The lo­cal arts fra­ter­ni­ty is pay­ing trib­ute to Zin­nia Li Chee­wah (born Dar­ren Chee­wah), 55, who was a break­out star on Par­ty Time in the 1980s and a beloved fig­ure, es­pe­cial­ly among young peo­ple in west Trinidad. Known for break­ing moulds, Chee­wah pre­ferred to be re­ferred to as “she” af­ter tran­si­tion­ing lat­er in life.

Her pass­ing came as a shock to many. Ronald Guy James, a vet­er­an de­sign­er and her land­lord, dis­cov­ered her life­less body in an apart­ment on his com­pound af­ter a close friend had been try­ing to reach her for sev­er­al days with no suc­cess. Au­thor­i­ties found no signs of foul play. It is be­lieved Zin­nia had suf­fered a seizure, a con­di­tion she had re­cent­ly been con­sult­ing a doc­tor about.

“Zin­nia was a very gen­tle, sweet char­ac­ter, very harm­less, just out to lib­er­ate her­self and en­joy life,” said Ster­ling Hen­der­son, a jour­nal­ist, artist and friend. “She was Tri­ni to the bone—vi­brant, au­then­tic, and un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly her­self.”

From the age of five, Zin­nia showed ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent as a pro­lif­ic artist, cre­at­ing strik­ing pieces for ad­ver­tis­ing agen­cies and be­yond. Her artis­tic jour­ney ex­tend­ed to paint­ing some of the most icon­ic mu­rals around Spain and tat­too­ing many well-known per­son­al­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go over the years.

Hen­der­son said tran­si­tion­ing in a cul­ture not yet fa­mil­iar or com­fort­able with gen­der tran­si­tions brought chal­lenges. “Many peo­ple knew her on­ly in her male form,” Hen­der­son ex­plained. “It makes un­der­stand­ing her full sto­ry dif­fi­cult for some.”

De­spite this, Hen­der­son said Zin­nia rep­re­sent­ed ex­cel­lence in dance, art and graph­ic de­sign, earn­ing wide­spread re­spect. “At one time, it felt like every­one want­ed a piece of Chee­wah.”

He re­flect­ed on their friend­ship and the mu­tu­al friends who con­nect­ed them, in­clud­ing lo­cal per­son­al­i­ties like Hot Dog, Mar­lon Brandt, School­boy and Ron­nie—fig­ures who, along with Zin­nia, were known as the “hot boys” of their youth.

“In our last con­ver­sa­tion, she spoke open­ly about her tran­si­tion,” Hen­der­son said.

“She al­ways pushed the bound­aries of mas­culin­i­ty—wear­ing kilts and sarongs, chal­leng­ing so­ci­etal norms. We had very good re­la­tions through­out.”

Zin­nia drove a dis­tinc­tive red, white and black van, a sym­bol of her vi­brant spir­it. “She might not have been what you see every day, but she made a great con­tri­bu­tion to life in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”