MANILA – Writing powerful queer children’s literature means an intimate marriage of reality and imagination: to begin where they truly are, not in glamorous utopias, but in the dense corners of urban poor communities where tangled electric cables crisscross the sky, in far-flung rural towns where a war wages unquiet, and on the streets serving as playgrounds and battlegrounds. For a queer children’s book author, writing about gender liberation is closely interconnected with national liberation.

“Children are, first and foremost, citizens of our country,” said Trist’n Buenaflor in Filipino during an interview with Bulatlat. “Aside from honing their interests for metaphors, colors, and words, we should help them in problematizing social issues of our society.”

Buenaflor is bringing radical visibility to children’s literature, crafting inclusive stories that affirm queer identities and create spaces for young audiences to explore solidarity and the power of imagination in building a just and compassionate world. 

He wrote several children’s books such as Koronang Santan, about a boy who loves flowers; Iyak Lang, ‘Toy, a book about teaching children to honor their feelings; and Ang Asul na Kumot that discusses the ozone layer for children and the pressing need for collective action. Apart from this, he is also a teacher, unionist, Christian, and a human rights activist.

“Some believe that intersectionality is not compatible with gender emancipation, they say it is an additive task and burden for queer people,” he added. “However, I believe that queer literature is one of reclaiming itself, one that is not devoid of class analysis.”

A colorful upbringing

There are key moments in Buenaflor’s life that pushed him to write for children and for the people like his colorful activist upbringing. He was a college student in University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio during the term of former president Rodrigo Duterte. 

“I was oriented and educated about the bill of rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said, recounting his volunteer experience in the UP Baguio chapter of Amnesty International. “But even if I knew that a declaration existed, I knew that they are mostly words in pages. It needs social action and collective efforts.”

The first rally that he attended was the indignation rally after the brutal killing of Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old student who was shot by police officers under the Oplan Tokhang in Caloocan. His case is emblematic of the reigning impunity of anti-drug operation killings as the official police reports differed from the witness accounts and the CCTV footage.

It was in the year 2017 when he decided to come out as queer, the same year when he joined the Lakbayan, a solidarity congregation for the Lumad students of besieged schools in Mindanao who met with the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs in the city. The Lakbayan camp was in UP Diliman then, and it became an emotional gathering for victims and for activists who shared pain and common hunger to make the government accountable. It was also the same year when he was recruited to the League of Filipino Students, when he attended the protest against the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of the Heroes). 

Read: Lakbayan 2017 | Lumad children meet victims of Duterte’s anti-drug ops

“These crucial moments in my life shape my writing as a children’s author,” Buenaflor added. When he came out as a queer, many of his friends from the church cut him off. But it did not move him away from the movement for human rights and freedom, but rather, he met more people who shared common aspirations as a Christian activist.

He became the founding chair of UP Baguio Bahaghari until he graduated in 2019. After his stint on campus, he became the deputy spokesperson of Student Christian Movement in the Philippines in 2020. He decided to become a full-time activist who lived with the fisherfolk in Bacoor and farmers of Lupang Ramos in Cavite, while navigating the difficult year of COVID-19 pandemic which was exacerbated by a militarized protocols. He joined the protests against the militarized lockdown of Duterte, and after his state of the nation address (SONA), he was arrested for taking it to the streets, together with 63 other activists. 

“It’s when I take to the streets as an activist that I’m most reminded of who I am—both as a queer person and as a Christian,” said Buenaflor.

Contradictions as a queer Christian

There are many contradictions in Buenaflor’s life as a queer and Christian activist. “I think of the concept of the hypostatic union: the idea of Christ being fully human and fully divine. Both mortal and sacred.”

This concept allows Buenaflor to fully accept himself for who he is. “I aspire to become one hundred percent of the two aspects and contradictions of my life. Both tangents of my life as a queer and Christian demand social action.”

He acknowledged that many texts of Christianity are used against the existence of “children of the rainbow” or queer people. He exemplifies the case of Genesis, where binary pronouncements are used to describe the creation of the world.

“God created day and night. But in 24 hours, we see sunrise, twilight, dusk, dawn, and sunset. These don’t fit the binary of day and night,” he said. “Separate the water from the land, call it ocean and earth: But inside the extremes of ocean and earth exists rivers, glaciers, marshes, and swamps.” 

Natural revelation, he said, tells us that God also creates the spectrum of things beyond the binary system— a reflection that the God he is worshiping accepts queer people. “When God created male and female, we understand it in the light of how he created day and night. God also created lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgenders, intersex people.” 

His organization then, SCMP, also debunked several clobber passages that are weaponized against the LGBT community, such as the story of Sodom and Gammorah. He continues to bring these ideas of acceptance in his writing and work, not only as a children’s book author, but also as a literature professor. 

Navigating life as an author

Buenaflor completely rejects the idea that a writer can only be called writer if he published a book, dubbing it as an elitist form of writing. “I started writing when I was still a child. I believe that my passion for writing started there. It was only in 2022 during the pandemic when I formally submitted proposals to publishers.”

His first breakthrough was Koronang Santan, which won the grand prize for Salonga Book Prize for the Best Children’s Book in the Philippines in 2023. Then his other books continue to be published. He also has upcoming children’s books about drag performances and its history, Tourette syndrome, activism, among other informative issues for children.

He also published zines. He believed that zines are a form of counter-culture to traditional publishing. In 2023, he joined the Kinaiya, a collective of LGBT writers– essayists, poets, book authors– all over the Philippines, where they recently published a zine about queer narratives and solidarity zine on the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. 

“Our stories are largely intersectional. It is not only a matter of love and erotica,” said Buenaflor. Among his major inspirations are Rene Villanueva’s “Nemo: Ang Batang Papel” and “Ang Ikaklit Sa Aming Hardin” by Bernadette Neri, founding chairperson of Bahaghari Metro Manila. 

However, being a children’s book author comes with compelling challenges, especially in asserting radical themes for the children. “You’re courting two audiences: the child and the parent who holds the buying power and ultimately decides whether to buy the book for their child.”

Explaining to the publishers the need for such stories to be published is another thing. “There are many zoom meetings to convince my publishers and promise to them that the stories I am writing for, will be of big help to their house in the long run. In these times, I hold on to my militance: courage to believe in the story.”

The state of queer literature

For Buenaflor, the inherent and major problems in publishing relevant books for children are socio-economic crisis, censorship and rampant red-tagging, and the low appreciation for children’s welfare. 

He believes that many poets and writers forfeited their writing because of the ever-growing need for survival of the people who have to respond economically, before they could embrace literature. 

To complement this, he cited an excerpt from the book Guerilla Is Like A Poet: “The muse of poetry is demanding and jealous. She abandons the poet if he is not devoted enough and he takes on some other preoccupying tasks. That is the reason why poets in the Philippines die or fade away when they become full-time journalists, advertising copywriters, teachers, clerks, politicians, or what else. The present society in the Philippines does not allow many poets to live on poetry.”

In the foreword he wrote for the Kinaiya anthology, he reflected on the 2014 killing of Jennifer Laude by U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton as a turning point in the gender rights movement.

“Ever since Jennifer Laude was killed by Pemberton, a new chapter in the struggle for gender liberation began,” he wrote. “It was clearly a hate crime—but beyond that, it raised deeper questions. Why was Pemberton here in the first place? He was an American soldier. And why are American soldiers still present on Philippine soil? Because there are U.S. military bases here.”

He added that any serious effort to write about gender justice in the Philippines must be grounded in class analysis. “The state of queer literature today is shaped by this intersectionality—by understanding that gender and class [struggle] are deeply intertwined.” (AMU, RVO)