María José Maldonado, April 2, 2024

Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado: Iconic Transgender Starlet and My Fierce Aunt

Research Fellow María José Maldonado reflects on the legacy of her aunt, Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado, as an artist, muse, and family member. Bianca appeared frequently on '90s talk shows, speaking about her identity as a trans woman and her work as a dominatrix in New York City. Combining personal memory, oral history interviews with friends and family, and an analysis of television culture, Maldonado presents her aunt as an undeniably fierce cultural force.

"The fiercest fucking bitch in the world." — Nana Nazario

My aunt Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado really was the fiercest fucking bitch in the world. In her thirty short years on earth, Bianca was a trailblazer of transgender visibility. Between 1991 and ’96, she appeared on numerous daytime talk shows, including Jenny Jones, Phil Donahue, Howard Stern, The Joan Rivers Show, and El Show De Cristina on Univision. Millions, yes millions, watched my aunt bewitch their television screens. Over 100 million people watched her dazzle on El Show De Cristina in 1996, across seventeen countries in Latin America and the United States. Netflix would kill for that kind of viewership. That’s more than Bridgerton (Season 2) and Stranger Things (Season 3).1 Oh-kay!

If you lived during the ’90s and had a television, it’s likely you were exposed to the infamous daytime talk shows that ruled the airwaves during that decade. Does her face look familiar? Do you remember her?

Writing this research piece on Bianca was no cakewalk, especially because it’s a dive into the deeply personal. As a Visual AIDS Research Fellow, I proposed writing about my aunt as an artist lost to AIDS—but Bianca does not fit into the traditional definition of an artist. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an “artist” as a “a person who creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination.”2 Bianca left behind no tangible masterpieces. She was close to the legendary House of Xtravaganza, which had mostly Latine/x members, but she never performed at balls. She was an avid clubgoer who danced many a night in New York City, but she was not a Club Kid or musician. But let me tell you, she was an artist in the grand masterpiece of her life.

“One must give value to their existence by behaving as if one’s very existence were a work of art”—Friedrich Nietzsche said that. Bianca took that mantra to a whole new level. Her life? She crafted it to be as fabulous, fierce, feminine, and fun as she was, so that she would be seen as the walking, breathing dominatrix goddess she was. Bianca was a fashionista, went to beauty school, was part of the Black and Latine/x gay and trans nightlife at Sally’s Hideaway in Times Square, and practiced the art of being a dominatrix.

PAGE 1 Bianca Exotica Transsexual

Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado on The Jenny Jones Show, 1992

"She’s already immortalized . . . She’s on a cover. She’s on a cover! C’mon! Young people know that cover!" —Nana Nazario

Bianca graces the album cover of Blood Orange’s 2011 Coastal Grooves in an iconic portrait taken by her friend, the esteemed photographer Brian Lantelme. Lantelme took this timeless photograph in 1996, in front of Sally’s Hideaway, the very same Times Square club where scenes from the legendary documentary Paris Is Burning were filmed. Lantelme documented ballroom culture at Sally’s, taking unforgettable photos of performers and patrons. Affectionately, Lantelme’s former website, sallyshideaway.com, described the Coastal Grooves album cover as: “featuring the goddess Exotica.” His photo of Bianca is widely recognized by the LGBTQ+ and ballroom communities, and even Gen Zers who listen to Blood Orange. As this portrait, and its afterlife proves, she was a muse—just look at her!

However, what truly distinguishes Bianca is the indelible mark she left on American and Latin American culture, achieved through her numerous guest appearances on television in the first half of the 1990s. She reached her peak fame during this time. Bianca’s cultural impact unfolded on both national and international television, where she was a beacon of visibility for transgender women, especially trans Latinas. TV is a powerful medium for culture making, and talk shows were an integral part of American culture in the ‘90s.

During this remarkable decade, we saw the rise of, among other things, “trashy” daytime talk shows, the explosion of house music, and the AIDS crisis and related activism. In New York City specifically, the ballroom and nightlife scenes flourished—clubgoers frequented now-legendary spaces like Paradise Garage, Cafeteria, Palladium, Limelight, Tunnel, Roxy, and Club USA. Amidst this whirlwind setting, my beloved aunt was deeply connected to it all.

PAGE 2 EXOTICA on COASTAL GROOVES foto by Brian Lantelme

Blood Orange’s 2008 Coastal Grooves album cover, a portrait of Bianca aka Exotica in front of Sally’s Hideaway in Times Square. Photograph by Brian Lantelme, 1996

PAGE 3 Bianca youth stitch pad

Left: Bianca, age 3 in Manta, Ecuador, late 1960’s; Right: Bianca, age 17, with friends in Elmhurst, Queens, mid 1980’s

Bianca’s Life

Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado was born in Manta, Ecuador, on October 29, 1965 (she was a Scorpio, of course). When she was five, she moved with her family to the United States, and she grew up in Elmhurst, Queens, right near the Queens Center Mall. She would come to live on the Upper East Side, patronize Sally’s Hideaway, become close to the House of Xtravaganza, party at legendary night clubs, and dream of starting her own vogue ballroom house (“House of Exotica”) and making and starring in her own avant-garde films about being a dominatrix in New York City.

The fifth of eight children, Bianca emerged as the undeniable superstar of the family. From a young age, she danced into her own identity, twirling in her mother’s and sisters’ dresses. Picture this: a mischievous Bianca, adorned in those borrowed ensembles, teetering in her mother’s heels, already a starlet in the making. After dropping out of Newtown High School, Bianca leaned into beauty and fashion, and later, sex work and television. She ventured outside of Queens and went to beauty school in Union Square, Manhattan. Thanks to her mother Gloria, a seasoned garment worker and sewing guru, Bianca learned to design and create clothes for herself and her friends—she whipped up dresses for her and her partner-in-crime, Nana Nazario, and kiki’ed all night in Brooklyn and Manhattan like only twenty-something-year-olds can.

She grew up with her two best friends from the block in Elmhurst, Nana and Kenny, both gay. The trio met when they were ten years old and stayed close. I remember Nana and Kenny coming over the house when I was a kid and am grateful I was around my aunt and her queer friends since I was a baby. And as a toddler, I knew my aunt’s nickname was Exotica and that she was a dominatrix.

PAGE 3 Bianca youth stitch 2

Left: Bianca age 25 on The Phil Donahue Show, 1991; Right: Bianca age 30 in front of Sally’s Hideaway in a photo taken my Brian Lantelme, 1996.

How did she become Exotica, dominatrix? Bianca did other kinds of sex work as well, but in her mid-twenties, she trained in Victoria’s Playhouse and learned the art of being a dominatrix from experienced mistresses. Eventually, she ran her business from her Upper East Side apartment on 88th Street and 2nd Avenue and ran print ads for her services. She worked hard as a dominatrix, and was very skilled—she made some cute coinage. I know this because her wardrobe had lots of designer clothes like Dior, she lived in “the city” aka Manhattan, and because she revealed on Jenny Jones that she charged her clients $300 per session—in 1992.3 Today, that would equate to $667 per session.4 A gag! No pun intended.

Though she was fabulous and took charge, life was sometimes rough for Bianca. Navigating her twenties as a trans woman, she confronted the harsh, sometimes physically violent, challenges of the world. But rather than retreating, Bianca chose to be seen, gracing daytime talk shows to share her unique journey and her profession with the world. Sadly, she succumbed to AIDS-related complications in 1996 at the tender age of 30.

At ten years old, I watched her suffer, AIDS slowly stealing her away from me. The name outside her hospice room read: Bianca Maldonado. Ironically, while she was openly trans on national and international TV, she never explicitly came out to our family. There is a disconnect, a gap, between how our family saw Bianca and how she saw herself.

PAGE 5 Bianca w friends

Clockwise from bottom left: Nana, Kenny, Carlos, Bianca, late 1980s

Most of our family saw her as a flamboyant, feminine gay man with an alter ego named Exotica. Despite her numerous TV declarations as a proud “transsexual,” her increasingly presenting as a woman in women’s clothing and makeup at family events and taking hormones the last year of her life, many relatives still perceive her as a gay man who was a female impersonator or performer, essentially a drag queen. I think this is because she never personally came out to any of us one-on-one.

Nevertheless, Bianca’s legacy endures. Millions recognize her from her TV guest appearances, clips of which I find celebrated across social media platforms today for younger generations to discover. But few know her life story or how she became the public figure we know her as, Exotica.

As her niece, she sparkles in some of my earliest memories as if they were yesterday.

PAGE 6 Bianca on Jenny Jones

Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado on The Jenny Jones Show, 1992

Ozone Park, Queens. 1992.

One afternoon, my grandma was sitting in bed watching The Jenny Jones Show. She was smiling at the TV, as sunny as the rays pouring through her bedroom window. Before I could say anything, she told me to rush inside and see. My aunt Bianca was on TV!

Bianca was sitting, her legs crossed, on a TV studio stage, looking smoldering in black latex everything: corset, miniskirt, long gloves, and thigh-high boots. Even at six years old, I knew that Bianca on Jenny Jones was a big deal.

“Mira, María,” my grandmother motioned to the screen. “Que dice?” She wanted to know what her daughter Bianca was saying to Jenny Jones. My grandma knew the show was a big deal, watched by millions.

“What about you, Exotica? Do you have family and what do they think?” Jenny Jones asked, as Exotica’s mother and six-year-old niece watched from their home in Queens.

“Yes, I have parents,” Bianca replied. “My mother in the beginning was not quite happy with what I used to do, you know, being a call girl. But you know, what I’m doing now as a dominatrix, she’s happy. She gives me 100% support. I speak to her every week.”

She passed four years after my grandma and I reveled watching her shine and be herself on that stage. We were proud of her. We still are. She was the first actual transgender person I ever saw on TV, not a cisgender actor playing a transgender stereotype. She wasn’t tragic, she was smiling. She was happy.

"She showed herself. She was on those talk shows, okay! She’s out there." —Nana Nazario

Cementing Herself as ’90s Talk Show Famous

In addition to appearing on Jenny Jones as “Exotica, Transsexual Dominatrix,” Bianca also appeared on Phil Donahue as “Exotica, Transvestite Prostitute,” on Howard Stern’s Howiewood Squares as “Exotica, Hooker” and on Cristina on Univision as “Señora Exotica, Dominatriz” (Spanish for “dominatrix”). All of these shows had huge audiences—Jenny Jones and Phil Donahue were each regularly watched by over four million households, and as I mentioned before, Cristina was watched by an estimated 100 million people. Bianca did the talk show circuit in her twenties and appeared on a few other shows, but these four were her most popular appearances, still remembered by many today on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Why did she appear on so many talk shows? What was her motivation? Partly for the coins, partly for the incomparable air time and attention and importantly, because her friends, other dolls, encouraged her to guest star on these shows alongside them. She enjoyed being on television and often appeared with her close friend Silver, another trans woman living and doing sex work in New York City.

Producers of these talk shows sought out trans women and sex workers. They paid Bianca for her time, flew her out to be a featured guest and sent her to the studio in a limo, but she didn’t just do it for the coins or to simply get on TV. She also had bigger, long-term goals. I think she was trying to educate people on her life. And notably, Bianca had dreams of becoming an avant-garde filmmaker and star, telling stories about her life as a dominatrix in New York. Talk show fame, she believed, could help that dream come true.

Unfortunately, she passed before fulfilling these dreams. Serendipitously, I’m a filmmaker and I made a documentary short last year in dedication to my aunt called My Fierce Aunt Bianca.

PAGE 9 talk show stitch

Exotica on Howard Stern’s Howie-Weird Squares, 1992; The Phil Donahue Show, 1991; and El Show De Cristina, 1996

In my own way, I am helping my beloved late aunt fulfill her artistic dream of making films. In 2023, My Fierce Aunt Bianca premiered at Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival in Toronto and screened at New York Latino Film Festival and Stamped Film Festival. In 2024, the film will screen at the Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival. Currently, I'm in-development to make a feature-length documentary about Bianca, her unforgettable life and the legal and emotional process of changing her tombstone to bear her chosen name.

The Enduring Impact of ’90s Daytime Talk Shows

These hour-long, highly rated talk shows offered temporary celebrity status to ordinary Americans, broadcasting Bianca and others into millions of living rooms. In his book Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity, Joshua Gamson asserts that while these programs exploited transgender people as “abnormal,” exploitation was a starting point for increased visibility and onscreen gender diversity.5 These shows marked the first time actual transgender people—not cis actors playing trans caricatures—were given a national platform.

Talk shows have historical roots in the spectacles of freak shows, circuses, and sideshows that were popular during the late-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.6 Talk shows in the 1990s competed for ratings by bringing on guests who were among the most marginalized by society, which led to the inclusion of low-income people, people of color, and LGBTQI+ people on a national platform, possibly for the first time.

Critics claimed these programs were mainstreaming pornography into public life.7 Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former Connecticut senator Joseph Liberman, and conservative think tank Empower America claimed that: “These shows are at the front lines of distorting our perceptions of what is normal and acceptable.”8

In other words, these daytime talk shows were normalizing LGBTQI+ sexualities and nonconforming genders by giving trans people the stage and airtime, thereby implicitly redefining gender. Even though these shows reinforced the gender binary, used trans guests for spectacle and ratings, and often featured hostile audiences and hosts, trans guests were able to speak for themselves and about their lives. The so-called “dregs” of society got a national platform and many conservatives were in upheaval about that.9

Critics were angry because talk shows no longer featured only educated, middle class white men, but instead became trashy television that opened up the spotlight to low-income, marginalized people who were often silenced or invisible in American media. Conservatives claimed that the people featured on these talk shows degenerated the country’s moral fabric because they “increasingly make the abnormal normal, and set up the most perverse role models for our children’s future.”10 I laughed when I read this, because I grew up with my aunt Bianca—she lived with me until I was five years-old—and she was one of my role models because she was loving, oozed cool and by far the most happy, self-expressive person I knew.

Talk show hosts and producers, however, asserted that these programs were providing a “democratic forum” and performing a public service to the country by providing a cathartic release and national platform for taboo, previously unexplored social issues.11 Alongside other trans woman, Bianca talked about her life, from topics such as her sex work as a dominatrix, family dynamics, and dating. She wasn’t disowned or shunned by our family, she wasn’t ashamed of her work, and she wasn’t too shy to let the world know she was a proud transsexual.

Talk shows, Gamson writes, “are cliché-mongering entertainment, and to suggest that they effect major paradigm shifts would be to overestimate their cultural effects . . . Yet they throw open little cultural openings that, compared with the rest of commercial, mass-mediated popular culture, look huge.” He continues:

They are like darkened, cracked windows through which tiny cultural bombs can be tossed, disturbing the peaceful, everyday confidence in the simplicity of gay-straight and man-woman difference. The freakier and more monstrous the bomb throwers, the more boundaries are exposed. Seams and sutures start to pop out.12

Bianca had a small window of opportunity to get her points across and share information about herself on these shows.

In the above clip, we see Bianca discuss her relationship with her mother and her mother’s view on her sex work. They were close and Bianca even talked to her mother about some of the inadvertently funny details of her dominatrix work. This goes against the common narrative at the time and even now, about how Latine/x parents and families disown their transgender relatives. Hell, we watched her on television and never missed an episode. A few of my relatives in Florida even recorded her appearance on Cristina when it aired onto VHS using their VCRs. Not only were we in awe that she got onto Cristina, but we wanted to preserve the memory for our own family archives.

During Bianca’s five years on television, transgender representation in media came from a cis lens that painted trans people in a deceptive, deviant, or contemptuous light. Growing up in the ’90s, the only examples I saw of transgender representation in media were cis actors playing trans characters like in The Crying Game and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Both films depict cis characters vomiting upon discovering a character’s trans identity. On more salacious talk shows like Jerry Springer, I saw trans women alongside cis women on stage for the entertainment of cis audiences as the audience guessed and judged which guest on stage was the “real woman.”

During her appearance on shock-jock Howard Stern’s Howiewood Squares, Bianca irreverently answered Stern’s question about which bathroom she used during the commercial break—the men’s or ladies’ room? She replied that she used the ladies’ and that she “sat down, too.” In the face of mocking, invasive questions, she used humor as her weapon.

Speaking for herself on those studio stages, Bianca showed everyday audiences that trans people could have agency, had families who loved them, as well as caring friends, lovers, and admirers, and that they could have fun and pride in who they are, not secrecy and shame.

She helped carve out a space for transgender people in media, while also challenging gender norms and perceptions about trans folx. In this way, she helped shape culture and the narrative surrounding trans and queer culture, as well as the larger American culture. Watching Bianca on TV helped other trans people understand that they weren’t alone, that there were other people like them, and that you could lead a happy, even fabulous life.

In this clip, Bianca shares on Jenny Jones how she has a boyfriend, a straight cis man, and that they plan to marry on their three year anniversary. When Jenny Jones asks her what she plans to do with her penis, Silver jumps in and says, “Give it to you!” and Silver and Exotica erupt in laughter. This invasive question is one that TV hosts and everyday people often ask transgender people, and by making a joke of it, Silver and Exotica expose and ridicule cisgender people’s fixation on trans people’s genitals.

In this clip from The Phil Donahue Show, Silver also claps back at a bigoted woman in the audience. These talk shows didn’t just enrich people with a view into a day in these trans women’s lives, as Silver says, but also allowed them to defend themselves against transphobic remarks and people in real time on national television.

Silver and Bianca were not defenseless, they used their tongues as weapons to lash back at bigots throwing verbal violence their way. Bianca also carried a gun with her in New York City to protect herself from physical violence, which she laughs about in the next clip from Phil Donahue. I think she laughed because the audience wasn’t expecting her, a trans woman, to carry a gun. That would mean she had the right to shoot it and defend herself against those wishing to harm her, subverting a cis audience’s perceived notion that trans women are helpless and cannot fight back.

I wouldn’t say Bianca was an activist, but she presented her authentic self and showed agency as a trans woman, something rarely seen on television up until that point. She was educating us, teaching us, and to so many trans people watching, she was giving literal life.

In a 2015 interview with Out Magazine, Alexandra Billings of the TV show Transparent shared that she was experiencing suicidal ideation as a young person when she happened upon an episode of The Phil Donahue Show featuring trans women:

That was an epiphany for me. I sat there and I thought, There I am. That was the first time I had actually seen myself. Then I started having vocabulary for who I was. That was the beginning of a brand new freedom. That’s when I transitioned.13

Bianca’s least sensational and most educational appearance was on El Show De Cristina on Univision in 1996. Cristina Saralegui, the host of Latin America’s most-watched talk show, was respectful to my aunt and did not belittle her or laugh at her like hosts of US talk shows had. The audience was also respectful and attentive. This episode focused on dominatrices and Bianca shared the stage with a cis woman dominatrix.

My aunt’s transness was not a major selling point to the show, and only once at the beginning of the episode did Cristina ask my aunt about her gender:

Cristina: Dándole la bienvenida, dándole gracias por estar aqui hoy. Para aprender el mundo que todo nosotros desconocemos y ustedes son las guías. ¿Cuéntame porqué tu te metiste en esto? ¿Tu antes de hacer esto no lo habías hecho. ¿Tu eres un transvestita? ¿Tu eres un transexual? ¿Tu eres homosexual?

Exotica (Bianca): Estoy en el proceso por hacerme eh—estoy en las hormonas por cuatro meses. . . Pero la vida de transvestisma fue como hace cinco años lo estoy haciendo.

Translated:

Cristina: Welcome, thank you for being here today. We’re here to learn about to learn about your world as a dominatrix, a world we aren’t familiar with, so you and our other guest will be our guides. Tell me why you got into this? You hadn’t done this [dominatrix work] before. Are you a transvestite? Are you a transsexual? Are you homosexual?

Exotica (Bianca): I'm in the process of getting, eh—I’ve been on hormones for four months. . . But the life of transvestism is what I have been doing for five years.
PAGE 18 Cristina stitch

El Show De Cristina, 1996

The rest of the episode focuses only on Bianca’s work as a dominatrix. This was the most air time and speaking she ever did on a talk show, and it was also her last talk show appearance. To Cristina, Bianca explained that she got into her line of work because she was tired of men dominating her in her life, describing the art of being a dominatrix as primarily psychological and secondarily physical. She took pride in her work and shared with the captivated audience how she learned not to bruise her clients by first practicing hitting herself with toys. She described the loving relationship she had with her regular clients. Throughout the episode, neither Cristina nor the audience leered or reacted negatively. They were interested in learning about her work.

The Legendary ’90s Nightlife

And that’s how we survived it. I think that was the best way. We went dancing. It’s not like we were out on the street, we were out dancing. We were in the club. And that’s a different feel, ya know. We were in controlled, kind of, environments. But we were enjoying life and not hurting nobody. We were just living. . . and it’s all because of her. . . . Our Latino club kids, not the white club kids. We were the different kind. We had our world. And it was a fun world, and it was private and it was cute. — Nana Nazario

Bianca did not wait in lines. Bouncers opened the club ropes and let her and her friends inside without a problem. She was hot, her friends were hot, and Bianca had that je ne sais quoi “it” factor that made people notice and like her. She was always dressed to the nines and oozing magnetism.

While in beauty school in Union Square, Bianca got a taste of Manhattan. She soon told her best friends Nana and Kenny about what she found: the party scene. As Nana remembers: “She went out to the city, we lived in Queens and she ventured out. And she found it. And she brung it back to us. And she took us out.” She continues:

From there we expanded, met friends. It was a network—Brooklyn and Queens and Manhattan, sisters out there. We had friends everywhere because of [Bianca]. And it’s been a great life with her. It was a great life. It really was. We maybe struggled, but there wasn’t sorrow. There was kiki and happiness. It was so much fun. That’s why I get a little down nowadays because it’s the nostalgia of what we used to be . . . I guess we grew up in the right time. Ya know, the beginning of house and we were in it in the beginning. Paradise, Larry Levan, all that. I thank her [Bianca].
PAGE 19 Bianca friends stitch 2

Bianca with friends in Brooklyn and Manhattan, spanning the late 1980s and ’90s

The Artist and The Muse

Like many timeless beauties, Bianca was also a muse. A definition of “muse” that I love is: “the goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a poet, artist, thinker, or the like.”14 Many of her friends have described her as a goddess to me because of her feminine beauty, the way she carried herself so confidently—an inherent Scorpio power—and her magnetic personality. Bianca was loved by many and captivated many onlookers in her day.

Javier Valencia, Bianca’s friend, took this portrait of her in the late 1980s. For World AIDS Day 2023, Javier posted it to his Instagram in honor of her. He wrote:

What’s poignant about this body of work other than the subjects themselves is that all of my subjects passed away due to complications of AIDS at an early age . . .I was totally mesmerized by [Bianca]. . . .she had that “IT” factor that captivated all that came within her sphere. She had that power and she knew how to use it. Her total control of her freedom was what attracted me to her.

Growing up, we are trying to find out who we are and how we fit. [Bianca] realized at an early age who she was and who she wanted to be. We quickly became friends and one of my early muses. I would design and make “scandals” that she would wear to the clubs we were going to at the time. People would gawk and stare at her not because of anything negative but because her beauty shined thru and she would wear the “scandals” that I made her with pride.

When [Bianca] became ill I unfortunately did not get a chance to see her and say till next time. I took this portrait of her and I believe it captures her essence. I often wonder if she was alive today what endeavor she would be involved in. Gone too soon but definitely not forgotten.
PAGE 21 Bianca Portrait by Javier Valencia

Portrait of Bianca by Javier Valencia, circa late 1980s @javiervalencia36

At my desk, in bed, on the subway, in a park, on my computer, on my phone. 2021.

I watch those TV clips on YouTube over and over again when I want to remember her voice, her smile, her power. Bianca never got to make her avant-garde films, but she still graces the computer and phone screens of thousands of people today.

She had so many dreams, and I have no doubt she would have achieved all of them had she had more time. I think the way she moved in life, the way she loved, her whole existence was a dream come true. As I said at the beginning, she was an artist, but also, in a sense, she was the art.

Bianca lives on in the public archive, she shines within the public’s memory—I am not the only one watching these videos from 30 years ago. Bianca’s star never stopped burning. Sometimes when I dance, I imagine her next to me. She loved to dance.

Harlem, Manhattan. 1996.

The last time I saw Bianca was at Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center. She looked so different then, not like how she had been picking me up from school or on TV. A brain tumor the size of an orange barely let her speak or move. I couldn’t speak either at her hospital bed for fear I’d cry like the child I was. I knew she was going to die. I remember the nurses and doctors talking about her T-cell count. I didn’t know exactly what AIDS was, but I knew that AIDS meant saying goodbye. Our time together was coming to an end, and fast.

After 28 years, I still think about her all the time. All these years, I feel like she’s been watching me, looking over me. She was always magical in life, why wouldn’t she be on The Other Side?

Recently, Nana and I took a walk and passed by Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center, steps away from Central Park. “She died on Fifth Avenue, I know she loved that,” Nana said, and we both had a good laugh. Bianca was a fashionista after all.

Cypress Hills Cemetery, Queens. 1996.

Bianca’s funeral was the rainiest day I ever saw. It rained all day, and furiously. I am so grateful to Bianca, my transcestor, and as her genderqueer descendant, I will always carry on her legacy within our family and also make sure the world at large remembers her too.

PAGE 18 Cristina stitch pad

Stills from a home movie of Bianca’s funeral service and burial in Queens, NY, filmed by her uncle José Luis, 1996

Everywhere, Present Day. 2024.

We all miss Bianca. Everyone in my family misses her—even those of us who didn’t understand her in life, who were scared to visit or touch her while she was in the hospice. We understood that she was magic. My dad told me he envied Bianca because she was living her life loudly, the way she wanted—that she didn’t care what anyone thought. In countless ways, she inspired me, too. I am only beginning to realize that she was a muse to so many people. A spark, a pause, a smile, a bewildered look. How is she so happy and free and sexy and trans? She left a legacy not only in my family, but in the world, in New York City history, in transgender history.

I don’t think the pain of losing someone to AIDS ever goes away. I wish I had had more time with her, but she gave us all so much in her thirty short years. Now I can only hope to honor her by continuing to honor her memory and legacy.

I miss you every day, Bianca. I missed you when I was ten, I miss you this morning at the age of 38. Thinking about you always makes me cry, happy and stinging tears. I’ll always remember you, celebrate you and try to do right by you. I will always keep you alive.

My aunt Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado was an artist, cultural contributor, and icon. She was also my babysitter, and a star.

About the author

María José Maldonado is a queer Salvadoran-Ecuadorian artist born & raised in Queens, NY. Her work celebrates queer & trans Latine/x people. She’s 38, looks 23 & loves to Instagram: @saymariajose. Her docushort My Fierce Aunt Bianca premiered at Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival 2023. María José’s a proud alum of: BRIC Documentary Intensive Film Lab 2022, Toronto Queer Film Festival DIY Film Lab 2020, Lambda Literary Speculative Fiction Fellow 2022, Sandra Cisneros’s Macondo Writers Workshop Fiction Fellow 2021, Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellow 2020, Barbara Deming Fund 2020 feminist fiction grantee & Queer|Art Mentorship Literature Fellow 2019 mentored by Charles Rice-González.

Writing from the 2023 Research Fellowship is edited by Sophia Larigakis.

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