“I’m mainly exhausted at this point,” Bosco says of the political attacks that have been lobbed against members of the transgender community. “It’s just never-ending. It’s just this deluge of hate that keeps on happening.
“But the thing with a lot of right-wing talking points is they pick a boogeyman or some sort of scapegoat and they change it about every ten years,” the trans drag performer adds. “It’s been trans people for a while, it’s been Mexican people, it’s been Black people, it’s been any sort of ‘other’ that they can then manipulate people into being afraid of, and then they can blame all of the problems in the country on that one group of people. And right now trans people are taking the brunt of it.”
While Bosco hates seeing transgender people attacked as “groomers” or accused of attempting to “convert” cisgender people, those attacks have also served as fuel for her performance art. Reclaiming the tropes about the “transgender threat” to society and the family unit, the RuPaul’s Drag Race and Drag Race All Stars alum sends up the stereotypes by adopting her “supervillain” alter ego, The Marvelous Miss Gender, as part of her one-woman show of the same name.
Beginning July 2, the part-comedy, part-burlesque queen embarks on a seven-week, 33-city tour, which includes a July 11 show at D.C.’s Warner Theatre. As she introduces audiences to Miss Gender and her plot to spread the “trans agenda” and turn everyone trans, Bosco hopes to create a space where her loyal fans and other queer people can gather, escape from the outside world, and most importantly, be entertained.
As long as she’s making her audience burst into laughter at the show’s jokes and some of her absurd props, Bosco seems uninterested in changing the hearts and minds of easily led right-wingers who may protest her performance –- or worse, believe the premise behind The Marvelous Miss Gender to be true.
“I’ve done gigs where people have protested outside,” she says of her past touring experiences, citing a moment during a run of A Drag Queen Christmas — produced by the theatrical production company Murray & Peter Present and hosted by fellow Drag Race alum Nina West — when protesters showed up at a show in Pensacola, Florida.
In the run-up to the show, Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier, an opponent of LGBTQ rights, claimed that A Drag Queen Christmas made a mockery of Christian beliefs and demanded that Pensacola local officials cancel the show by declaring it “injurious to the public health, safety or general welfare.” But the show, held two days before Christmas, went on as scheduled.
“Honestly, all that ended up doing was giving [the show] a bunch of free press, where it ended up selling out months ahead of time,” Bosco says. “So I guess all press is good press to a certain degree.”
When it comes to confronting protesters face-to-face, the 33-year-old queen says she’ll pass on that idea.
“I personally am not trying to mix it up,” she says. “I’m not built to tussle. I know where I stand. I don’t think I’m going to be able to change their mind by appearing and talking to them outside of the event that they’re protesting. If they’re already that far gone, I don’t think there’s much that I can do to help them.”
Born into a military family as one of four siblings — she also has an older half-sister whom she didn’t grow up with –- Bosco was primarily raised in Great Falls, Montana, which she describes as having “a lot of very lovely people.” Still, she was unable to find her own niche in rural America.
“I’m from a pretty wholesome middle-America-type of family,” she says. “I didn’t fit in super well, but it was never mean-spirited or dark-sided. I was just a very different person than the rest of my family, but we’ve always found a way to get along. We always know how to talk to each other, and some of the hardest I ever laugh is just hanging out with my little brother or my little sisters.”
Despite her good childhood memories, Bosco also had an urge for the spotlight and was searching for a place where her unique personality and dark sense of humor would be appreciated. About a decade ago, she moved to Seattle, where she would later begin performing as a drag queen. When at home and not on tour, she regularly performs with close friends as part of GRINDHAUS, a queer talent showcase at the Seattle bar The Crocodile.
“I think the Seattle scene prioritizes a certain punk do-it-yourself aspect and they also prioritize some cabaret know-how,” Bosco says. “They really like it when you can tell a story, and they expect you to be able to do a little bit of everything. You need to have your drag together, you need to be funny on the mike, you need to know how to perform. I think that Seattle audiences expect a lot from their queens, but also they’re willing to follow you wherever you want to go.”
When she’s not writing and producing, or digitizing content from her past productions, Bosco is likely to be working on her YouTube channel, where she and fellow drag queen, Irene the Alien, dressed in full drag, play rounds of the card game “Magic: The Gathering” against other drag queens and YouTubers. Bosco has monetized the channel, promoting the card game and even selling “Magic: The Gathering” tokens at her shows.
“Irene and I get invited to go to conventions all over the world,” she says. “We’ve been partnered with Marvel on their new releases. We’ve worked with Wizards of the Coast, which are the makers of the card game, and no other drag queens are really in that space quite yet, because it’s super niche. I’m very excited to see where it goes.”
While Bosco and her Miss Gender alter ego both lean into the dark-humored, quirky-yet-vampy, gothic-inspired aesthetic for which she’s become known, Bosco acknowledges that she also appreciates pageant drag.
“If I wasn’t doing what I was doing, I would get into pageants. I love just big opulence. Just every single I is dotted, every T is crossed. And I love how mean and nasty pageant girls can get when they don’t win,” she says slyly.
“It’s great. When you watch pageants where you can see the other girls, as they lose, get up and immediately walk off, or they’re just glaring at the girl that wins, it just warms my heart,” she says. “I think it’s so fun.”
METRO WEEKLY: What do you identify as, what pronouns do you use, and how did you come to know your identity?
BOSCO: My pronouns are she/her. I am a trans woman, and I’ve always been very, very gender-fluid. I experimented with wearing lots of different types of clothes growing up, and always considered myself nonbinary. And then, around age 28 or so, I decided that I really wanted to make a change and focus more on the feminine side of my life, and started working on my medical transition. I figured out what was possible by being around more trans women. I was like, “Oh, I can see it for you, so I can see it for me.” So definitely doing season 14 of Drag Race, when I was surrounded by other trans women, unlocked a lot for me.
MW: How many trans people were on season 14 in total?
BOSCO: I think we still have the record. I think it’s me, Kerri, Kornbread, Jasmine, and then Willow is super fluid. So I think we counted us as five.
MW: What was your coming out process like?
BOSCO: The first person I ever really came out to as a trans woman was my partner, Blake. I’ve been with Blake going on seven years. And he was so accepting and so loving and has been there through all of it. I’ve always been very nonbinary, always very, very fluid. So it wasn’t a shock or surprise to anybody, but I just think we started with Blake first.
MW: And after telling Blake, what was the reaction from coming out to other people?
BOSCO: It was very accepting. There’s always a little bit of pushback. Trans women are very heavily criticized, and it can be a little bit sensationalized, but as somebody who works as a full-time drag queen, it’s not unheard of for a drag queen to then transition. So I don’t think it was a super big shock to anybody. My family was okay with it. They do their best. They’re in the middle of Montana. I live a completely different life than them. So it took a little bit of adjusting, but there’s never any hatred or pushback. It was just mainly confusion and then figuring out how to adjust.
MW: Let’s go back to your younger years for a minute. When did you first know you had the performing bug?
BOSCO: Well, my parents were both performers and professional musicians. My dad was a jazz trumpet player. My mom was a music major and mainly a bassoon player, but also taught music. So I grew up learning instruments and then found out I didn’t really care about the instruments. Then I fell into dance and started dancing around age seven. So I’ve been on stage for as long as I can remember, and drag is just the newest iteration of how I found myself in front of people, entertaining.
MW: What sort of dance did you study?
BOSCO: I started with tap dancing. I was a competition-winning tap dancer, which I think really clued people in on how gay I was at a very young age. And then I started doing everything else, like jazz, ballet, and whatever I could do. I was dancing from 4 p.m. after school until 9 p.m., five days a week, doing the whole thing. That was actually the first thing that I really wanted to do with my life: choreography and dancing. And I found a way to still work that in.
MW: And how did you get into acting or spoken word performances?
BOSCO: I did a bunch of community theater growing up. I’ve always been dipping my toes in different things. And through drag, I found myself in more and more situations where I’m like, “Okay, I guess we have to act now. That’s part of the shtick that we’re doing.” And I really fell in love with it. Also, my friends are incredible actors. Irene [the Alien] is a theater major. I can’t remember what she specialized in, but she’s one of the best actors I’ve ever seen. And so I just steal from my friends all of the time.
MW: Do you prefer being a dramatic actress in “straight plays,” or are you a musical girl?
BOSCO: I unfortunately was not blessed with a very pretty singing voice — I don’t do a lot of singing, but I do enjoy musicals from time to time. I’m more taken with comedy, though, and that’s always what I steer towards.
MW: When you first started drag, did you have a drag house, or a drag mother, or somebody who mentored you?
BOSCO: Well, I was a backup dancer for a celebrity illusion show. So I’d do backup dancing for Britney Spears and Cher [illusionists]. And I eventually was just like, “You know what? I think I could do this too.” So I stole all their tricks and set off on my own. I didn’t really have a drag mom per se, but I had been around drag queens for a few years at that point and learned a lot. I have a lot of sisters, but I don’t have a family or a house that I’m a part of.
MW: Can you tell us a story about one of your first experiences when you were doing drag full-time?
BOSCO: One of the first breaks that I got was when I was a backup dancer at the bar with a celebrity illusionist. I was in Chicago: The Musical Tribute. The diva who was playing Roxie had a mental breakdown right before she was supposed to go on, but I knew all of her part. So they’re like, “All right, I guess you’re in it. Go be Roxie.” So with maybe 30 minutes worth of notice, I went and gave them a very crunchy Roxie Hart.
MW: That’s very similar to stories I’ve heard from other drag queens, who recall, “Oh, I wasn’t supposed to be this, and then all of a sudden I was thrown onto stage.” In your experience, is that generally how live theater works?
BOSCO: Yeah, especially for drag. I feel like most people fall into drag because it fits a skillset that they already had or were already passionate about, and then they find out that they also like the [dressing in] drag part. I know a lot of girls who are just like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I wasn’t planning on this, but now here we are 10 years later and we’re really good at it, so it’s too late now.”
MW: When most people met you on TV during Drag Race, you called yourself the “Demon Queen of Seattle,” as well as “The skanky alternative girl from Seattle.” Is that still part of your on-stage personality, or do you feel like your character has evolved?
BOSCO: The character has evolved, but that’s definitely a piece of it. My current tagline that I like quite a bit is “God’s favorite transsexual,” and I think that ruffles a few feathers, but it’s still in the same vein. My drag is always going to be very villainous, very vampy, and it’s always very informed by burlesque showgirls and Elvira and horror. It all comes together. So it’s definitely evolved, but it’s still within the same lane that it’s always been.
MW: Was Elvira specifically something that you sought to emulate when you first started drag?
BOSCO: Oh, absolutely. She’s the funniest lady. She’s probably the best drag queen to ever do it, but what she is doing is drag. She has a full costume, she has a full character, a full schtick. The amount of makeup, hair, accouterments — it’s drag. I just feel like her career is something that every drag queen would want to do — this niche fame and cult status is just so cool and so subversive. I don’t know, she’s always been Mother.
MW: On Drag Race, your season had a straight man who does drag, Maddy Morphosis. When you were first on, I think the idea of non-gay, non-cisgender queens was still controversial to some people, even though Kylie Sonique Love had just won Drag Race All Stars 6. Have you found that the drag scene is more accepting of queens who aren’t cis gay men, or are there still some people who are rigid about who can be in drag or can’t?
BOSCO: I think fierce is fierce. And when people see good drag, they respond to it no matter who it’s from. The drag community has always been very, very accepting of trans women because the drag community’s always had trans women in it. That’s always been a part of that community, and it’s a part of the community that’s also influenced and shown how to do drag. Who’s going to know how to be a woman better than a woman?
So I’ve never felt any pushback from the community. Sometimes gay people or people who are outside viewing drag don’t understand it, because they’re like, “Well, I thought the whole thing was just like it’s a guy pretending to be a girl.” And we’ve just moved so far past that opinion and talking point for what drag is. I don’t think drag has ever been that. For some people it is, but that’s never been the whole picture.
MW: Are you friendly with a lot of the girls who are the Ru Girls, not just from your season, but in the franchise generally?
BOSCO: Yeah, it’s a huge sorority, and it’s a very specific thing that we all get to bond over. It’s such a special experience to go through that show — you end up trauma-bonded with all of these different people throughout all the years, and it just gives you something to talk about. Honestly, I think most people in the whole franchise are pretty lovely and most of us get along very well.
MW: You’re the third Drag Race veteran I’ve spoken with to talk about trauma bonding. So can you explain a little bit about that? What was so traumatic that made you bond together?
BOSCO: Well, filming television is an ordeal. It takes a very long time. It’s a lot of moving parts. And doing drag is very difficult. It’s hard on the body. And you’re doing drag for amounts of times that you’ve never had to do before, like 13-hour shoot days where you’re in costume.
You’re also being consumed by millions of people who have not just opinions on your art, but also about you as a person. And it is a giant… I’m trying to think of a nice word that’s not “mind-f,” but it’s insane. It really does a number on your brain, so it’s nice to be able to talk to other people who have that experience as well.
MW: You and Irene are touring together.
BOSCO: We are. I have a one-woman show that I’m doing and then Irene is doing a twenty-minute set before the show. It’s really nice to be able to tour with Irene. We have our years of camaraderie. It’s also nice to have a second pair of eyeballs on things. I’m like, “Hey, is there anything that you would suggest for something?” I just trust her, and we get along so well. And then it also gives us a lot of opportunity to play “Magic: The Gathering,” which is our favorite pastime.
MW: Excuse my ignorance, I know it’s a card game, but what is the basic gist of “Magic: The Gathering”?
BOSCO: Are you familiar with the anime Yu-Gi-Oh!? It’s kind of the same idea. You’re creating a little machine of monsters that work together to beat everybody else. We play a certain type of format where it’s a four-person pod — it’s very nerdy. It’s the same creators who made “Dungeons & Dragons.” “Magic: The Gathering” was actually made as a game to play in between campaigns, and then it just took on its own life and has become a giant worldwide phenomenon.
I originally got into it because I wanted something to take my mind off of drag, because drag can be a bit all-consuming. And then, of course, I went and decided to monetize it and combine it with drag. So there’s no getting away from my work, but it’s my new favorite thing as of a year ago. If you ever really want to get into a nerdy card game, I can’t recommend it enough.
MW: Let’s talk about your one-woman show and the premise behind it.
BOSCO: So my one-woman show is The Marvelous Miss Gender. It is my supervillain alter ego, and she’s trying to spread her “gender agenda” by turning everybody trans. I just was so tired of being maudlin about all of the news articles that come out every single day about trans people. We’re one of the current scapegoats of the right. And rather than getting morose about it, I wanted to poke fun at it. I wanted to send it up a little bit, where I’m like, “Oh yeah, you know what? You’re right. We are going to turn everybody trans and you should stop us if it’s possible.” So it’s telling the story of Miss Gender in an Adam West Batman schlock.
We’re starting in Detroit. I’m working with Murray and Peter of “Murray & Peter Present.” I’ve done a few tours with them and they’re based in Detroit, so it just worked out really well to be able to start things there, get it all tacked out, and then take it on the road.
MW: And is it more comedy than, say, a dramatic piece?
BOSCO: Yeah. I don’t think drag necessarily lends itself to earnestness all the time. Some people are really good at it. That’s not how I approach drag. I’m very campy. I think things are very, very silly and fun in drag, so that’s what we’re going to be giving with that. But it is also very fierce. It’s like a vehicle that I’m using to showcase a lot of different talents, but the overarching story is very, very comedy-driven.
MW: Is there anything else or anyone else we can expect from the show?
BOSCO: I have backup dancers. I have everything in my storage unit that makes sense to take on the road with me. I have a giant martini glass. I have my cinched coffin. And then there’s a lot of video interstitials, where I called on a few friends to film some stuff for me. So there’s going to be quite a few familiar faces that pop up during the show, but I’m the only one that’s on stage.
MW: A cinched coffin?
BOSCO: Oh, yeah. I have a really fun coffin prop that is on wheels that I can turn around in and it’s cinched right to my waist. It’s very silly.
MW: You mentioned having a lot of burlesque influence in your act. What do you like to do that’s sort of unique to your shows that sets you apart from other performers?
BOSCO: Well, I think there are drag queens that are prettier than me, and I think there are drag queens that are funnier than me, but I very rarely meet a pretty girl that’s as funny as me or a funny girl that can be as pretty as me.
I think I have a lovely little niche where I do what I do exceptionally well. There’s very few people in that lane. And I love being somebody who can be sexy but also funny. My favorite women entertainers always fall into that [archetype of] Goldie Hawn or Cher. I look up to women with a sense of humor.
MW: Do you ever adjust the script or throw in asides based on the city you’re in?
BOSCO: There’s definitely a pretty set plot, but I do like changing things up based on the kind of audience that’s there. I do like interacting with people and having a connection in a moment with the locale I’m based in. And it’s something I’ve gotten used to from working the clubs over the years. You always have to hop on the mike and talk after your numbers and whatnot. It always means so much more to people when you’re able to actually talk about their home.
MW: Would you ever want to bring the character of Miss Gender to the silver screen?
BOSCO: I’ll never say no. If a good opportunity comes up, I’m willing to give anything a shot. I prefer theaters. I prefer live performances over doing television or taped things, but I’ve discovered that I do have an appetite for it. I’ve had a lot of fun doing press and promo for this show, and I’ve also just done a good amount of TV throughout the years. I’ve come to enjoy it a lot more than I used to, but I still do prefer the theater.
MW: I’ll let you do an obligatory plug.
BOSCO: The Marvelous Miss Gender is going on tour July 8th. You can get your tickets at dragfans.com. We’re going to 33 cities. It’s me and Irene the Alien and it’s going to be a banger of a time. As long as you know where to get the tickets and you come prepared to buy my merchandise, I think we’re Gucci.
MW: What type of merchandise are you selling?
BOSCO: What are we not selling? There’s keychains, posters, T-shirts. There’s limited edition “Magic: The Gathering” tokens. The wheels of capitalism are absolutely greased at The Marvelous Miss Gender tour.
MW: How are you received by your fans? For instance, some people’s fans have certain outfits or schticks or inside jokes, or call themselves a certain nickname or whatnot. Do you have anything like that, and what is the reaction of those fans to you when they meet you in person?
BOSCO: If I were to give my fans a name, it’d probably be lesbians. I don’t really have a dedicated fan name, but a lot of my audience are women who are interested in women. I think it is the biggest compliment in the world to be somebody that’s looked up to as maybe some sort of sexual figure for lesbians. I think that’s fantastic and cool and they’re the best fans in the entire world. Lesbians just know how to treat a girl right.
MW: We obviously see your public side, but what are you like in private –- and more importantly, what does your boyfriend say about what you’re like in private?
BOSCO: My boyfriend loves me very, very much and also thinks I am incredibly annoying. I am a very private person, so I don’t always show who I am off-stage to people. But in real life, I have radiant older sister energy, so I like to bully people. When I like somebody, I am a little bit mean to them, and that’s just my love language: shit-talking. Some people don’t always expect it from me when they really get to know me, but I love teasing people.
MW: What’s the best read you’ve ever given somebody?
BOSCO: Oh, I didn’t say this, but the read that’s coming to my mind was actually my friend, Midori, last week. Irene was wearing what I think was Dalmatian print, and she’s asking, “Is this Dalmatian print or cow print?” And Midori’s like, “Well, on you, it’s cow.” And I just thought that it was just so flawless, so off-the-cuff, so ready-to-go. I hear a new funniest read every single week hanging out with my friends.
MW: How did you develop your reading skills and that sense of humor? I know Bianca Del Rio says she has the little “Rolodex of Hate” in her mind, and says to herself, “Okay, what can I say about this person?”
BOSCO: Well, it is somewhat like that. You have a few standards, a few go-tos where you’re like, “Well, I know this is funny if I say this,” but also I think it just comes from growing up in a certain environment where that’s how you communicate. My dad’s family is very Italian — growing up their love language was making fun of each other, and making fun of me and making fun of all of us. So everybody in my family, all of my siblings, this is just how we’ve always been. We’re always giving each other shit.
MW: When making friends, what attracts you to a person, in terms of their spirit or energy?
BOSCO: It usually comes down to humor. If you can make me laugh and if I make you laugh, we’re usually golden. We can figure out how to communicate in any other way as long as there’s laughter involved.
MW: What makes you emotional or makes you cry?
BOSCO: It kind of depends on how recently I’ve done my estrogen shot. I do a weekly shot. So at the beginning of that cycle, I’m quite a bit emotional and will cry at just about anything. But anything that has to deal with historical trans issues or historical queer issues will usually get me crying pretty quickly. Anything that has to do with the AIDS epidemic or trans women coming up in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, and the things that our community has had to go through and push through in order to make things easier and nicer for us, will absolutely get me weeping so quickly.
MW: But at the same time –- and I don’t know whether you feel this way — a lot of that history is about being sort of a survivor as well.
BOSCO: Yeah, I think it’s our duty, being in this community, to make things easier and better for the next people to come up. And sometimes that means you have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder where you’re like, “You kids don’t even know how good you have it.” But I think that’s how it should be. It should always be like that. We should always be making it better for those that are coming after us.
MW: What would you like your legacy to be when people say the name “Bosco” twenty years from now?
BOSCO: I definitely want people to know me for my talent. I want people to know me for my brain and my sense of humor, but I also want people to know me for always trying to put people on, always trying to do the right thing, always trying to make sure that rising tides are raising all ships.
I really try to build back into Seattle, whenever possible, and I try to [elevate] the people who are coming up, and that’s a really important part of the drag community for me: making sure that the opportunities that I was lucky enough to have are there for somebody else.
Murray & Peter Present The Marvelous Miss Gender, starring Bosco and featuring Irene the Alien, will play The Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW, in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, July 11, at 8 p.m.
The schedule is Washington, D.C. (7/11); Pittsburgh (7/12); Boston (7/14); Philadelphia (7/15); Raleigh (7/16); Knoxville (7/17); Atlanta (7/18); Orlando (7/19); New Orleans (7/21); Houston (7/22); Dallas (7/23); Austin (7/24); San Antonio (7/25); Palm Springs (7/28); Las Vegas (7/29); Los Angeles (7/30); Phoenix (7/31); San Diego (8/1); San Francisco (8/2); Portland (8/4); Boise (8/5); Salt Lake City (8/7); Denver (8/8); Tulsa (8/10); Kansas City (8/11); Minneapolis (8/12); Chicago (8/13); St. Louis (8/14); Columbus (8/15); and Buffalo (8/16).
Tickets can be purchased online at dragfans.com/bosco-tour-2026.
Follow Bosco online on Facebook at facebook.com/hereisbosco and on Instagram at @hereisbosco.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
