Melaka transgender metal musician found her voice in metal music but society doesn’t accept her

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.