This essay mentions suicide and contains an open-casket photo.
Bronzie De'Marco calls herself a legendary drag queen, and it's hard to disagree with her. She's been twirling on the stage for 55 years and refuses to let time stop her.
With humble roots in Florence, Alabama, De'Marco first danced throughout the Southeast before relocating to San Francisco for several years, picking up countless drag children along the way.
In Florence—a relatively big city for northeast Alabama—De'Marco had a complicated childhood. Her mother was only 10 years old when she was born, and her grandmother raised both children together.
Along with her grandmother, De'Marco considers herself lucky to have been nurtured by her Uncle Frank Shelby, or as he was known onstage, Francesca LaSalle. Shelby, who was close to twenty years her senior, was the first Black drag queen in Huntsville, according to De'Marco. Her uncle soon extended the invitation to join him at the club, and at just 10 years old, De'Marco hit the stage during a talent show, performed Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You," and won. That audacious first performance birthed her drag career.
"That's where I found my sense of being," De'Marco said. "It's what I wanted to be a part of. Because watching all the old movies and broadway shows and stuff, I wanted to be an entertainer. That was my escape route to become an entertainer."
Despite the discrimination and bullying she faced while growing up, she committed to being her most authentic self.
"Oh, honey, it was terrifying, but I always stood my ground," said De'Marco. "I never let nobody run over me. I never let anyone disrespect me. Coming up in school, I had to fight to be who I was. I never did come out of the closet. Because I was never in a closet except to put my dresses on. I've always been me, unapologetically."
At first, her grandmother did not approve of drag. She would burn all of her costumes, and De'Marco would just buy new clothes to replace them. But eventually, her grandmother changed her mind.
"My grandma always told me, I don't care what you are or who you are as long as you be the best at whatever you do," she said. "You're still my baby."
After years of performing locally, De'Marco took her talents on the road. She lived in Houston, performed with RuPaul in Atlanta, and spent several years in San Francisco. During her San Francisco years, De'Marco performed several shows a night and built a queer community when the AIDS epidemic hit. At 25 years old, she lost friends, sisters, and other community members. She witnessed numerous people get disowned by their own families when they found out they were HIV-positive. De'Marco supported them by taking in people who had been cast out by their families, and she held benefit shows and more to support her community.
"We had to do benefits to raise money to have them cremated and all of this stuff because the family wouldn't do nothing," she said. "They wouldn't even claim the ashes or the body or anything. So it was left to us to do this."
Her work during the AIDS crisis made De'Marco a mother. "I became a mother-type figure over the younger generations that was coming up under me and they didn't feel like they didn't have a place to belong or nobody to love them," she said. "So it became centered around me and I instilled in these kids to love themselves and allow people to be there for you and allow them to love you as well."
Despite the love and community cultivated, the crisis was a period of immense grief that De'Marco sadly did not survive unscathed. She spent the next few years struggling with addiction and multiple incarcerations. In 1997, her life changed forever. She and two other people were shot, and as a result, De'Marco needed six pints of blood. After approximately 20 years of avoiding HIV, she tested positive after receiving a blood transfusion.
"I was at Kilby (Correctional Center) being processed into the system and was told by the doctors, 'Did you know you have HIV? You got about six months to live,'" she explained. "I was terrified. I was terrified and I didn't know if I could call home and tell somebody what was going on with me and I just felt all alone."
She only told her sister, and eventually word got back to De'Marco's mom, who confronted her about her illness when she was released from prison in 1998.
"My mom said 'I taught you to be a survivor, just like your grandma taught you to be a survivor. You're not going to dwell on that and God will get you through that. Don't you ever try to hold nothing back from me again,'" she said. "I mean that just lifted a whole big burden off of my shoulders and I started accepting the things that were happening to me and got through it. I became this fighter."
She's been undetectable for nearly 20 years.
"I never did come out of the closet. Because I was never in a closet except to put my dresses on. I've always been me, unapologetically."
De'Marco returned to Florence in 2017 after she received devastating news that her mom was sick and remained there to take care of her until she passed away in 2022.
This era marked another shift for De'Marco: she began to medically transition. She started to take hormones in the late 1970s but it didn't feel right at the time. "When I came back home in 2017, I told my mom and my sister that this was something that I had put on the back burner because nobody else wanted to accept it," De'Marco said. "I was tired of pleasing everybody else, it's time to please me. I got back on my hormones and I've been on them ever since and this is the life I chose that makes me happy and represents who I am."
Her time back in Alabama was also marked by loss. In 2019, she was faced with the shocking death of her teenage cousin, 15-year-old Nigel Shelby. De'Marco said he was a spitting image of her except he was a timid teenager. He died by suicide after he was bullied by his high school classmates for being gay.
"I was shocked, I was hurt, I was destroyed," she said. "Nigel was like my baby… He wanted to be who he wanted to be. He loved who he was, but he couldn't deal with the criticism and cruelty… He couldn't handle that."
De'Marco carries the loss and love of her biological and chosen family wherever she goes. She is driven to be an active elder who models resistance and persistence.
"I don't want nobody else to let it kill them either because you have to live and be who you are," De'Marco said. "You have to be you. We're fighting for the younger generations now because they don't know how to fight. That's our job to do as the elders is to fight for them and teach them. Nobody taught us. We had to learn that on our own. We either had to stand up and fight or get our tail whooped for what you believe in."
She is empowered to keep moving forward.
Bronzie De'Marco was inducted into the Alabama Drag Hall of Fame in 2023. However, within a year she was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was the second time in her life where she faced a life threatening illness. Just like her struggle with HIV, she has been a survivor. After several treatments, the cancer is almost gone.
During her recovery, De'Marco wanted to stay busy. She was invited to be part of the ACLU of Alabama's second "Black Trans Futures" class. She was one of ten people to attend the five-month training program to combat anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in Alabama. She is determined to be a force of good.
Earlier this year, De'Marco was one of the speakers at the March on the State House for LGBTQ+ Rights in Montgomery to advocate for transgender people in Alabama. She is determined to light the way for the next generation and make sure that the current administration won't erase them. Despite her health concerns and advocacy work, she has no plans to slow down or hang up her drag costumes.
"My whole life is my shows, honey," she said. "My momma asked me years ago, 'When are you finally going to retire?' I said it would get to the point when I'm in a hover-chair on stage and smoke coming out of my gown and then I'll stop but I doubt it, I doubt it."