How a Malaysian transgender musician found her voice through metal music in a country that doesn’t accept her
- Musician and artist Shika Corona created the band Tingtong Ketz in 2015 with a revolving cast of fellow queer and trans musicians
- She is using her art and lyrics to try and break gender stereotypes that exist in the conservative country
One of the biggest exports from Ujong Pasir, a small town in the Malaysian state of Melaka, is transgender musician and artist Shika Corona – not that the town officially acknowledges this.
Shika grew up there in the 1980s and ‘90s, when Malaysia was going through the early stages of Islamisation. In the decade before, Malaysia was known as the only Southeast Asian country, apart from Thailand, where sexual reassignment surgery was legal. In the early 1980s, under increasing religious pressure, the government outlawed the surgery.
“Malaysia was a very different place then,” says Shika, who won’t reveal her age. “My family would go to fun fairs in Ujong Pasir, and there was always a Paper Dolls show,” she says, referring to a popular cabaret show featuring transgender women. “They were so beautiful, I wondered if I could be like them.”
Shika is sitting in the kitchen area of Cepronia, a privately owned studio in Kuala Lumpur shared by several LGBT bands, including her own, Tingtong Ketz. Her artwork features prominently on the walls and shelves.
Adopted as a baby, Shika’s parents intended for her to be the son who would take over her father’s restaurant business. She helped at the restaurant as a child, learning the ropes. Extremely introverted and shy, her father’s friends would call her pondan, an insulting Malay term for “transsexual”. Sometimes her father would call her that, too.
