They Want to Be K-Pop Stars. But They Won’t Hide Who They Are.
At a bar in Euljiro, one of Seoul’s up-and-coming hip neighborhoods, two voices intertwined in a duet. One was high-pitched, the other an octave lower.
But there was only one singer, a 27-year-old named jiGook. The other voice was a recording made years ago, before he began his transition and hormone therapy deepened his voice. “I don’t want to forget about my old self,” he told the 50 or so people at the performance, a fund-raiser for a group that supports young L.G.B.T.Q.
Koreans. “I love myself before I started hormone therapy, and I love myself as who I am now.” Like many other South Korean singers, jiGook, who considers himself gender fluid, transmale and nonbinary, wants to be a K-pop star.
So do Prin and SEN, his bandmates in QI.X, a fledgling group that has released two singles. What makes them unusual is that they are proudly out — in their music, their relationship with their fans and their social activism.
