Discovering Myself and Uncovering Our History with Andrew W. Shaffer

Andrew Shaffer, author of What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria (Harry N. Abrams), co-authored with Kyle Casey Chu and illustrated by Cindy Lozito, joins Matthew to talk about focusing the script when there’s so much content to cover.

Listen along:

About the book: What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria by Kyle Casey Chu and Andrew Shaffer; Illustrated by Cindy Lozito. Published by Harry N. Abrams.

A joyous picture book biography of José Sarria, a pioneering activist, drag queen, and the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in the United States.

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named José who dreamed of becoming royalty--and of a queendom where everyone would be treated fairly and with respect.

A child of immigrants from Colombia, José Sarria was born in San Francisco in 1922. With the support of his family, he grew up to discover what it means to be a queen.

He fought against evil by serving in WWII, helping to liberate a Nazi concentration camp; he inspired others to be their authentic selves by performing at San Francisco's Black Cat Café, a haven for artists and activists; and he cared for his community through his LGBTQ+ advocacy work, including the establishment of the Imperial Court System, a global charitable organization that still thrives today.

Sarria led by example, joyfully giving back to his community while challenging the status quo. With a fairy-tale feel and radiant illustrations, this picture book biography celebrates his legacy of seeing the world not as it is but as it could be.

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Learn more about Boyds Mills and their upcoming programs by visiting www.boydsmills.org. 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Andrew: For me, so I grew up, I live in San Francisco now, but I d- was not fortunate enough to grow up here. I grew up in a small town in the Midwest, and for me, there were no...

I didn't have any queer friends. I didn't really know any other people, any part of the LGBTQ family until I was, late teens or 20s even. And so I would... I remember going to the library and wandering through the stacks and picking up books that had little nuggets little bits of queer history in them, and uncovering myself and or, like discovering myself, uncovering our history in this really organic way. And I think, for me, many of my queer friends were dead by hundreds of years of decades by the time I first encountered them. 

Matthew: That is the voice of Andrew W. Shaffer, author of What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria (Harry N. Abrams), co-authored with Kyle Casey Chu and illustrated by Cindy Lozito.  

Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the books and creators who help young readers feel seen, supported, and understood. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Boyds Mills, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inspire children to become their best selves.

I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.

Andrew W. Shaffer is a San Francisco–based historian of LGBTQ community and culture. His background includes graduate work at the University of San Francisco and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he helped to build the city’s first permanent LGBTQ archives.

Kyle Casey Chu, also known as Panda Dulce, is a San Francisco–born-and-raised writer and a founding queen of Drag Story Hour. Her first novel, The Queen Bees of Tybee County (2025), was named an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature - Children's Literature Honor title. 

Here are a few of the things I learned in this conversation: 

NUMBER ONE: José Sarria lived a storied life! It took lots of thought and consideration to focus this story for its target audience of young readers while also being sure to pay appropriate homage to all that José gave to his community and to this world.

NUMBER TWO: Andrew’s path into his profession was one of discovering himself and uncovering the LGBTQ+ community’s history.

And NUMBER THREE: Andrew grew up not knowing any queer people. His work in the picture book biography space is helping to bring that history to young readers everywhere.

So, a little about What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria (Harry N. Abrams) from the publisher:

“A joyous picture book biography of José Sarria, a pioneering activist, drag queen, and the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in the United States.`         

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named José who dreamed of becoming royalty--and of a queendom where everyone would be treated fairly and with respect.

A child of immigrants from Colombia, José Sarria was born in San Francisco in 1922. With the support of his family, he grew up to discover what it means to be a queen.

He fought against evil by serving in WWII, helping to liberate a Nazi concentration camp; he inspired others to be their authentic selves by performing at San Francisco's Black Cat Café, a haven for artists and activists; and he cared for his community through his LGBTQ+ advocacy work, including the establishment of the Imperial Court System, a global charitable organization that still thrives today.

Sarria led by example, joyfully giving back to his community while challenging the status quo. With a fairy-tale feel and radiant illustrations, this picture book biography celebrates his legacy of seeing the world not as it is but as it could be.

Here’s the pop of color you were looking for in your day!”

Please welcome Andrew W. Shaffer to the podcast.

Andrew: Hi, my name is Andrew Shaffer. I am a public historian and the co-author of What Kind of Queen? A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist Jose Sarria.

Matthew: Welcome, Andrew. I'm glad you're here. We- Thank you ... w- we have so much to discuss, but first I wanna make sure we acknowledge that you have a co-author, that Kyle Casey Chu- ... is co-author on this wonderful book. Can I ask briefly how you two connected? Where did this book start in, in that way?

Andrew: So Kyle is actually... I moved to San Francisco about 15 years ago, and Kyle was one of the very first people I met when I landed here, within maybe a couple of months, and we've basically been friends ever since. And many of my friends know that I love talking at length about queer history.

We'll talk their legs off or talk their ears off. And I have given lots of impromptu lectures about [00:02:00] many figures from our history, especially Jose Sarria. He's always had a very special place in my heart. And so Kyle, is a, an accomplished author and video or filmmaker and drag performer and lots of things.

Had been working on or thinking around this a book about, a children's book about Jose Sarria in, in collaboration with an editor. And we were talking about it and thinking about it together, and then slowly over a couple of conversations decided oh, this would actually be a fun project for us to work on together, and marrying Kile's incredible storytelling skills and a little bit of the historical research that I had already been doing.

So it was a really fun collaborative project built on, yeah, almost 15 years or so of friendship. 

Matthew: That's lovely. Before we go too much deeper into What Kind of Queen?, I would love to ask you, Andrew, what's giving you hope today? 

Andrew: Oh, that is an excellent question. I think, so we're recording this in the middle of June during Pride Month, [00:03:00] and I I had this moment a couple of weeks ago where...

So I live in San Francisco, and every year on the very first day of June they put Pride flags all down Market Street which is also my walk to work. I walk right down Market Street, and so I, I had forgotten that it was June, and I guess I was not paying attention to the calendar. And I think the, we're not seeing a lot of the rainbows that we usually see this time of year and, corporate logos and sponsorships and, all, many of our allies.

And there's something really beautiful about just seeing the flag and this nod to our history and this little pop of color. I think it's there's been a lot of moments over the last few weeks, and really the last few years, when I've seen our community band together and supporting each other and care for each other when many of the folks who we have worked with or relied upon have backed out or backed away from from working with us.

So it's been really beautiful to see all the different ways that queer people are continuing to take care of each other, support each other yeah and keep our, [00:04:00] keep ourselves healthy 

Matthew: Yeah. Hope in our community as well as when you write for children we speak with hope on our lips, I feel.

Certainly What Kind of Queen certainly speaks with hope on your lips. Do you mind sharing a book talk of this book for folks that haven't encountered this book yet? 

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. So What Kind of Queen is a sort of fairytale retelling of the life of José Sarria, who is a real-life figure.

He had many different lives, and we had to condense his entire life into a very short, 40-ish pages. It is the story of José kind of understanding himself and coming to understand what kind of person he wanted to be in the world. So he ... in real life, he was a drag performer. He was a World War II veteran.

He was a, the founder of several different really important queer organizations. He was also the first openly gay candidate for public office. He ran in 1961. He was a groundbreaking figure [00:05:00] in many different areas. And when he would talk about himself or, in h- interviews he gave or the relationships he had, he often had a sort of fantastical version of himself.

This is also the person who declared himself empress when because he didn't feel like being the title of queen was enough. So- he's a very a very silly, very fantastical character. And so we decided that a good way to capture his whimsy and his joy and really the power of his story was to tell it as a fairytale.

So we translated some of those ideas into, something that would be hopefully age-appropriate and resonant and really interesting for younger readers. But yeah the book follows his life in, a couple of different moments from his early days with his family to his military service to him enc- you know, discovering drag and beginning that to his political candidac- candidacy and then probably the thing he's most known for, which is founding the Imperial Courts, which is one of the, still one of the largest and oldest LGBTQ organizations in the world.

There's chapters [00:06:00] in several different countries and they raised millions of dollars for charity. And that all started because José just decided he would become empress one night. And here we are, more than 50 years later still carrying that legacy. 

Matthew: It's a fantastic way to frame a story, a picture book biography to do it in a fairytale approach but- grounded in truth. Because it, it feels to me, to this librarian, like you're communicating to your readers you can have fantastical dreams for yourself and they can happen. ... Not just dreaming of being... Gosh, all of my students are dreaming of being YouTube famous or TikTok famous or a professional- athlete or those things, but also that you can envision yourself even not just six or seven-year-old you bigger, but rather as another person, as a... I don't know, a, an ev- I don't wanna say an [00:07:00] evolved version of yourself, but just a revealed to the world person of yourself. It's a really...

I understand that Jose is probably a terrific subject to do that, that- ... that formatting for, but it really works in this, Andrew. 

Andrew: Yeah. I think so. He's a very fun character to write about. 

Matthew: Yeah. So talk to me about y- you being a historian. When did that come into your life? I think that history, maybe much like teaching, ends up being something that some people are interested in very young, and some people are like- "i will never get into that 'cause I was terrible in life at my history classes." But, it I wonder when that interest came for you. 

Andrew: Yeah. For me, so I grew up, I live in San Francisco now, but I d- was not fortunate enough to grow up here. I grew up in a small town in the Midwest, and for me, there were no...

I didn't have any queer friends. I didn't really know any other people, any part of the LGBTQ family until I was, late teens or 20s even. And so I would... I remember going to the [00:08:00] library and wandering through the stacks and picking up books that had little nuggets little bits of queer history in them, and uncovering myself and or, like discovering myself, uncovering our history in this really organic way.

And I think, for me, many of my first queer friends were dead by hundreds of years or decades by the time I encountered them. And so there was a really strong desire, I think, or a really, The way I understood my own sexuality was really informed by this history. I also think when I went into college and graduate school I majored in history.

That was, something I really enjoyed studying. But I focused more on like political history. My research was on basically political violence in Latin America. That was where I really spent my my time focusing. And then when I was working on a master's degree, I was in Argentina.

I was doing research, and the thing I wanted to do research on, I... When I got there, I found it was not that interesting. And it was still broadly interesting- ... but there was just nothing happening at the [00:09:00] time- Fair ... that I thought was compelling enough. And so I, I remember I was going out to, one of the gay bars with some friends I had made in Argentina and having this kind of realization of "Oh, I could study my own community," and I could be thinking deeply about not like...

I could be applying the skills I have learned to, like queer history, to queer culture. And so- Yeah ... I ended up writing a- master's thesis all about essentially the evolution of LGBTQ rights in Argentina, and then that kind of spurred this really shift in my research and thinking and understanding to focus really specifically on LGBTQ history.

And it's something that I've I had never realized you could do more than just for fun, in the stacks in the library. You could do it for real. 

Matthew: And then Andrew, not only did you turn your focus to our queer family, but also you wrote a children's book. We talk- I was talking to Little Miss Hot Mess a couple weeks ago.

And she and I have talked a bunch on here, but we were talking about [00:10:00] through her lens, through Drag Queen Story Hour, or through Drag Story Hour, we were talking about what books are we missing? We're missing a lot of books. And this goes for- ... really every marginalized group in the world, in publishing, in wherever.

That representation- ... can be so much richer. And so it's wonderful when we see, in, in our case, publishing helping to m- to make visible even more of a scope of that representation. But what we don't have a ton of, or maybe much at all is queer biographies. It's wonderful that you and Kile are stepping into this space, and stepping in, in this way that frankly is a very readable biography for a young age child.

I think it's challenging to write a biography that will be read by, again, I don't know, like a kid in maybe K1 or 2. [00:11:00] Certainly older than that, but- ... but to be able to engage those younger readers in reading with their grown-ups is hard. To say the important stuff and not leave stuff out, but not say every single thing, because you can't and you're doing that.

I'm really elated to know your love and interest in history, but also that you- ... have, at least in this one step engaged children in our history as well. Have you... I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but we are on an interview. Were you... Have you ever thought about talking to children about our history in that way?

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. I think the... So I did not set out to write a children's book. I got- Many 

Matthew: don't. 

Andrew: Yeah. I got pulled into it, but I think it was a really fun challenge and opportunity to do what you're describing, which is translate very adult themes, very adult concepts into something that is gonna make sense for a [00:12:00] child who, has a totally different framework or, there's some things that in order to tell this little vignette, there's so much context, there's so much understanding you need to have- Yes

to make it make sense that we decided what's do we just jettison this, or is there some way we can translate this? One of the examples is so Jose Saria was an ac- in active military during World War II. He helped to liberate a concentration camp. He even stayed in contact with some of the people that he had who were, had lived in the ca- the camp and he helped to free throughout his life.

And we didn't think we could fit Nazi concentration camps into this children's book. It was a bit too many things we would need to explain to make that make sense. So we described it as he went off to fight the forces of evil abroad, and that was our... That's as much as we're gonna give in the text.

But in the in the afterward, in the postscript- In the back matter. 

Matthew: Yeah ... 

Andrew: yeah, the back. Thank you. The back matter. Clearly this is my first book. I don't even know what the the pieces are called. Yeah, in the back matter there's a timeline where we [00:13:00] give, like, all right, you have, you had the fairy tale version, and here's the reality.

So it's a- about a century or so of history focusing on the things that help make José's life make sense. We talk about his participation in World War II. We talk about some of the broader context. The earliest, queer organizing that was happening in the early the late 1800s, early 1900s.

So I think we, we tried to convey things in a way that would make sense to children and while also giving a little bit of context or information for adults. To hopefully give them a bit more, and hopefully... I would love it if a kid picks this up in, first grade, reads it and loves the story, and then picks it up again in, eighth grade or something and reads through to the end and realizes, oh, this is a real person.

It's not just a fairy tale. They're... He's a real person. He really made an impact and, maybe there's parts of my own life that are, made better or contextualized at the very least because of José. 

Matthew: You mentioned earlier about writing it to be appropriate for [00:14:00] your audience, and I think that unfortunately that word appropriate's a bit of a political word in our queer space- in publishing for children- ... especially given that most of the book bans focus on books representing our LGBTQ family. Important to emphasize it, it's not his, of course not, but it's not his queerness that was inappropriate. It's not his life that he lived that was inappropriate. It's m- going into detail about the Holocaust with a seven-year-old in a 40-page book is challenging. So I, I give you- Yeah ... and Kile kudos to find that balance of we want the story to flow and to connect with readers, and we want them to connect with the feel of Jose's life and of Jose's work.

... And then to have that back matter is really, in nonfiction I think, what does so much of the heavy lifting, is that it's [00:15:00] there. Without that there, the book would fall flat because that back matter is what pays respect to the readers for them to come back, for them to learn more, for them to make connections to other people.

So I'm glad that you walked that line. Also, though, for the- ... if the, if there's a grown-up reading, when I read this book to children, it's okay for me to read the main text to them, but it's also important if I skip reading the back matter that I have read it myself, though, so that if those kids ask questions I know a little bit of the context, a little more of the context.

When did you first become of- ... aware of Jose, Andrew?

Andrew: That is an excellent question. I was trying to think if there was a specific moment. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Andrew: Sorry, go ahead. 

Matthew: No, I was gonna say I... I'm late coming to everything. I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, and it wasn't until moving to Maryland that I started to [00:16:00] discover some things as I was, I don't know, maybe in college or something.

But it was probably there through collections of books that as a librarian I was buying for my library that were 20 queer heroes of the 20th century or whatever, that's when I started... that's probably when I first read his name

What about for you? 

Andrew: If I had to yeah it would probably be, So in San Francisco, there's the first museum of LGBTQ history and culture in the Castro. And they have a little section on José Sarria. So it has a little bit of his drag, a little bit of his political career or his political candidacy.

That's probably where I first encountered José. And it was just enough to whet my appetite and make me think, "Okay there's something really interesting here." And then, and, there really still isn't much publicly available. There's not a lot of public information about José Sarria.

So there's a single book which was published I don't know, 10 or [00:17:00] 15 years ago, which in- was a lot of interviews conversations with José. There's a single documentary about him which is still not streaming anywhere. It's, a little bit harder to find. Hopefully someday it'll be streaming easily available.

But it's... He's not an easy person to find a really robust and a lot of information about. But I think also living in San Francisco, finding lots of people who knew José or who were aware of him or... every year we still have elections for new emperors and empresses. And so seeing all the excitement around that, it probably, i'm sure that also drove an interest. And I think the more I learned about José and the, just the fabulousness of this person. This is somebody who in times when most people were in hiding for their sexuality was very out and proud, was, front-- the front lines, was telling people, "No, you need to be visible."

This was decades before Harvey Milk was telling people to come out. José was saying, "We are in this together. We have [00:18:00] got to band together. And we need to be, we need to be proud of ourselves." One of my favorite things of... I have lots of favorite things about José, but one of my many favorite things about José is that when he would perform his drag shows or, his operas at the Black Cat Cafe, which is where he got his start as a performer he would always end with having the entire crowd stand up and sing God Save Us Nelly Queens to the tune of their British anthem, God Save the Queen.

And it was, fun and silly and campy and, a little frivolous, but I think it was also- Also at a time when, you'd go to work and you'd live your straight life, and this is just something you did on the evenings or the weekends or, you probably didn't think of yourself as part of a gay community.

You were just a person who happened to be gay after hours. And I think standing up in a room full of other queer people and saying, "God save us, Nellie Queens. We are all Nellie Queens together," I think not just the singing, but just the... There's a lot of [00:19:00] communal aspects of his work that really shifted the way the people in the room thought of themselves, and I think that influenced the, really the trajectory of the development of a queer political consciousness or a queer kind of sense of community.

He was a really big factor in creating that sense of we are in this together, and my sense of freedom, my my life is really tied to yours, and we are intimately bound together in this struggle. 

Matthew: I'm so grateful for our time together, Andrew, and I hope that you and Kile get to meet lots and lots of readers through this book coming out.

I hope you get to connect. I know it's the end of the school year, but this is a great time for a book to come out because then we get our budgets, and we're looking at all the books to order for the brand-new school year, and I know that's what will be on display when my students return to school in August.

And I hope that m- [00:20:00] maybe in the future we'll be looking at more books from you and Kile about more figures that our children can carry forward in our, in, in our queer future Thank 

Andrew: you. There's a lot more stories to tell. 

Matthew: Of course there are. Thank you again, Andrew. I'm gonna leave you with this question, that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning.

Is there a message that I can bring to them from you?

Andrew: I think one lesson I'm gonna steal from Jose is that you can be anything you set your mind to, but you can also see-- you can also be many things. And I think that's one of the beautiful things of Jose's life, is he was never just one thing. You can be a performer today, you can be a politician tomorrow, you can be an astronaut next week, you can be a chef a month from now.

You can be a TikTok star, and you can be a home baker, and you can be a... you can live a lot of different lives, and I think that's a really beautiful thing to take away from Jose's story

Matthew: Thank you to Andrew W. Shaffer for joining me on the Children’s Book Podcast. 

You can pick up your own copy of What Kind of Queen?: A Royal Biography of Drag Queen and Activist José Sarria (Harry N. Abrams) wherever books are found. Consider supporting independent bookstores by shopping through Bookshop.org.

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And on that note…

Be well. And read on.