San Francisco has named Per Sia, one of the first performers to read at a Drag Queen Story Hour event, as the city’s new Drag Laureate. Appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie on October 29, the 44-year-old Per Sia is only the second person—and the first transgender individual—to hold the title.
San Francisco’s first Drag Laureate was D’Arcy Drollinger, owner of the Oasis nightclub. The position is one of only two in the country, alongside West Hollywood’s, and comes with a $35,000 annual stipend for a three-year term. Funding is provided by the San Francisco Public Library, which also supports the city’s Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate programs.
Drollinger joined a diverse selection committee that included Sister Shalita Corndog and Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; Carolina Osoria and Breonna McCree from the Transgender District; drag artists Khmera Rouge and Grace Towers; Alexandre Fellous of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District; Cristina Mitra from the San Francisco Public Library’s Hormel LGBTQIA Center; and Shane Zaldivar from the city’s Office of Transgender Initiatives. The committee submitted recommendations, and Mayor Lurie made the final choice.
Drollinger described the choice of a transgender woman of color as “a bold message” at a time when drag, transgender people, and the broader LGBTQ community are under attack. “All those things are scary to the right wing, but it shows that San Francisco is not catering to those people,” Drollinger told the *San Francisco Chronicle*.
The announcement took place at Rooftop School, where Per Sia has worked for 12 years as head teacher for the first grade at Children’s After School Arts (CASA). A UC Santa Cruz graduate with a degree in art and education and a master’s in photography, Per Sia said it was meaningful to hold the announcement where her students and colleagues could share the moment.
“I’ve been working at CASA since my mid-20s. They’ve seen me from being this young queer person to then transitioning and becoming who I am now,” she said.
Before the announcement, Per Sia told the *Chronicle* that being named Drag Laureate would be symbolic because every part of her identity is under scrutiny—from the president on down to conservative activists.
“I’m visibly trans, I’m brown, I’m Mexican, I’m a product of immigrant parents,” she said. “I’m also an educator who works with kids, and I’m a drag performer. Everything that is me is on the line.”
As Drag Laureate, Per Sia will take part in San Francisco Pride, foster stronger ties between the drag and LGBTQ communities and city agencies, create new drag events, serve as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ community, and help preserve and promote San Francisco’s drag heritage.
“Our city is known all over the world as a place where people are allowed to be who they want to be, love who they want to love, and live the lives they choose without fear of persecution,” Lurie said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to working with Per Sia to support and celebrate our LGBTQ+ community.”
In 2015, Per Sia introduced Drag Queen Story Hour at San Francisco’s Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library, in what she calls her first experience merging her drag life with her classroom life.
“I felt very exposed and vulnerable, but I remember leaving the Eureka branch library and feeling a sense of relief that I was no longer hiding, that everything I do was in one room,” she told the *Chronicle*. “It was kind of like coming out.”
Since then, she has read stories at centers for older adults and hopes to continue holding Story Hour events for audiences of all ages. She also plans to use her official platform to promote literacy and protest censorship.
“I realized during those really heightened times of anti-drag sentiment that I don’t know at what age we forget that we like to be read to,” Per Sia said. “Children’s books are so simple, and yet they’re so important because they teach you about self-acceptance, love and empathy, and that’s universal.”
https://www.metroweekly.com/2025/11/per-sia-san-francisco-drag-laureate/