There is a long history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activity in Singapore. Male
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
was outlawed under
British rule
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
(1819–1942; 1946–1959), despite being acknowledged among the local population. Following
Japanese occupation during World War II and the country gaining
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
, homosexuality and
transvestism
Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western c ...
were visible as a street scene, and from the 1970s were catered for in some nightclubs. In that decade also, Singapore became a centre of
gender-reassignment surgery.
Concerns over
HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
arose after cases were reported in the 1980s. During the 1990s, police clamped down on manifestations of homosexuality due to the stigma of HIV, leading to the growth of a
gay movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
. Male homosexuality was made legal in the country again in 2022, after the British colonial-era law
Section 377A was repealed by the government.
Pre-colonial period (up to 1819)
Relatively little is known about
pre-colonial Singapore, let alone the history of
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
during this period. It is assumed that ideas and practices relating to
sexual minorities
A sexual minority is a group whose sexual identity, sexual orientation, orientation or practices differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Primarily used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or non-heterosexual individuals, it can als ...
were similar to other contemporary and nearby
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
societies.
As with all
pre-modern
The term premodern refers to the period in human history immediately preceding the modern era, as well as the conceptual framework in the humanities and social sciences relating to the artistic, literary and philosophical practices which preceded t ...
societies, traditional Malay culture did not contain the idea or the figure of the modern
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
individual. However, Malay society did acknowledge the reality and existence of alternatives to heterosexual practices. ‘
Third gender
Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usually ...
’ or
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
individuals, who are called
mak nyah, were socially recognised, tolerated and even incorporated into community life. They occupied a stable, albeit arguably marginalised position within society. The mak nyah are similar in many ways to the
hijra
Hijra, Hijrah, Hegira, Hejira, Hijrat or Hijri may refer to:
Islam
* Hijrah (often written as ''Hejira'' in older texts), the migration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE
* Migration to Abyssinia or First Hegira, of Muhammad's followers ...
in India or the
fa'afafine or Mahu in Polynesia. Unfortunately, there is limited scholarly knowledge about homosexuality in traditional Malay culture.
Colonial period (1819–1948)
Traditional Asian attitudes to homosexuality
Institutionalised gay marriage practices may have occurred amongst
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
men in
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
China. The subculture was exported along with the human tide into Singapore and practised discreetly in an alien environment which officially espoused Victorian values. Usually, the younger of two male homosexual lovers would be "adopted" as the godson of the parents of the elder lover in a ceremony before the ancestral altar, involving an offering, amongst others, of pigs' trotters. Similarly, amongst the Indians, '
maasti' or sexual play between men who were not necessarily gay would likely have been widespread with the paucity of women.
British law & homosexuality
As with other British colonies, Singapore acquired a legal system and law modelled after Britain. Victorian values were codified into strict laws governing sexual behaviour in the United Kingdom, and these were brought to the colonies. The colonial legal system criminalised
sodomy
Sodomy () or buggery (British English) is generally anal or oral sex between people, or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal ( bestiality), but it may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term ''sodo ...
(see
section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code). These laws reinforced the values of the ruling British elite, which set the tone for other classes and ethnicities to emulate, at least on the surface. Over time, and to appear equally 'civilised' many Asians disavowed their longstanding cultural tolerance of sexual minorities.
Between 1938 and 1941, seven high-profile cases of prosecution under or related to Section 377A happened. Although four cases involved Europeans, only one was convicted.
In September 1938,
Lim Eng Kooi and
Lim Eng Kok became the first to receive punishment in the
Straits Settlement
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Comp ...
. The two "well-known" Penang Chinese were sentenced to seven months imprisonment each under Section 377A.
In March 1941, a
Tan Ah Yiow was sentenced to nine months imprisonment after he was found with a "European client" in a "low down quarter", where he was discovered by
F. J. C. Wilson, head of the local Anti-Vice Branch, following a tip. Wilson added that in court that a "disgusting and revolting practice had been performed", with medical evidence forthcoming.
In April 1941,
Lee Hock Chee
Lee may refer to:
Name
Given name
* Lee (given name), a given name in English
Surname
* Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee:
** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...
was prosecuted under Section 377A after a lascar saw him molesting a sleeping Chinese boy at a five-foot passageway off Rochore Road.
In April 1941, Captain
Douglas Marr, the Deputy Assistant Provost Marshal of the Singapore Fortress Command, was accused of having committed "an act of gross indecency" with a male Malay youth,
Sudin bin Daud, who denied being a "catamite". Sudin claimed that on 13 March or 14, he was walking along Stamford Road, a supposed "area for male prostitutes", at night when a car driven by Marr stopped, picked him up and brought him to his boarding house in
Tanglin Hill. The offence against
Section 377A allegedly took place there, he claimed, whereupon Marr gave Sudin some money and let Sudin take a watch before Sudin left, leaving his shirt there. In his defence, Marr claimed that he had wanted to get "at the root of the homosexual type of vice and I thought, as it transpires very foolishly, that it would be a good idea to question a catamite and to try and find out to what extent soldiers in different regiments were involved". Marr did not deny picking up Sudin, who he claimed approached him, but maintained that he merely questioned him back home to no avail, as he had mistaken Sudin for an Indian and spoken to him in Hindustani. On 16 April and 29 July, after a withdrawn appeal by the prosecution, Marr was acquitted of the charge, despite the fact that Sudin's shirt was found in his room. Sudin, who had pleaded guilty to the act of gross indecency and theft of the watch, was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment on 27 March.
In May 1941,
Gunner Ernest Allen of the Royal Artillery became the only European convicted under Section 377A after witness
Chan Yau testified that in March, he and Allen had committed the alleged offence in an Anguilla Road house. Allen denied the allegations, claiming that he had hired Chan to get him a girl. Allen was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment.
In July 1941, a blackmail case prosecuted by Mr. Griffith-Jones for the Crown; a Mr. 'X', as he was christened by the newspapers, admitted "he had been addicted to homosexual practices" had been extorted by more than two Chinese locals,
Tan Ah Lek and
Lim John Chye. They extorted and attempted to extort money from him by threatening to expose him. After several years Mr. 'X' complained to the police, who investigated and brought several cases to court. The European, who "held a responsible position in a Singapore firm", first came into contact with Lim in January 1939, when Lim wrote a letter to him asking for $5 to keep silent. By 1940, Mr. 'X' had paid him over $1,000, while the English-speaking Tan had extorted and tried to extort a total of thousands of dollars from Mr. 'X', and at the end of 1938, even extracting monthly payments from him. On 30 July, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment.
World War II to 1960s
When the Japanese invaded Singapore in February 1942, Japanese laws replaced previous colonial laws. Gay sex was never criminalised in Japan and would now have been technically legal in Singapore. However, given the lack of human rights and rule of law under the Japanese occupation, this change in law was a technical and historical quirk, reflective of a different legal tradition, rather than an expansion of real rights for gay people.
Anecdotally, gay
cruising continued in post-war Singapore in back alleys, public parks and toilets. In the most part, this was ignored by the police and no one was charged under
section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code. Meanwhile,
transvestite
Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western c ...
prostitution on
Bugis Street
Bugis (Kampong Bugis in Malay) is an area in Singapore that covers Bugis Street now located within the Bugis Junction shopping mall. Bugis Street was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of transvesti ...
became increasingly prominent. The State and mainstream society initially accepted it is as a vaguely undesirable but inevitable
vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...
, similar to the pragmatic and worldly attitudes towards prostitution in the cosmopolitan port-city. With their growing fame, the transvestites of Bugis Street became a tourist attraction, drawing local and foreign visitors every night. Bugis Street and its associated transgender community were by far the most visible face of sexual minorities in the immediate post-war period, much as transgender people had been in traditional Malay society. The difference was that the community was now much more public, urban and multi-ethnic.
Another arena in which LGBT issues were being played out was in
national service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The l ...
. Compulsory uniformed (usually military) service was implemented in 1967: all 18-year-old males were required to train full-time for two or two-and-a-half years, according to their level of education. Homosexuality and
transsexuality
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignment ...
were listed as conditions in a
Singapore Armed Forces
The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) are the military services of the Republic of Singapore, responsible for protecting and defending the security interests and the sovereignty of the country. A military component of the Ministry of Defence (MINDE ...
(SAF) 'Directory of Diseases' (disease code 302). Prior to enlistment, all enlistees underwent a medical examination, during which they were asked to declare their homosexuality and/or transgender status (medics conducting the examination had little awareness of the difference between the two). New recruits who came out were deployed to non-combat, non-sensitive vocations. They were generally downgraded to a Public Employment Status of 3 (PES3) and assigned only light clerical work.
While the SAF was concerned of the safety of out gay and trans men living and working with straight servicemen it was also reluctant to exempt them from the compulsory National Service that all Singaporean men had to perform. However, post-operative male-to-female transsexuals were exempted from National Service as the Singapore Government recognised their new gender identity as women. It is unknown if post-operative female-to-male transsexuals perform National Service, though it is unlikely that many of them exist who have undergone their operation by the time of enlistment, around the age of 18.
1970s
With growing prosperity, many homosexuals, especially the English-educated middle class were exposed, via travel and the mass media, to the social liberalism of the West and the nascent
gay movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
s there. This exposure introduced the idea that local society could evolve similarly. The growing popularity of travel to
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
and Japan in the late 1970s also introduced Singaporeans to traditional Asian societies that were more accepting of homosexuals.
Meanwhile, several nightlife entrepreneurs realised the unmet social demands of the emerging gay market, and gradually allowed their establishments to cater to gay customers on certain nights. One of the earliest was The Hangar, located in a secluded area outside the city centre where, for the first time, a large group of gay men could freely congregate and even dance together. Encouraged by this precedent, homosexuals started to patronise other, mainly straight, discos in the city area such as
My Place, Black Velvet, West End,
El Morocco
El Morocco (sometimes nicknamed Elmo or Elmer) was a 20th-century Manhattan nightclub frequented by the rich and famous from the 1930s until the decline of café society in the late 1950s. It was famous for its blue zebra-stripe motif (designed ...
, The Library, Studio M and even the NCO Club at Beach Road.
Nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
s like Pebbles Bar, Tropicana Inn, and less popularly Treetops Bar at the
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia. and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson, who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee that year. The chain was a division ...
, were increasingly packing in the gays and became
icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
ic institutions of the local gay scene. Some heterosexual clubbers complained about this, so the managements of some of these outlets were pressurised by the authorities to display signs proclaiming 'No man and man dancing' (sic). Over time, the ruling was relaxed for fast songs, but same-gender slow dancing continued to be proscribed.
In November 1971, the English-language evening tabloid ''
New Nation
''New Nation'' was a weekly newspaper published in the UK for the Black British community. Launched in 1996, the newspaper was Britain's Number 1-selling black newspaper. The paper was published every Monday.
''New Nation'' was initially lau ...
'' ran an exclusive interview with a
trans woman
A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...
on her transition. In July 1972, an exposé of the hidden lives of Singapore homosexuals in ''
New Nation
''New Nation'' was a weekly newspaper published in the UK for the Black British community. Launched in 1996, the newspaper was Britain's Number 1-selling black newspaper. The paper was published every Monday.
''New Nation'' was initially lau ...
'', headlined 'They are different', carried photographs of a gay couple embracing and "local transvestites". It caused a stir and raised mainstream awareness of the existence of gay people who were not transgender. The report also highlighted how "homosexuality is as old as ancient Greece".
During the decade, there was a well-known
transsexual
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignment ...
model featured occasionally in ''
Her World
''Her World'' is a monthly English-language magazine published in Singapore targeted at the female professionals reading market. It is also the first English-language women's magazine to be published in Malaysia and Singapore.
History and profil ...
'' magazine. On the silver screen, cinema goers enjoyed a Chinese language
Shaw Brothers
Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011.
In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...
production entitled ''
Ai nu'' (Love Slave) which starred actresses and
Betty Pei Ti
Betty Pei Ti (; born 10 November 1951) is a Taiwanese actress. Though born in Taiwan, she is best known for her roles in Hong Kong films, particularly of the Shaw Brothers Studio.
Early life
Pei was born Han Pai-chou (韩白绸) in Yilan City, ...
as a lesbian couple in a period setting. In the final scene when Lily Ho wanted to desert Betty Pei Ti to pair off with the male hero, she was asked for a final kiss. Whilst they were kissing, Betty Pei Ti sneaked a poison pill into her mouth which she bit, thus transforming it into a poignant kiss of death.
The widespread construction of public swimming pools from the 1970s gave Singapore the highest density of public pools per unit area in the world. Coupled with the emergence of many shopping centres, this increased the number of conducive spaces for gay cruising. The growing population, size and
urban density
Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. As such it is to be distinguished from other measures of population density. Urban density is considered an importan ...
of the city created opportunities for anonymous gay encounters even as it raised the risk of discovery by others and hence the number of public complaints about gay cruising and/or public sex, a factor which led to the phenomenon of police entrapment more than a decade later.
As Singaporean surgeons became more skilful, some like Prof. S
Shan Ratnam
Emeritus Professor Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam (4 July 1928 – 6 August 2001), also known as Shan Ratnam, was a Singaporean obstetrician and gynaecologist.
He was professor and head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the N ...
were authorised to perform male-to-female
sex-reassignment surgery at
Kandang Kerbau Hospital
KK Women's and Children's Hospital (abbreviation: KKH) is the largest public hospital specialising in healthcare for women and children in Singapore, located at 100 Bukit Timah Road.
From its humble beginnings as a small general hospital in 18 ...
from 1971 onwards. However, before hopeful transsexuals-to-be could go under the knife, they first had to subject themselves to a battery of psychological tests by
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
Prof.
Tsoi Wing Foo. Later, the more technically demanding female-to-male variety was also offered there and at
Alexandra Hospital
Alexandra Hospital (AH) is a hospital located in Queenstown, Singapore that provides acute and community care under the National University Health System.
The hospital's colonial-style buildings were constructed in the late 1930s on of land. U ...
, performed by gynaecologists such as Dr. Ilancheran. A Gender Identity Clinic and Gender Reassignment Surgery Clinic were set up at the
National University Hospital
The National University Hospital (NUH) is a tertiary referral hospital and academic medical centre in Singapore, located in Kent Ridge. It is a 1,160-bed tertiary hospital serving more than 670,000 outpatients and 49,000 inpatients and serves a ...
two decades later. In fact, for thirty years, Singapore was one of the world leaders in
gender-reassignment surgery.
Bugis Street
Bugis (Kampong Bugis in Malay) is an area in Singapore that covers Bugis Street now located within the Bugis Junction shopping mall. Bugis Street was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of transvesti ...
and
Johore Road
Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the northwest. Johor shares maritime ...
started to become populated with a range of genders from transvestites to
iatrogenic
Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. "Iatrogenic", ''Merriam-Webster.com'', Merriam-Webster, Inc., accessed 2 ...
intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
individuals to fully transformed women. Local hospitals and clinics also attracted transgender clients from other countries in the region, especially Malaysia and Thailand.
1980s
The early 1980s was a period of widespread prosperity and new freedoms which saw the opening of clubs like Shadows, Marmota, Legend and Niche which catered to a predominantly gay clientele even though they were not exclusively gay. These discos would be closed by the time of the mid-1980s, for unclear reasons, to be replaced by weekly Sunday Night Gay Parties or "Shadow Nights" run by the former management of Shadows (affectionately known as the "Shadow Management"). These "Shadow Nights" were roving events held at semi-permanent venues which included Rascals (at the
Pan Pacific Hotel), Heartthrob (at
Melia at Scotts), The Gate (at
Orchard Hotel), Music World (in
Katong
Katong, also known as Tanjong Katong, is a residential neighbourhood in the eastern portion of the Central Region of Singapore, within the Marine Parade planning area. It used to be located by the sea, before land reclamation towards the south ...
) and Studebaker's which later morphed into Venom (at
Pacific Plaza
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
). It is interesting to note that men's night parties held since Studebaker's were no longer run by the "Shadow Management". Lesbian culture also found a focal point in a small bar named Crocodile Rock in
Far East Plaza
Far East Plaza is a shopping centre in Singapore, located in the heart of the Orchard Road shopping belt at Scotts Road. It opened in 1982 together with a Metro (clothing shop) that has since closed down.
Over the past few years, Far East Plaza ...
, which remains to this day the oldest lesbian bar in Singapore.
It came as a shock when the first case of local HIV infection was reported in 1985. It galvanised a group of healthcare personnel (both gay and straight) to set up a non-governmental organisation (NGO) called
Action For AIDS (AFA) in 1988 which provided support and counselling for AIDS victims as well as educating the public on safe sex. AFA was not technically part of the
Singapore gay movement and has been careful to present itself as an NGO dealing with a public health issue. However, a significant portion of the energy and leadership behind it has been provided by gay people and in many practical ways AFA has rallied homosexuals around a cause.
Cruising continued in areas like
Hong Lim Park
Hong Lim Park, formerly known as Hong Lim Green and Dunman's Green, is a heritage park in the Downtown Core district of Singapore located next to the Parkroyal Collection Pickering hotel and Clarke Quay station.
The park is notable locally ...
,
Boat Quay
Boat Quay is a historical quay in Singapore which is situated upstream from the mouth of the Singapore River on its southern bank. It spans from the shophouses near UOB Plaza, stretching along one bank of the Singapore River, all the way till El ...
, back alleys in the Central Business District, Raffles Place MRT Station and
Tanjong Pagar
Tanjong Pagar ( alternatively spelled ''Tanjung Pagar'') is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urb ...
, swimming pools,
Fort Road Beach and public toilets. Police patrols to these areas were sporadically seen; on rare occasions individuals have had their IC numbers recorded, but for the most part they were left alone and no arrests were made. Lesbian couples who held hands in public, while not officially persecuted, report that they were frequently the target of verbal, physical, and at times sexual abuse from passers-by and gang members.
From the mid-1980s onwards, pubs and
karaoke
Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music is ...
bars like Babylon and Inner Circle started to sprout up along
Tanjong Pagar
Tanjong Pagar ( alternatively spelled ''Tanjung Pagar'') is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urb ...
. Sizable groups of gay men could be seen milling about outside these establishments especially on weekends. This, along with cruising activity at nearby
Ann Siang Hill
Ann Siang Hill ( Chinese: 安祥山, ms, Bukit Ann Siang) is a small hill, and the name of a one-way road located in Chinatown, Singapore. It was named after Chia Ann Siang, a wealthy businessman. The road links Club Street and Ann Siang Ro ...
and the surrounding back alleys would eventually come to give
Tanjong Pagar Road
Tanjong Pagar ( alternatively spelled ''Tanjung Pagar'') is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urb ...
the reputation of being Singapore's gay quarter.
Large bookshops like
Borders
A border is a geographical boundary.
Border, borders, The Border or The Borders may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Film and television
* ''Border'' (1997 film), an Indian Hindi-language war film
* ''Border'' (2018 Swedish film), ...
,
Kinokuniya
is a Japanese bookstore chain operated by , founded in 1927, with its first store located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
Its name translates to "Bookstore of Kii Province". The company has its headquarters in Meguro, Tokyo.
One of the company's g ...
,
Tower Books and even
MPH responded to the growing body of mainly foreign gay-themed literature by stocking these books along with those on women's issues in sections entitled '
Gender Studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
'.
1990s
The expansion of gay spaces in the 1980s were curbed to some degree in the 1990s. Singapore's rapid economic growth had been attributed by its leaders to '
Asian values'. The promotion of these ideas by Singaporean leaders fostered a climate of social conservatism. Against this backdrop, gays were perceived as a threat to Asian values and a sign of the emergence of decadent Western liberalism and individualism. Complaints made by the public about public
cruising led to police entrapment raids. Youthful and attractive undercover cops would pose as gay cruisers. The moment they were fondled by their targets, the latter would be arrested for outrage of modesty. Their names and occasionally mugshots were published in the press to humiliate them.
The most publicised case occurred in a forested grove near
Tanjong Rhu
Tanjong Rhu (, ta, தஞ்சோங் ரூ) is a subzone within the planning area of Kallang, Singapore, as defined by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). The perimeter of Tanjong Rhu is made up of Nicoll Highway in the north; Mountba ...
's
Fort Road Beach in November 1993. Amongst the 12 men arrested was a
Singapore Broadcasting Corporation
Mediacorp Pte. Ltd., doing business as Mediacorp and stylised as mediacorp, is a media conglomerate in Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the holding company of the Government of Singapore—it owns television, radio, and digital media prope ...
producer. All were punished with three strokes of the cane and prison sentences ranging from 2 to 6 months. In protest, performance artist
Josef Ng
Josef Ng Sing Chor (; born 1972) is a Singaporean former performance artist. He is known for his 1994 public performance ''Brother Cane'', at the end of which he partially exposed his buttocks and snipped his pubic hair. ''Brother Cane'' was repo ...
staged a work on New Year's Eve, 1993, as part of which he snipped off his pubic hair while his back was turned to the audience. This provoked a severe government reprisal in the form of a ban on all
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, one that held sway until 2004. Ng was also charged in court for committing an obscene act in public.
Gay discos also experienced occasional police raids, the most well-known of which occurred at Rascals on 30 May 1993, where policemen shouted rudely at patrons. A gay lawyer who was present later enlisted the support of 21 other gay professionals in writing a letter of complaint to the Chief of Police. To their surprise, they received an apology. This was the last documented case of police harassment at gay discos for many years to come.
The local media, especially the daily tabloid ''
The New Paper
''The New Paper'' is a Singaporean newspaper in tabloid form. It was originally published as a "noon paper", but since 2016 has been published daily as a freesheet in the morning from 7 a.m. onwards.
History
First launched on 26 July 1988, ...
'', began to sensationalise homosexual activities with attention-grabbing headlines like 'Pool Perverts on the Loose' and 'Gays surface again at East Coast beach'. In 1992, the
Censorship Review Committee recommended that 'materials encouraging homosexuality should continue to be disallowed.' In 1996, ''
I-S Magazine''
's publishing licence was suspended for one issue because of gay content appearing in the personal ads section.
An example of this government censorship was directed at
Chay Yew
Chay Yew () is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020.
Career
Yew's breakthrough work came from his early plays ''Porcelain'' and ''A Lan ...
, who, in the 1990s, had become an internationally known playwright with several plays featuring gay individuals and couples. The government banned performances of his work on the grounds that it was "promoting homosexuality" and, as a result, Yew felt pressured to live and work overseas.
It was against this deterioration in public image and treatment that a Singapore
gay movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
emerged. The most revolutionary factor which surfaced to facilitate the development of a sense of community amongst Singaporean gays was the widespread availability of the Internet and start of affordable access to the World Wide Web from the mid-1990s.
Activists such as
Alex Au
Alex Au Waipang, () also known by his Internet pseudonym as Yawning Bread, is an advocate of LGBT rights in Singapore. Au is a blogger and activist who provides analyses of Singaporean politics, culture, gay issues and miscellaneous subjects on h ...
, a member of
People Like Us, the first
gay equality
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
organisation in Singapore, saw the potential of the Internet as a vehicle to unite the
gay community
The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a common culture and social ...
and foment intellectual discussion. The
Singapore Gay News List
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
(SigNeL) was started on 15 March 1997 and has been instrumental in discussing issues of interest to the community. On 15 October 1998,
RedQuEEn!, an e-mail list for
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
-identified women was established. Au also launched his
Yawning Bread website in November 1996, to which he would contribute the most thorough analyses of issues facing the local gay community. It would also serve as a de facto chronicle of Singapore gay issues and history as they unfolded.
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
s could visit foreign websites to remain updated on gay news from around the globe or even view and download pornography, thus effectively bypassing Singapore's
Undesirable Publications Act.
To enable censorship of undesirable sites, all Internet traffic into and out of Singapore was required to be routed through local
proxy server
In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource.
Instead of connecting directly to a server that can fulfill a request ...
s. As a token of this restriction, to placate social
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
s, prominent porn websites such as ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
K ...
'' and ''
Penthouse
Penthouse most often refers to:
*Penthouse apartment, a special apartment on the top floor of a building
*Penthouse (magazine), ''Penthouse'' (magazine), a British-founded men's magazine
*Mechanical penthouse, a floor, typically located directly u ...
'' were blocked. The official explanation was that the Government wanted to signal a stand on undesirable sites without unduly hindering the development of the Internet. However, websites of local origin were monitored more closely than those from overseas.
One of the most important LGBT events of the decade took place in 1996 when People Like Us submitted their first application for registration as a society, after taking a year of painstaking effort to solicit ten signatories. The application was lodged with the
Registrar of Societies
A registrar is an official keeper of records made in a register. The term may refer to:
Education
* Registrar (education), an official in an academic institution who handles student records
* Registrar of the University of Oxford, one of the sen ...
on 7 November 1996. However, it was rejected on 9 April 1997 with no reason given.
PLU's appeals all the way to the
Prime Minister's Office met with no success. This rejection was reported by news agencies around the world.
For over two decades, post-operative transsexuals had been discreetly lobbying to be given the right to have their new sex reflected in their identity cards (but not their birth certificates) and to marry opposite-sex spouses. They were finally granted their wish on 24 January 1996 via an announcement by
MP Abdullah Tarmugi
Abdullah bin Tarmugi ( Jawi: عبدالله بن ترموڬي; born 25 August 1944) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore between 2002 and 2011.
Early life
Born to a Javanese father and a Chines ...
without much public fanfare or opposition.
On 11 December 1998, Senior Minister
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
responded to a gay man's question about the place of homosexuals in Singapore, live on
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
International by saying, '...what we are doing as a government is to leave people to live their own lives so long as they don't impinge on other people. I mean, we don't harass anybody.' Given Lee's stature as the venerated albeit authoritarian founding father of independent Singapore, these words helped set the tenor for official policy on homosexuality for many years to come. His comments may be regarded as one of the most significant events, as far as gay rights are concerned, of the decade.
On 12 December 1998, at the first National AIDS Conference,
Paddy Chew
Paddy Chew (; 29 March 1960 – 21 August 1999) was the first Singaporean person with HIV/AIDS to come out to the general public.
Early life
He attended St. Stephen's School and St. Patrick's School before becoming a flight steward. He worked ...
became the first person in Singapore to publicly come out with HIV/AIDS. He subsequently worked with
Haresh Sharma
Haresh Sharma (born 1965) is a Singaporean playwright. To date, he has written more than 100 plays that have been staged all over the world, including Singapore, Melbourne, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cairo and London. Sharma has a BA from the Nationa ...
and
Alvin Tan of
The Necessary Stage
The Necessary Stage (previously known as M1 Theatre Connect and M1 Youth Connection) is a Singaporean non-profit theatre company with charity status. Formed in 1987 by Alvin Tan, The Necessary Stage was established with its own mission to creat ...
on a one-man autobiographical play called ''Completely With/Out Character'' which was staged at The Drama Centre from 10 to 17 May 1999. He subsequently died from complications from AIDS at the
Communicable Disease Centre on 21 August 1999.
2000s
2002
On 1 December 2002, the ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' printed an extract of a speech made by Minister of State for Health,
Balaji Sadasivan
Balaji Sadasivan ( or ; 11 July 1955 – 27 September 2010) was a Singaporean politician and neurosurgeon. He attended Raffles Institution, Siglap Secondary School and National Junior College, and studied medicine at the University of Singapo ...
. He said, 'Research has also shown that the brain of homosexuals is structurally different from heterosexuals. It is likely therefore that the homosexual tendency is imprinted in the brain ''in utero'' and homosexuals must live with the tendencies that they inherit as a result of the structural changes in their brain. Within the moral and cultural constraints of our society, we should be tolerant of those who may be different from most of us.' This was the first time a Minister had publicly quoted scientific findings about homosexuality.
2003
The 7 July 2003 issue of ''
Time Asia
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
'' magazine carried a feature article entitled ''The Lion in Winter'', which examined Singapore's prevailing bleak economic climate against a wider backdrop of Asian
NIE malaise at the time.
["The Lion in Winter"](_blank)
Time Asia, 7 July 2003 In the article, Prime Minister
Goh Chok Tong
Goh Chok Tong (; born 20 May 1941) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1990 and 2004, and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party between 1992 and 2004. He was the Parliament of Singapore, ...
was quoted as saying, "So let it evolve, and in time the population will understand that some people are born that way. We are born this way and they are born that way, but they are like you and me." He also stated that though homosexual acts remained illegal in Singapore, gay people would now be allowed to serve in 'sensitive positions' in the civil service.
This started a major controversy in the media. The statement was greatly welcomed by the gay population of Singapore, but there was a strong reaction from those opposed to homosexuality. These included the
National Council of Churches of Singapore
The National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) is an ecumenical fellowship of Churches and Christian organisations in Singapore. This duty was initially carried out by the Malayan Christian Council which was then succeeded by the Council of ...
, which issued a statement that homosexuality was incongruous with the scriptures of Christianity, and an independent group of 20 Christians from different denominations, voluntary organisations and professions, led by Pastor
Yang Tuck Yoong, of the
Cornerstone Community Church. This group held a meeting to discuss a strategy and plan of action for Christians to tackle what they termed as a "volatile situation", and Yang's church issued a statement "Don't Keep Silent" on 20 July, calling on the Church in Singapore to "take a stand". Following this, many letters opposing homosexuality were published in Singapore's daily, ''
The Straits Times
''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was established ...
''.
Several prominent members of the Singaporean Christian community disagreed with the stance taken by the National Council of Churches, including Reverend
Yap Kim Hao, the former bishop of the
Methodist Church in Singapore
The Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS) is the church that Methodists in Singapore belong to. The Church has 46 churches island-wide with around 42,000 members, and is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in Singapore. Its current bishop a ...
, and Catholic Theresa Seow, President of the (Singapore) Inter-Religious Organisation.
Reporter M. Nirmala of the ''Straits Times'' covered the controversy in her article on 23 July 2003, titled "Gay Backlash".
The debate and its political implications are also documented and discussed in an article "Imagining the Gay Community in Singapore", whose abstract is:
Through an analysis of public responses to two separate but related events in contemporary Singapore – a church's claim that "homosexuals can change" and a former prime minister's published comments about openly gay civil servants in his administration – this article explores how a "gay community" has been imagined in Singapore, where homosexual acts remain illegal and where a "conservative majority" has been ideologically mobilised by the state and moral-religious entrepreneurs. A close reading of the debates within SiGNeL (the Singapore Gay News List) and the local mass media reveals ideological struggles – and, in particular, gay activists' role in these struggles – surrounding a basic contradiction between Singapore's exclusionary laws and practices, and official state rhetoric about active citizenship, social diversity, and gradual liberalisation. This rhetoric is aimed primarily at attracting foreign talent and retaining mobile Singaporean talent in a globally integrated economy that is increasingly dependent upon creativity and innovation.
2004
LGBT film banned in Singapore
In July 2004, ''
Formula 17
''Formula 17'' () is a 2004 Taiwanese film directed by Chen Yinjung. It stars Tony Yang, Duncan Chow, King Chin, Dada Ji, Jimmy Yang, and Jason Chang. It is a gay romantic comedy film about Chou Tien Tsai, a romantic Taiwanese young man who take ...
'', a Chinese-language teenage romantic comedy and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
's highest-grossing film of the year was banned because it "normalizes homosexuality". Singapore's Films Appeals Committee said that its panel members thought the movie "creates an illusion of a homosexual utopia, where everyone, including passersby, is homosexual and no ills or problems are reflected...It conveys the message that homosexuality is normal, and a natural progression of society".
Collaboration between local NGO and LGBT platform
In November 2004, a partnership between Action For AIDS (AFA)'s MSM Resources and
SGBOY.COM was announced in November 2004, volunteers from MSM Resources will be participating in SGBOY.COM's online forums and IRC chat room – which are the region's busiest for gay Asian men. The move follows stinging criticism from the Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan this month in which he said the homosexual community was mostly to blame for an "alarming AIDS epidemic" in Singapore.
LGBT party banned
In December 2004, the government turned down an application by gay dating platform
Fridae
Fridae (in Chinese 匯樂) is a diversified media and services company that caters to the gay and lesbian community of Asia. Its strategy covers the Internet, Broadcasting, Publishing and Events.
The name "Fridae" is inspired by "Man Friday" fro ...
to hold its ''Snowball.04'' party on 25 December because the event was "likely to be organised as a gay party which is contrary to public interest," according to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Lee said that in previous editions of the party in 2002 and 2003, assurances were sought from party organisers that the event would include the wider community. "We allowed it and we made it quite clear that it had to be a party which was not targeted at gays alone," Lee said. "As the party turned out, our sense of it was that it was beyond what we were prepared to accept. So we said no."
2005
On 21 May 2005, the ''
Straits Times
''The Straits Times'' is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore and currently owned by SPH Media Trust (previously Singapore Press Holdings). ''The Sunday Times'' is its Sunday edition. The newspaper was establishe ...
'' reported that 3 teenagers was infected with the HIV virus in 2004, the biggest in a year since 1985, when HIV was first detected in Singapore.
Before 2004, Ministry of Health figures showed only 1 teen at most per year tested positive for HIV. Another alarming change was that the infected teens in the past two years were gay. Previously, the 3 teens infected between 2000 and 2002 had been heterosexual. In 2005, the lone 17-year-old student who had so far tested positive for HIV was also gay. He was presumably infected by his older partner who pressured him into having unprotected sex, according to
Action for AIDS programme director
Roger Winder
Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ...
.
On 6 December 2005, UK newspaper ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' reported that a Singaporean man Ghani Jantan and his British partner John Walker were the first gay couple to announce their civil union in the print version of the widely read British daily. The pair were amongst the first wave of more than 1000 homosexual couples to take advantage of the
civil partnership
A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...
law which grants gay unions almost all the legal rights and obligations which apply to heterosexual marriages. The story was also carried by Singapore's ''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now''
* Current era, present
* The current calendar date
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...
'' newspaper.
In June 2005, government authorities turned down an application by gay dating platform Fridae to host its fifth annual ''Nation'' party because "police assessment is that the event is likely to be organised as a gay party, which is contrary to public interest in general." The party coincided each year with Singapore's
National Day and had been held four times previously. Organisers said more than 8,000 people attended the last one in 2004, generating an estimated S$6 million in tourist revenue for the country.
Junior health minister Balaji Sadasivan said a rise in HIV infections in the gay community was linked to the parties as they "allowed gays from high-prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community." Expressing his disappointment at the government's decision, Fridae CEO Stuart Koe, said, "This is a direct contradiction to previous calls for embracing of diversity."
As a reaction to the banning of the ''Nation'' party, LGBT event organisers came together to start
IndigNation
IndigNation was Singapore's annual, month-long lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer pride season, first held in August 2005 to coincide with the republic's 40th National Day.
Background
IndigNation begun as a series of LGBT-themed events meant to f ...
, a month-long series of events held during
Pride month
LGBT Pride Month is a month, typically in June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and ha ...
. In August 2004, just days after being sworn in as prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong had promised a more "open and inclusive" Singapore, saying, "The police have now decided to exempt indoor talks from licensing requirements, unless they touch on sensitive issues such as race and religion." Community leaders seized on the promise to organise talks, workshops, and related events as part of the line-up for IndigNation, which would evolve to be an annual affair.
2006
Film depicting gay scene shown uncensored
In February 2006, Singapore announced it would be screening ''
Brokeback Mountain
''Brokeback Mountain'' is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by O ...
'', a romantic drama film directed by
Ang Lee
Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...
, on local screens uncut. The film received an R21 rating for depictions of homosexual sexual activities which restricted it to people over 21. Amy Chua, director of media content at the
Media Development Authority
The Media Development Authority (abbreviation: MDA) was a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI).
History
MDA was formed on 1 January 2003 by the merger of Singapore Broadcasting ...
said the Board of Film Censors allowed Brokeback Mountain to be screened because the film did not "promote or glamorise the lifestyle."
2007
In response to a question from the youth wing of the PAP in 2007, Lee Kuan Yew said, "This business of homosexuality. It raises tempers all over the world, and even in America. If in fact it is true, and I’ve asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual, because that is the nature of genetic random transmission of genes. You can’t help it. So why should we criminalise it?... But there is such a strong inhibition in all societies – Christianity, Islam, even the Hindu, Chinese societies. And we’re now confronted with a persisting aberration, but is it an aberration? It’s a genetic variation. So what do we do? I think we pragmatically adjust."
Four years later, in an interview granted to journalists for the book ''Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going'', Lee was asked if he thought homosexuality was a lifestyle or genetic. He said, "No, it’s not a lifestyle. You can read the books all you want, all the articles. There’s a genetic difference, so it’s not a matter of choice. They are born that way and that’s that. So if two men or two women are that way, just leave them alone."
Asked how he would feel if one of his children came out to him, Lee said, "That’s life. They’re born with that genetic code, that’s that.
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
didn’t like gays but his daughter was born like that. He says, 'I still love her, full stop.' It’s happened to his family. So on principle he’s against it, but it’s his daughter. Do you throw the daughter out? That’s life. I mean none of my children is gay, but if they were, well that’s that."
Saying he took a "purely practical view" on the issue, Lee said, "Look, homosexuality will eventually be accepted. It’s already been accepted in China. It’s only a matter of time before it is accepted here. If we get a Cabinet full of Christians, we’re going to get an intolerant Cabinet. We’re not going to allow that."
Asked whether Singapore was ready for a gay member of parliament, Lee said, "As far as I’m concerned, if she does her work as an MP, she looks after her constituents, she makes sensible speeches, she’s making a contribution, her private life is her life, that’s that."
In a wide-ranging interview conducted on 24 Aug. 2007 at the
Istana ''Istana'' is an Indonesian language, Indonesian and Malay language, Malay word meaning "palace".
Notable Istanas
*Istana Alam Shah, the official palace of the Sultan of Selangor
*Istana Besar, 19th- and early 20th-century residence of the Sultan o ...
with Leonard M. Apcar, deputy managing editor of the ''
International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
'', Singapore correspondent Wayne Arnold, and Southeast Asia bureau chief Seth Mydans, Lee said, "we take an ambiguous position. We say, O.K., leave them alone but let's leave the law as it is for the time being and let's have no gay parades."
"Don't ask, don't tell?" asked the reporters. "Yes, we've got to go the way the world is going. China has already allowed and recognized gays, so have Hong Kong and Taiwan," Lee responded. "It's a matter of time. But we have a part Muslim population, another part conservative older Chinese and Indians. So, let's go slowly. It's a pragmatic approach to maintain social cohesion."
Parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377
In October 2007, a parliamentary petition to repeal
Section 377A Penal Code was jointly organised by
Fridae
Fridae (in Chinese 匯樂) is a diversified media and services company that caters to the gay and lesbian community of Asia. Its strategy covers the Internet, Broadcasting, Publishing and Events.
The name "Fridae" is inspired by "Man Friday" fro ...
founder Stuart Koe, human rights lawyer George Hwang and housewife Tan Joo Hymn, garnering thousands of signatories for an open letter to the prime minister. Anti-gay activists sprang to action in a counter-appeal that urged the government to "Keep 377A", claiming even more signatories.
On 22 October 2007, three organisers of the Open Letter, theatre practitioner Ivan Heng, entrepreneur Alan Seah and actress Pamela Oei hand delivered the 400-page letter with 8,120 signatures to the Prime Minister's office at the Istana.
Nominated Member of Parliament
A Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) is a member of the Parliament of Singapore who is appointed by the president. They are not affiliated to any political party and do not represent any constituency. There are currently nine NMPs in the Parl ...
Siew Kum Hong tabled the petition to Parliament to repeal Section 377A. Members of Parliament who spoke in favour of the repeal included PAP MPs
Charles Chong
Charles Chong You Fook ( zh, s=张有福, p=Zhāng Yǒufú; born 24 June 1953) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore between 2011 and 2020. He served as Acting Speaker of the Parliament o ...
,
Baey Yam Keng
Baey Yam Keng ( zh, s=马炎庆, p=Mǎ Yánqìng; born 31 August 1970) is a Singaporean politician who has been serving as Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment since ...
and
Hri Kumar Nair
Hri Kumar Nair (born 16 June 1966) is a Singaporean lawyer and former politician who has been serving as Deputy Attorney-General of Singapore since 2017. A former member of the People's Action Party, he was the Member of Parliament representin ...
.
NMP
Thio Li-ann
Thio Li-ann (born 10 March 1968) is a Singaporean law professor at the National University of Singapore. She was educated at the University of Oxford, Harvard Law School and the University of Cambridge. In January 2007, she was appointed a ...
gave an impassioned speech against repeal, famously likening gay sex to "shoving a straw up your nose to drink". She said she spoke "at the risk of being burned at the stake by militant activists" and warned of a "radical", "homosexual agenda" that was out to "subvert social morality, the common good and undermine our liberties."
Opposition MP Sylvia Lim said the Workers' Party did not take a stand regarding appeal. She proposed the setting up of a Select Committee to scrutinise the wording and execution of the Penal Code and to comprehensively archive and make publicly available feedback from all civic groups.
Senior minister of state for Law and Home Affairs, Associate Professor
Ho Peng Kee
Ho Peng Kee ( zh, s=何炳基, p=Hé Bǐngjī; born 9 May 1954) is a Singaporean legal academic and former politician. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he was the Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Law and the Minis ...
, said that Singapore was generally still a "conservative" society and that the majority of its people still found homosexual behaviour "unacceptable". The government therefore chose to "let the situation evolve naturally" and to allow Section 377A to remain status quo.
Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore was "basically a conservative society" with many being "uncomfortable with homosexuals, more so with public display of homosexual behaviour". However, as recognition that homosexuals "are often responsible, invaluable, and highly respected contributing members of society", the government would not "proactively enforce Section 377A on them."
He said his government did not "consider homosexuals a minority, in the sense that we consider, say, Malays and Indians as minorities, with minority rights protected under the law" and that it would not "allow or encourage activists to champion gay rights as they do in the West."
"The decision on whether or not to decriminalise gay sex is a very divisive one and until there is a broader consensus on the matter, Singapore will stick to the status quo," he added.
2008
In January 2008, cinema operator
Golden Village
Golden Village is a cinema operator based in Singapore, fully owned by Orange Sky Golden Harvest of Hong Kong. It was initially set up as a 50:50 joint venture between Golden Harvest (predecessor of Orange Sky Golden Harvest) and Village Ro ...
kicked off its first ever ''The Love and Pride Film Festival'', an annual event dedicated to the screening of LGBT films.
2009
Pink Dot SG
Following the relaxation of rules governing activities conducted at Singapore's Speakers' Corner at
Hong Lim Park
Hong Lim Park, formerly known as Hong Lim Green and Dunman's Green, is a heritage park in the Downtown Core district of Singapore located next to the Parkroyal Collection Pickering hotel and Clarke Quay station.
The park is notable locally ...
, allowing demonstrations organised by Singaporeans to be held at the park, the first
Pink Dot SG
Pink Dot SG, known exonymously as Pink Dot, is an event that has occurred annually since 2009 in support of the LGBT community in Singapore. Attendees of Pink Dot events gather to form a "pink dot" to show support for inclusiveness, diversity ...
event took place at the Speakers' Corner on 16 May 2009.
Launched with a campaign video titled "RED + WHITE = PINK", this was Singapore's first public, open-air, pro-LGBT event and drew an estimated crowd of 2,500, breaking the record for the greatest turnout for a gathering at
Speakers' Corner
A Speakers' Corner is an area where open-air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed. The original and best known is in the northeast corner of Hyde Park in London, England. Historically there were a number of other areas design ...
in Hong Lim Park since the venue's inception.
Ambassadors of the event were three local celebrities: actor Timothy Nga, actress
Neo Swee Lin
Neo Swee Lin (; ) is a Singaporean actress who has appeared in several Asian films and theatres, notably in TV films and drama since the 1990s.
Early life
Born in Singapore, Neo Swee Lin has a law degree from National University of Singapore an ...
and radio DJ
Rosalyn Lee Rosalyn may refer to:
* "Rosalyn" (song), song by Pretty Things
People
* Rosalyn Borden (1932–2003), American actress
*Rosalynn Carter, wife of former President of the United States Jimmy Carter
* Rosalyn Gold-Onwude (born 1987), American basket ...
. During the event, formations of the words "LOVE" and "4All" were created by participants. The event concluded with the formation of the titular Pink Dot.
Attempted takeover of local Association for Women's equality
In 2009, a group of conservative Christian women took over the
Association of Women for Action and Research
The Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) is a not-for-profit organisation that advocates for gender equality and provides critical support services for women in Singapore. It is a registered charity with Institute of Public Charac ...
(AWARE) by winning 9 out of 12 available seats on the executive committee.
It was subsequently known that six out of nine of the new members of the committee were members of the same church, the
Anglican Church of Our Saviour (COOS) located at Margaret Drive.
At the time, AWARE's Constitution allowed new members to stand for elections. The group engineered a takeover under the leadership of Josie Lau and organisation by
Thio Su Mien
Thio Su Mien (nee Huang) is a Singaporean former legal academic and lawyer. She was the dean of the National University of Singapore's Faculty of Law from 1968 to 1971.
Education and career
Huang Su Mien was born to the Reverend Huang Yang Ying ...
, nominating and voting in new members to the executive committee. They alleged that AWARE was harbouring and pushing a "pro-gay agenda".
Thio told reporters that she had encouraged the women to take over AWARE because she felt that AWARE's original focus on gender equality had shifted, claiming that "Aware seems to be only very interested in lesbianism and the advancement of homosexuality". She then attacked AWARE's sex education syllabus, which came under the
Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
's (MOE) Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) programme. Thio claimed that AWARE’s sex education had encouraged local students to view homosexuality in 'neutral' terms instead of 'negatively', warning that "this is something which should concern parents in Singapore".
The new members had changed the locks and the security system at the AWARE Centre in Dover Crescent without the knowledge of the "Old Guard".
Eventually, after meetings between members of the "Old Guard", they decided to challenge the new executive committee at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 2 May 2009.
The EGM finally concluded, after over eight hours, with a vote of no confidence in the "New Guard", and a new executive committee elected with a mix of old and new members of AWARE.
Deputy Prime minister
Wong Kan Seng
Wong Kan Seng ( zh, s=黄根成, j=Wong4 Gan1 Sing4, poj=N̂g Kun-sêng, p=Huáng Gēnchéng; born 8 September 1946) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 2005 and 2011. He has been serving ...
commented that "a group of conservative Christians, all attending the same church, which held strong views on homosexuality, had moved in and taken over AWARE because they disapproved of what AWARE had been doing", and called for tolerance, cautioning that religion and politics must be kept separate.
2010s
2010
Local church's anti LGBT sermon
In February 2010, a video containing anti-gay remarks made by Rony Tan, the senior pastor of megachurch Lighthouse Evangelism, was circulated online. "Proper sex means life. Lesbianism and homosexuality simply mean death, barrenness," said Tan in the video.
"Don’t believe all those loud-mouthed gay people who tell you they are born this way", Tan added. "If we don’t warn people against this, then there will be more and more homosexuals... many of these people will be harassing and seducing young boys, and they in turn will become homosexuals... half the world will be homosexual".
He also linked homosexuality with bestiality: "If you allow
omosexuality next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights. They’ll want to apply for HDB
colloquial term to mean a government subsidised flat With a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. It’s very pathetic."
A total of 85 police reports were lodged against Tan, including by local filmmakers
Royston Tan
Royston Tan (; born 5 October 1976) is a Singaporean filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer and actor.
Tan is a graduate from Temasek Polytechnic, where he studied Visual Communications. He first came into prominence through his short films ...
and
Sun Koh. Tan did not rescind his comments, nor was he censured by the authorities for his remarks.
2013
Legal challenge on the Constitution
In May 2013, the High Court struck out an application by a gay man seeking a declaration that
Article 12 of the Constitution applies to all, regardless of sexual orientation. Lawrence Bernard Wee Kim San, then 40, claimed to have been harassed into resigning from his position as assistant general manager for cards and corporate sales at Robinson's department store because of his homosexuality. He was also ordered by the court to pay the costs of his case. The Attorney General's Chambers, in a statement, said Wee's "real grievance of alleged discrimination is against his former employer, and not the Government", and described his claim as being "not sustainable in law", "frivolous and vexatious" and "an abuse of the Court process".
Investigation of Adam Lambert concert by the National Council of Churches of Singapore
In May 2013, the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) said it was looking into a complaint about
Adam Lambert
Adam Mitchel Lambert (born January 29, 1982) is an American singer and songwriter. Since 2009, he has sold over 3 million albums and 5 million singles worldwide. Lambert is known for his dynamic vocal performances that fuse his theatrical tra ...
performing at
The Star Performing Arts Centre
One-north (stylized as one-north) is a subzone of Queenstown, Singapore, first developed by JTC Corporation as the country's research and development and high technology cluster. It was first conceptualised in 1991 as part of the National Tec ...
, a commercial entity fully owned by Rock Productions, the business arm of
New Creation Church
New Creation Church (), or abbreviated as NCC, is a Christian megachurch in Singapore founded in 1984. It holds services at The Star Performing Arts Centre. It is a non-denominational Christian church, and a member of the National Council of Ch ...
. Lim K. Tham, general secretary of the council said it had received a complaint that "the gay lifestyle may be promoted at the concert" and that "The NCCS has conveyed this concern to New Creation so that it can make a response."
In a statement, the church said that according to stipulations from the authorities before the tender was awarded to Rock Productions, the venue had to operate "on a purely commercial basis and will not implement any leasing or pricing policies that will discriminate between religious groups, institutions or organisations from hiring the venue". The church said all public events require a public entertainment licence from the police, and it had "utmost confidence" in the policies and ability of government bodies such as the
Media Development Authority
The Media Development Authority (abbreviation: MDA) was a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI).
History
MDA was formed on 1 January 2003 by the merger of Singapore Broadcasting ...
to "protect the interest of the general public". The statement added that any event at the performing arts centre "should not be misconstrued or misunderstood" as the church "approving of its artistic presentation or endorsing the lifestyle of the performer".
2014
"Wear White" campaign in protest of Pink Dot SG event
To protest against the annual Pink Dot SG, a group of Muslims led by Ustaz Noor Deros, a theology graduate of
Al-Azhar University
, image = جامعة_الأزهر_بالقاهرة.jpg
, image_size = 250
, caption = Al-Azhar University portal
, motto =
, established =
*970/972 first foundat ...
who was employed at the
En-Naeem mosque in
Tampines
Tampines () is the regional centre of the East Region of Singapore. With a population of 265,340 living across its five subzones, it is the second-most populous planning area in Singapore, according to the DOS Population Trends 2022. It is h ...
, started a "Wear White" campaign, calling on people to return to "
fitra
''Fitra'' or ''fitrah'' (; ALA-LC: ) is either the state of purity and innocence in which Muslims believe all humans to be born, or the ability to choose or reject God's guidance, with which both humans and jinn are endowed. ''Fitra'' is an Arab ...
h" – or purity – and "
sunnah
In Islam, , also spelled ( ar, سنة), are the traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time evidently saw and followed and passed ...
" – the way of the
Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monoth ...
. In a message on the campaign website, Noor Deros wrote that the "natural state of human relationships is now under sustained attack by LGBT activists" and accused the organisers of Pink Dot of organising their event on the first day of
Ramadan
, type = islam
, longtype = Religious
, image = Ramadan montage.jpg
, caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...
to "underline their disdain for Islam and the family".
Lawrence Khong
Lawrence Khong Kin Hoong (born 17 July 1952) is a Singaporean Christian religious leader and magician. He is the leader of Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore and the chairman of LoveSingapore, a network of about 100 socially conser ...
, senior pastor of
Faith Community Baptist Church
Faith Community Baptist Church (), or FCBC, is an independent charismatic megachurch in Singapore founded by Pastor Lawrence Khong in 1986.
The church was one of three megachurches to make it to a list of Singapore's 10 largest charities, acc ...
and head of the LoveSingapore network of churches, urged Christians to wear white at church services that weekend in support of the movement. "We cannot and will not endorse homosexuality. We will continue to resist any public promotion of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle," Khong wrote in a Facebook posting.
2015
Debate over Adam Lambert's performance in national broadcast New Year Countdown event
In December 2015, when it was announced that
Adam Lambert
Adam Mitchel Lambert (born January 29, 1982) is an American singer and songwriter. Since 2009, he has sold over 3 million albums and 5 million singles worldwide. Lambert is known for his dynamic vocal performances that fuse his theatrical tra ...
would be performing at a Countdown 2016 New Year's Eve event, anti-gay groups sprang to action, petitioning the government to have the openly gay singer removed from the line-up. An open letter which gathered more than 20,000 signatures said "Singaporeans can enjoy a good show without their consciences being affronted by lewd acts in the name of entertainment" and that Lambert was "well-known for his active promotion of a highly sexualized lifestyle and LGBT rights". A counter-petition by Lambert supporters subsequently attracted more than 24,000 signatures.
State broadcaster Mediacorp later confirmed that Lambert would perform, and assured audiences that the show would be "suitable for family audiences and conform with broadcast regulations". Adam Lambert said in a statement, "My performance at Celebrate 2016 will not only be a spectacular one, it will celebrate the entire human family in all its diversity. I am a uniter, not a divider, and I believe in celebrating the human heart and spirit".
2016
Ban on sponsorships by foreign companies for events held at Speakers' Corner
After Pink Dot SG events which attracted sponsorships from multinational companies such as
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
,
JP Morgan
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the wo ...
,
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
,
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
,
Barclays
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
,
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
,
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
,
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States.
NBCUniversal is primari ...
,
Salesforce.com
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, an ...
,
Visa
Visa most commonly refers to:
*Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company
** Visa Debit card issued by the above company
** Visa Electron, a debit card
** Visa Plus, an interbank network
*Travel visa, a document that allows ...
and
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
, the
Ministry of Home Affairs
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
announced it would "take steps to make it clear that foreign entities should not fund, support or influence" events held at
Speakers' Corner
A Speakers' Corner is an area where open-air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed. The original and best known is in the northeast corner of Hyde Park in London, England. Historically there were a number of other areas design ...
. The ministry said in a statement, "The Government's general position has always been that foreign entities should not interfere in our domestic issues, especially political issues or controversial social issues with political overtones. These are political, social or moral choices for Singaporeans to decide for ourselves. LGBT issues are one such example. This is why under the rules governing the use of the Speakers' Corner, for events like Pink Dot, foreigners are not allowed to organise or speak at the events, or participate in demonstrations."
In a letter to Home Minister
K Shanmugam
Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam ( ta, காசிவிஸ்வநாதன் சண்முகம்; born 26 March 1959), better known as K. Shanmugam, is a Singaporean politician and lawyer who has been serving as Minister for Law since 2008 ...
,
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
said the ministry's statement sent a "discriminatory message" to Pink Dot’s corporate sponsors: "This infringes on rights to freedom of expression, which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to 'everyone', and pressures corporations to act in contravention of their responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights."
Threats to LGBT event
In the first case of its kind, a 36-year-old man Bryan Lim Sian Yang was charged in June 2016 with inciting violence after he logged on to an anti-gay Facebook group "We are against Pinkdot in Singapore" and wrote: "I am a Singaporean citizen. I am a NSman, I am a father. And I swore to protect my nation. Give me the permission to open fire. I would like to see these £@€$^*s die for their causes". Lim posted his comment on 4 June and it subsequently went viral after the 12 June
Orlando nightclub shooting
On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff.
In a 9- ...
which killed 49 mostly LGBT victims, sparking a huge uproar. Multiple police reports were filed and police seized his desktop, laptop and mobile phone as they launched investigations.
Lim apologised, saying his comment was "taken out of context". "I did not mean physical bullets nor physical death," he wrote. "I mean open fire in debate and remove them from Singapore domestic matters."
His employer Canon Singapore issued a statement denouncing his comment and said the company was "looking into this matter". Lim was eventually found guilty of making a threatening, abusive or insulting communication under the
Protection from Harassment Act and fined S$3,500.
2017
Local companies supporting LGBT event
As a result of amendments to Singapore's Public Order Act, which was decried by human rights group
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
, foreigners trying to attend the 9th
Pink Dot SG
Pink Dot SG, known exonymously as Pink Dot, is an event that has occurred annually since 2009 in support of the LGBT community in Singapore. Attendees of Pink Dot events gather to form a "pink dot" to show support for inclusiveness, diversity ...
event now faced arrest and if found guilty, could be fined S$20,000 or jailed for a year. Organisers barricaded
Hong Lim Park
Hong Lim Park, formerly known as Hong Lim Green and Dunman's Green, is a heritage park in the Downtown Core district of Singapore located next to the Parkroyal Collection Pickering hotel and Clarke Quay station.
The park is notable locally ...
and checked the identity card of each participant at checkpoints.
20 local companies contributed more than S$200,000 to the event which was above the target of S$150,000 of Pink Dot SG.
2018
Debate over children's books with LGBT themes at the National Library Singapore
In July 2018, the discovery of three children's books with LGBT themes at the
National Library Singapore sparked an uproar and an ensuing debate over literary censorship. The three books were ''
And Tango Makes Three
''And Tango Makes Three'' is a children's book written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole which was published in 2005. The book tells the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who create a family together. Wit ...
'', based on the true story of
Roy and Silo
Roy and Silo (born 1987) were two male chinstrap penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo. They were noted by staff at the zoo in 1998 to be performing mating rituals, and one of them in 1999 attempted to Egg incubation, hatch a rock as if i ...
, two male
chinstrap penguins who fell in love in New York's
Central Park Zoo
The Central Park Zoo is a zoo located at the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. It is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In conjunction with the Central ...
; ''The White Swan Express'', which features children adopted by straight, gay, mixed-race and single parents; and ''Who's in My Family?'', which discusses different types of families, including gay couples.
The National Library Board said in a statement that it took "a pro-family and cautious approach in identifying titles for our young visitors" and that it planned to withdraw the books from the libraries and to pulp them. The move sparked vocal opposition and thousands signed duelling petitions for and against the destruction of the books. In protest, 400 people including parents descended at the library to read the books to their children.
Writers
Gwee Li Sui Gwee Li Sui (; born 22 August 1970) is a poet, a graphic artist, and a literary critic from Singapore.
Biography
Gwee went to the now-defunct MacRitchie Primary School and then Anglo-Chinese Secondary School and Anglo-Chinese Junior College. In ...
,
Adrian Tan
Adrian Tan Gim Hai (born 1966) is a Singaporeans, Singaporean lawyer and author. Known for writing the The Teenage Textbook, Teenage Texbook series of books in the 1980s, he is the current president of the Law Society of Singapore and a partner at ...
,
Prem Anand
Prem Anand (Odia: ପ୍ରେମ ଆନନ୍ଦ) is an Indian music director and composer. He usually works in Cinema of Odisha, Odia film and television industry. In 2006, he started his career as a music director through the Odia movie Tu E ...
and
Felix Cheong
Felix Cheong is a Singaporean author and poet.
Cheong has written two young adult fiction books used as part of a national education campaign – ''The Call From Crying House'' () and its sequel, ''The Woman In The Last Carriage'' ().
Cheong ...
cancelled their panel at the Central Public Library as part of the ''Read! Singapore'' initiative. Novelist and playwright
Ovidia Yu
Ovidia Yu (born 1961) is a writer from Singapore who has published award-winning plays and short stories. She has won several awards, including the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Culture Award (1996), the Nationa ...
resigned from the steering committee of the
Singapore Writers Festival
The Singapore Writers Festival is a literary event organised by the National Arts Council. Inaugurated in 1986, the festival serves a dual function of promoting new and emerging Singaporean and Asian writing to an international audience, as well ...
and Gwee also declined to speak at the
National Schools Literature Festival.
Information minister
Yaacob Ibrahim
Yaacob bin Ibrahim ( Jawi: ; born 3 October 1955) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs between 2002 and 2018, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports between 2002 and 2004, Ministe ...
said he stood by the board's decision to remove the three books from the children's section and that the board would "continue to ensure that books in the children's section are age-appropriate". He said he had instructed the board not to pulp the books but to place them in the adult section. "The decision on what books children can or cannot read remains with their parents. Parents who wish to borrow these books to read with their children will have the option to do so," the minister said.
It emerged that the copies of ''Who's in My Family?'' had already been destroyed. Separately, a volume of the ''
Archie
Archie is a masculine given name, a diminutive of Archibald. It may refer to:
People Given name or nickname
*Archie Alexander (1888–1958), African-American mathematician, engineer and governor of the US Virgin Islands
* Archie Blake (mathematici ...
'' comics series had been banned because its depiction of a marriage between two men was deemed to have breached social norms.
Gay man allowed to adopt biological son born via surrogacy
In a landmark case in December 2018, the High Court allowed a 46-year-old gay man to adopt his five-year-old biological son who was born through surrogacy in the United States, and then brought to Singapore on a long-term visit pass. When an application for Singapore citizenship for the boy was rejected, he approached the
Ministry of Social and Family Development
The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF; ms, Kementerian Pembangunan Sosial dan Keluarga; zh, 社会及家庭发展部; ta, சமுதாய, குடும்ப மேம்பாட்டு அமைச்சு) is a ministr ...
for advice and was told his prospects would be enhanced if the child was legally adopted. The man then applied as a single parent to adopt the child in December 2014 but the application was dismissed three years later by a district judge who said it was "ethically problematic" to go overseas to procure a child through surrogacy.
2019
Local singer dropped by record label for coming out
Pop singer Willie Tay, known previously as Wiltay, relaunched his career as independent singer Wils in April 2019. Tay was discovered while on holiday in Madrid in 2012 and subsequently signed on with Warner Music Singapore for 3 years before winning Best Pop Album at the Hollywood F.A.M.E. Awards in 2014 for his debut album, ''WTF''.
He was dropped by his Asian record label for being gay
and his social media accounts deleted. In 2019, he officially came out to his fans with his new single and music video, ''Open Up Babe''.
Legal protections for the LGBT community in amendments to the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act
In the 2019 amendments to the
Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act
The Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act 1990 ("MRHA") is a Singapore statute which, according to its long title, provides for the maintenance of religious harmony, for the establishment of a Presidential Council for Religious Harmony ("PCRH") ...
, a
Explanatory Statementto the new section 17E which deals with religious-based violence clarifies, "The target group need not be confined to persons who practise a certain religion. The target group may be made up of atheists, individuals from a specific racial community, who share a similar sexual orientation, or have a certain nationality or descent like foreign workers or new citizens." LGBT advocacy group Sayoni described the move as "the first time a law in Singapore explicitly extends protections to cover sexual orientation."
Former Chief Justice on Section 377A of the Penal Code
In a 72-page analysis published in the Singapore Academy of Law Journal titled "Equal Justice Under The Constitution And Section 377A Of The Penal Code, The Roads Not Taken", based on a talk he gave in February at the National University of Singapore law faculty's Centre for Asian Legal Studies, former Chief Justice
Chan Sek Keong
Chan Sek Keong (born 5 November 1937) is a Malayan-born Singaporean retired judge who served as the third chief justice of Singapore between 2006 and 2012, appointed by President S. R. Nathan. Prior to his appointment as chief justice, he se ...
said Section 377A was enacted in 1938 to deal with male prostitution and not because such conduct was unacceptable in Singapore society then. As the original purpose of the section was no longer valid, it ceased to satisfy the reasonable classification test requirements and therefore violates
Article 12(1) of the Constitution, which guarantees the equality of all before the law.
2020s
Constitutional challenges to Section 377A dismissed
In March 2020, three separate legal challenges to strike down
Section 377A were dismissed by the High Court. The civil suits were brought by three gay men: disc jockey Johnson Ong Ming, former executive director of advocacy group Oogachaga Bryan Choong, and retired general practitioner Dr Roy Tan Seng Kee. In passing the judgement, Justice See Kee Oon said "Statutory provisions serve an important role in reflecting public sentiment and beliefs. Section 377A, in particular, serves the purpose of safeguarding public morality by showing societal moral disapproval of male homosexual acts."
In December 2020, Dr Roy Tan Keng See filed a fresh legal challenge to force the government to either fully enforce or scrap Section 377A.
Tan said the argument of inconsistencies had rarely been used before.
Local broadcaster issues apology for gay paedophile character in TV drama series
State broadcaster
Mediacorp
Mediacorp Pte. Ltd., doing business as Mediacorp and stylised as mediacorp, is a media conglomerate in Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the holding company of the Government of Singapore—it owns television, radio, and digital media prope ...
sparked outrage when their Channel 8 drama series ''My Guardian Angels'' starring
Zoe Tay
Zoe Tay (; born 10 January 1968) is a Singaporean actress and former model. She has been referred to as the "Queen of Caldecott Hill" and "Ah Jie" (Top Actress) by the local media since the rise of her popularity in the 1990s. She is one of th ...
, featured a basketball coach with sexually transmitted infections who was eventually imprisoned for molesting teenage boys.
In July 2020,
Mediacorp
Mediacorp Pte. Ltd., doing business as Mediacorp and stylised as mediacorp, is a media conglomerate in Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the holding company of the Government of Singapore—it owns television, radio, and digital media prope ...
issued an apology following intense backlash from netizens who argued that the show unnecessarily perpetuated outdated and harmful LGBTQ+ stereotypes. The broadcaster said it had "no intention to disrespect or discriminate against the LGBTQ community in the drama" and the storyline was meant to "encourage young people to be aware of potential dangers and not be afraid to speak up and protect themselves".
Catholic church issues statement after Pope Francis endorses same-sex civil unions
In November 2020, the
Archdiocese of Singapore
The Archdiocese of Singapore (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Singaporensis'') is an exempt archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. Its territory includes all that is under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Singapore.
Its current ...
issued a statement after
Pope Francis
Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
endorsed
same-sex civil unions.
Repeal of Section 377A, and definition of marriage
On 21 August 2022, Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong
Lee Hsien Loong (; born 10 February 1952) is a Singaporean politician and former brigadier-general who has been serving as Prime Minister of Singapore and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party since 2004. He has been the Member of Par ...
announced Singapore would repeal the British colonial-era law banning gay sex between men,
Section 377A. He nonetheless affirmed that current governmental policies on homosexuality will remain in place to preserve the concept of a traditional family as a social norm.
On 29 November 2022, after a two-day debate, two bills were passed by the
Singapore Parliament
The Parliament of Singapore is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of Singapore, which governs the country alongside the president of Singapore. Largely based upon the Westminster system, the Parliament is made up of Members of Parliame ...
to repeal Section 377A and amend the
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
with regards to the institution of marriage. The Constitutional amendment introduces Article 156, which contains provisions to limit the authority to define marriage to the Parliament, and that the definition of marriage being that between a man and a woman does not violate the constitutional right to equality. Law professor
Eugene Tan
Eugene Tan Kheng Boon (born 18 February 1970) is an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University. Tan served as a Nominated Member of Parliament between 14 February 2012 and 13 August 2014.
Tan holds degrees from the National ...
commented that the intention is to "reduce the likelihood of constitutional challenges on laws and government policies that are premised on marriage being that between a man and a woman."
See also
*
Homosexuality in Singapore
There are no statistics on how many LGBT people there are in Singapore or what percentage of the population they constitute. While homosexuality is legal in the country, the country is largely conservative.
Notable persons identifying as LG ...
*
Timeline of LGBT history
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events.
Timelines can use any suitable scale representin ...
*
Pink Dot SG
Pink Dot SG, known exonymously as Pink Dot, is an event that has occurred annually since 2009 in support of the LGBT community in Singapore. Attendees of Pink Dot events gather to form a "pink dot" to show support for inclusiveness, diversity ...
References
Notes
External links
An archiveof Dr.
Russell Heng
Russell may refer to:
People
* Russell (given name)
* Russell (surname)
* Lady Russell (disambiguation)
* Lord Russell (disambiguation)
Places Australia
*Russell, Australian Capital Territory
*Russell Island, Queensland (disambiguation)
**Ru ...
's paper on Singapore gay history from the 1960s to 1998, published in the
Journal of Homosexuality
The ''Journal of Homosexuality'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research into sexual practices and gender roles in their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts.
History
The founding editor-in-chief was Char ...
Vol. 40 Nos. 3/4 2001 Special Issue – Gay and Lesbian Asia: Culture, Identity and Community, edited by Gerard Sullivan and Peter Jackson, pp. 81 – 97:
An articleby
Alex Au
Alex Au Waipang, () also known by his Internet pseudonym as Yawning Bread, is an advocate of LGBT rights in Singapore. Au is a blogger and activist who provides analyses of Singaporean politics, culture, gay issues and miscellaneous subjects on h ...
on the importance of documenting and organising often all-too-ephemeral gay history:
Singapore gay equality movement
{{Homosexuality around the world