a big bummer. There are silly tones and funny moments too!
But it was important to make the film for several reasons:
One, the authorities barely lifted a finger on this incident. They were keen to sweep this under the rug until the media circus arrived. Suddenly thrust into the limelight, they proclaimed that “they were investigating this as a hate crime.” But in private, they gave me the run-around. Ultimately, they said it was “out of their hands.”
But it turns out that they are actually the ones responsible for taking the steps to see consequences. They never completed this step, let alone file a crime report. My calls went unanswered and they treated this as if nothing happened. As soon as the the media looked away, they took no further action.
Two, there is the trauma itself, and then there is the aftermath. Both are harrowing, and one is much less discussed. My writing partner and I are both “public victims.” Public victims are individuals on the receiving end of highly publicized crimes: our privacy was invaded and sense of safety shaken, justice was miscarried, our stories were mishandled, and the world just continued on. Through this film, we sought our own kind of justice and reclamation of our stories.
This film is about how public trauma is (mis)handled in the age of social media. It talks about how journalistic pursuit of sensationalism often forces victims in the uncomfortable position of reliving their trauma over and over, and how our identities and stories are then flattened, repackaged, and mistold for mass consumption and the public’s satisfaction. This disordering and mishandling of our experiences impacts how we, as victims, are able to process the incidents in real time, and heal and move on. We wanted to spotlight this extra, undertold layer of harm, in short fictionalized form.
For me, “After What Happened at the Library” is about catharsis, justice, and resolution. It was about going back to the scene of the crime, revisiting the event, processing it, and retelling it, for the first time, entirely on my own terms. I was lucky enough to go back, surrounded by collaborators and friends who I love and deeply trust. This was a gift in my healing process.
This short film is a proof of concept for a feature film that we are currently financing for! If you would like to support this project, we are accepting donations (big, small and in-kind!), on venmo at @kylebigleague! Just say that this is for the film, so our production team can put it toward those expenses. Thank you so much!
When the right turned me into a political football, my voice and my likeness was stolen from me. Marco Rubio used my picture in a national attack ad, uniformly lambasting queer people as gr**mers and p***philes. QAn*on Trolls made YouTube reels quoting Anita Bryant and assigning me wild fanfic-worthy narratives and motivations (get a fucking hobby, right??).
I write because queer and trans youth of color need to know that there is more out there for them, and all of us. That there are people out here who will set the world aflame to see them thrive. I wanted young queer and trans youth of color to know: the world is not solely composed of the irrational and belligerent, and a pathetic liberal/democratic response to it, a reductive binary system that routinely fails to represent us. There is also joy. There is also laughter. There is also room for kids to just be kids.
“The Queen Bees of Tybee County” is a middle school grade novel. The story follows Derrick Chan, a Chinese American seventh grader in rural Georgia, who explores his queer identity and love of drag by competing in a local pageant. Thematically, it’s about finding your people, pouring yourself into art, and the healing potential of drag. This story was a way for me to channel hope at a time when I felt anything but hopeful.
Today, LGBTQ+ youth crisis hotlines are experiencing astronomical call volume spikes (in addition to having their funding threatened). It is our responsibility as the queer and trans kids who made it, to show them that they can, and will, too.
Every story is a testament against the dark monolith the right is advancing. Every book, a mirror, a window, a light illuminating the path through it all. “The Queen Bees of Tybee County” shows us that a better world is possible. That finding your people and following your joy are the tools they need to weather it all.
If you wanna support Queer & Trans Asian American lit, and kids having access to mirrors, windows and dignified reflections of themselves, you should check it out! Also, a reviewer said “it’s like if Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” were a book!” So if you want that vibe, this story is for you!
There are countless sources of creativity, rejuvenation and hope, all around us, in the form of storytelling, art, and the families we craft by hand and heart. I can’t possibly name them all, but I will try to name a few!
- Book-wise, Malinda Lo’s “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” is the most moving YA coming of age story I’ve read in ages, and centers a queer Chinese American in mid-century San Francisco Chinatown. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a lesbian at heart, and this story absolutely sent me.
- Kacen Callender’s “King and the Dragonflies” was also an unspeakably gorgeous recent Middle Grade read- the kind that instantaneously transports you back to the age in stunning detail.
- And Nina Sharma’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” held witness to so many questions that had long swam and swirled in my head. Very satisfying to finally see them shared and so accurately articulated and explored on the page.
- Regarding jams, this is, at this point a throwie, but in the wake of the incident, I had Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” on repeat, and it became my daily momentum to get out of bed. I don’t care if this is an obvious or basic answer, she has a talent of summoning the will to live out of me that is, so far, unmatched!!
- Also spinning: The Marias, Doechii, The Courtneys, Chappell Roan, and Japanese Breakfast’s For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) in preparation for their SF show this summer!
My all-Asian American drag family, the Rice Rockettes, inspires me to keep striving for improvement when it comes to drag and creative art in general. Drag is a social art form, and having them as a bedrock for regular connection to punctuate long sessions of isolated writing (for the sequel to Queen Bees) has been a grounding and necessary medicine.
My platonic life partner, Claw, inspires me endlessly. Most recently, by convening loved ones at her place to play mahjong in warm, well-fed (lol) and socially-distanced environments.
I’m also inspired by the trans activists who took back Compton’s Cafeteria and the digital activists organizing food aid for Gaza. All of the spreadsheets funneling our energy into action is so very appreciated.
In warmth & solidarity,
Panda Dulce & Irma, Sharmin, Allison, Van, Turner, Kari, & Leyen – the 18MR Team
P.S. OK, Last plug, promise! As a bookend to this queer joy convo, I have another (joyful, wacky, comedic) short film, called “Betty St. Clair.” The film centers on a Chinese American drag queen as she prepares for a performance for an… unusual… audience. Meanwhile, an unexpected arrival threatens to derail the show. It features cameos from my all-AAPI drag family, the Rice Rockettes!
