Her Drag Story Hour Was Interrupted by the Proud Boys. No One Was Held Accountable.

Three years ago this month, Kyle Casey Chu was reading stories to children at the San Lorenzo Public Library as part of a Drag Story Hour.

Shortly after, members of the far-right Proud Boys interrupted the event, criticizing parents for bringing their kids and shouting slurs at Chu, who’s also known by her drag name Panda Dulce.

Now, Chu is out with a new short film reflecting on the experience, the lack of justice in the case and the aftermath of public notoriety. It’s called called After What Happened at the Library. 

This interview has been edited and cut for clarity.

Rachael Vazquez: We know from the title that this short film is focused on what happened after that 2022 incident at the library in San Lorenzo. Why was it important for you to tell that story?

Kyle Casey Chu: I’m really glad you asked this too, because a lot of my screenwriting and film enthusiast friends ask the same question. If the library is where it all went down, then why are we focusing on after the drama? And to me, in my life, this event constituted an inciting incident as opposed to the bulk of the drama itself. And so, of course, you can never be prepared for a traumatic incident like that. But what I was also wholly unprepared for was the aftermath of public notoriety, which is being deluged by love letters and trauma dumps and journalistic requests to relive the experience over and over again. I really wanted to focus on what it means to be the subject of trauma and scrutiny, and what that looks like in the age of social media.

A big part of this film is about what it’s like to be the subject of really intense media interest. Can you say more about what that was like for you?

So I think, especially in this day and age when so much of the world we see and perceive is consumed through the small frame of our phone, it can be really easy to consume a moment in time and then forget that it had ever happened, just because we have such a rapidly cycling newsfeed. But for me, obviously, this is an event that is going to affect me for the rest of my life. And I think a lot of people who hear the story feel some sort of resonance to it, and they want to reach out to express support, to express disdain, hate, whatever it is. In the process, there are a lot of different opinions and polarizing views that are projected onto me. At the same time, there’s an expectation that as a public victim we are supposed to manage their responses and kind of interact with all of these conversations at once. And so this can add to the feeling of overwhelm at a time when we’re already struggling to make basic decisions in our lives and our executive functioning is sort of shot. And so I wanted to talk about this additional dimension because it kind of added to the alienation of being turned into a political football at a point when drag was vilified by the right.

This is also in part about the response from local law enforcement. Can you tell us about that?

Another dimension on this incident is it ultimately resulted in zero consequences for those involved. Ultimately, the authorities said that this was out of their hands. There was nothing they could do. There was not enough evidence to constitute a hate crime when, in fact, hate crime measures are enhancements and so it can be added to an existing crime — for example, graffiti or harassing children. And in this case, this constituted an instance of harassment of children. And I believe it fit the category of a hate crime because of all the expletives and the transphobic insults they were hurling. But no names were taken. They were politely dismissed and asked to leave. And it was ultimately left to me to kind of clean up the aftermath and follow up with the department. And nothing came of it. And so it’s a little harrowing to think that something like this can happen. And you know, there’ll be lip service paid to say, ‘We don’t want this to happen again, this is unfortunate, etc.’ And then it’s ultimately toothless because these perpetrators are being told that they can do this again and again without any sort of repercussion.

[Editor’s note: No one was arrested and no charges were filed against anyone involved in the incident. In a statement, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said “while the disturbance may have been a criminal act, it did not meet the elements of a hate crime.” The sheriff’s office also said they identified several individuals connected to the incident and forwarded the case to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to determine whether to file charges. The DA’s office told KQED they couldn’t speculate about why former DA Pamela Price’s office didn’t press charges. They said the statute of limitations has since run out.]

When I was watching this, I really felt the stress of the aftermath of that moment. And then there’s a part where you’re getting ready and doing your makeup, and it felt really grounding, almost like a ritual. Is that how it feels for you?

It is, and I’m so glad you said that, because it feels witchy and ritualistic to me as well, and I think for a lot of my drag sisters. I felt it was important that we talk about drag as a safe place to feel magical, to feel like the most powerful versions of ourselves and, when that’s taken away from us, in order to feel the loss of that, we need to understand what it meant to this character and the world that it offered her. And so the reason why we have this sort of surrealistic drag ritual is to show exactly what it means to her. It’s this place where she feels protected and safe and free. And for me, whenever you get into drag, it’s like one to two to three hours of just making yourself as beautiful as you possibly can. And my relationship to drag has fundamentally changed after this incident. And so I thought it’s important to kind of honor the process in that way.

We’re a few years out from this incident. How do you feel when you reflect on what you went through?

The pain of it dulls as time goes on. And at the same time, I’m also seeing a lot of conservative pundits make examples and political footballs out of fellow artists who I know. And I do my best to reach out to them and to advise them they don’t have to take every interview. They can do whatever they need to do to preserve themselves, especially when they’re in an acute crisis that feels like they must act on a fight-or-flight instinct. It’s something that’s going to be kind of a lingering sector in my drag practice whenever I take on a gig. Like, I don’t know, especially growing up in San Francisco, I started drag really young and it was just always a place of imagination and play, and nothing further really. And I think now there’s a shadow clinging to the underbelly that is going to be persistent, and it only means that I have to be more persistent and returning to it.

This film has been competing in different film festivals across the country. Can you talk about what the reaction to it has been?

It is such as a real experience to actually share this project after three years in the making. You know, it started off as a Word doc with my best friend and I … a private little document where we just, you know, spilled our guts out. And from script to screen, it’s incredibly rewarding to see in live theater screenings the real time reactions that people are laughing where we want them to laugh and they’re quiet and ruminative at the exact beats that we wanted them to be. It feels like a well-crafted machine that’s finally being shared — if I can use a mechanical metaphor, which I usually never do. But it’s ultimately very rewarding and cathartic. To come out of this experience feeling voiceless and powerless and kind of robbed of my own agency and authorship over my story, and to re-enter this process having shot on location at San Lorenzo Public Library, to play the role and to revisit the scene of the crime surrounded by loved ones and collaborators and people who I really love and trust… has transformed the experience for me. It was the ultimate exercise in an exorcism, and I would recommend that to anyone who has has any sort incident or rumination that’s bouncing around in their heads.