Homosexuality in Singapore
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[edit] Definition
The terms 'gay' and 'homosexual' in this article are defined as 'having a greater sexual attraction for the same sex than for the opposite sex'. Thus, a person happily married to a spouse of the opposite sex may still be gay even though he or she consciously refrains from or has never indulged in homosexual acts.
The articles in this category have been intentionally prefixed "Singapore gay..." instead of the ideally accurate "Singaporean LGBTI..." so as to render them more accessible to the lay reader who may not be familiar with technical gender terms, and to increase the likelihood of their getting higher-ranking hits when users of search engines type "gay" and "Singapore".
[edit] Historical background
See the articles:
- IndigNation 2006, Singapore's second gay pride season
[edit] Singapore gay culture
See the articles:
[edit] Singapore gay personalities
[edit] Historical
The first Singaporean AIDS victim to publicly declare his HIV-positive status, thus giving a face to a hitherto anonymous affliction which mainstream society considered remote from possible encounter. He came out on 12 Dec 1998 during the First National AIDS Conference in Singapore. He identified his orientation as bisexual.
His plight was dramatised in a play called "Completely With/Out Character" produced by The Necessary Stage, directed by Alvin Tan and written by Haresh Sharma, staged from 10-17 May 1999. He passed away on 21 Aug 1999, shortly after the play's run ended. (For more information, see the article Paddy Chew)
Yap was arguably Singapore's finest poet, enormously influential amongst the later generations of Singaporean writers. He died of naso-pharyngeal carcinoma on 19 June 2006.
- Read Yawning Bread's article on Yap's life:[1]
[edit] Contemporary
[edit] Activists
- Alex Au (see concise autobiography,website) - Singapore's most widely-respected gay activist, regarded by many as being the founding father of the Singapore gay movement.
- Kelvin Wong (see Yahoo! profile, blog, photo album) - The main activist who spearheaded local gay Buddhist and sports organisations. Wong also holds the post of secretary of the pro-tem committee of People Like Us 3.
- Eileena Lee (see Fridae interview,Yahoo! profile) - Singapore's most well-known lesbian activist. Lee was the founder of RedQueen!, Singapore's first and main lesbian mailing list. She was instrumental in the setting up of Looking Glass, a counselling service for lesbians in emotional distress, and Pelangi Pride Centre, Singapore's first LGBT community centre. She relinquished her appointment as president of the pro-tem committee of People Like Us 3 in 2006 but continues to build a bridge between the lesbian and gay communities. She currently devotes most of her energy to moderating RedQueen! and organising activities at Pelangi Pride Centre.
- Charles Tan - PLU3's effectively-bilingual, diplomatic, affable and unflappable spokesman. Tan was the second male gay activist to be interviewed on Singapore television and is an ardent advocate of democracy.
- Jean Chong (see Fridae Interview, blog) - one of the founders of Sayoni, a discussion forum for queer women. Chong was also active for 7 years in organising women's activities for Safehaven and the Free Community Church. She is currently the only woman serving in the core committee of People Like Us. She played an instrumental role in organising all the women's functions for IndigNation 2006 and was the chief liaison personnel for many of the other events. She forms a strong link between the lesbian and gay communities.
- Charmaine Tan - one of the three founders of Pelangi Pride Centre, together with Eileena Lee and Dinesh Naidu. Tan was also one of the founders of Women's Nite, an event for women held on every last Saturday of the month at a location in Singapore.
[edit] Entrepreneurs
- Edward Chew - Singapore's first "pink" entrepreneur. Publisher of the world's first glossy Asian gayrotic periodical, OG, which was produced in Singapore, printed in Hong Kong, and widely distributed around the world through the 1980s and 1990s. Many Singaporean gay photographers and graphic artists worked underground to produce OG semi-annually over two decades.
- Max Lim - Singapore's first gay impresario to be known by a wide swathe of the local LGBT community. He was the first to organise outdoor gay parties in the early 1990s at such venues as the East Coast Lagoon and Big Splash, and non-Sunday gay disco nights at various mainstream clubs like Dancers - the Club in Clarke Quay and at Far East Shopping Centre. He opened Spartacus, Singapore's first gay sauna with a daily gay disco on the ground floor, and later, Stroke and Raw saunas along Ann Siang Road. Lim was the first to experiment with such novel concepts as a 24- hour sauna that never closes, a totally gay restaurant, a transwoman pride march down Ann Siang Road and Club Street, a drag artiste cabaret-disco, swimming trunk fashion shows, erotic film screenings, overnight lodgings for gay men, and offering patrons the option to buys shares in gay enterprises.
- Dr. Stuart Koe - Singaporean academic and entrepreneur, the founder of fridae.com, Asia's largest English-language LGBT web-portal.
- Vincent [2] - Founder of Vincent's lounge / Vincenz, Singapore's first dedicated East-meets-West gay bar where Caucasian patrons could socialise with their local aficionados.
[edit] Arts practitioners
- Tan Peng - Singapore's first openly gay artist and also one of the first Singaporeans to come out to the general public. His homoerotic charcoal sketches were featured in the Straits Times in the 1980s, the first for a local artist.
- Martin Loh (see Fridae profile) - Singaporean artist, well-known for his Peranakan-themed, as well as homoerotic paintings. Loh's exhibition, entitled Cerita Budak-Budak was the first event of IndigNation (see Singapore gay art).
- Cyril Wong (see website) - The only openly-gay poet to win the National Arts Council's Young Artist Award for Literature, Wong is at the forefront in canvassing greater public support for the arts in general, and poetry in particular.
- Ng Yi-sheng (see career blog, video of IndigNation lecture) - author of SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century and Last Boy, a collection of personally written poems including gay-themed ones. Ng also contributes articles to Fridae.com on a regular basis (see bibliography) and is currently working on several plays.
- Dominic Chua (see Yawning Bread article) - Singaporean poet who organised Contra/Diction, Singapore's first gay poetry-reading session, held during IndigNation, Singapore's first month-long gay pride celebration in August 2005.
- Royston Tan (see Fridae profile) - the highly acclaimed and award-winning enfant terrible of Singaporean cinema.
- Marcus Mok (see Fridae interview, website) - photographer specialising in the Asian male form.
[edit] Academics
- Dr. Russell Heng (see Fridae interview) - Singaporean academic, playwright, psychologist and former Straits Times journalist. The most senior of all the gay activists, Heng was the first local academic to write research papers on homosexuality in Singapore and also one of the founding members of People Like Us.
- Dr. Tan Chong Kee (see Fridae interview, website) - the impressively bilingual and academically-qualified founder of Sintercom (Singapore Internet Community), Tan has been a guest on several television panel discussions and documentaries, and the subject of newspaper articles on socio-political activists. He delivered the first lecture of IndigNation entitled "Same Sex Love in Classical Chinese Literature", in Mandarin.
[edit] Professionals
- Sylvia Tan (see bibliography) - the first Singaporean journalist to write exclusively about local, as well as international, LGBT culture. Tan holds a degree in communications science and is presently working as the principal reporter and news editor of Fridae.com, Asia's largest English-language LGBT web portal.
- Alphonsus Lee (see blog)- a graduate in business administration from the National University of Singapore, Lee is currently working as a freelance property agent. He was one of the 14 individuals who came out in the 2006 book "SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century". Lee is an avid photographer, and a vocal blogger. He is also active in organising activities for Oogachaga, Singapore's LGB counselling organisation and plays the guitar during the Free Community Church's Sunday services.
[edit] Other prominent personalities
- Patrick Lee (see Yawning Bread article) - controversial ex-gay ministry survivor with a dramatic biography.
- All the individuals in the book SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century, including Nicholas Deroose, producer of queercast, Singapore's first gay, radio talk show-style podcast and Leow Yangfa, a professional social worker.
[edit] Singapore gay venues
(For a discussion of places no longer extant where homosexuals used to socialise or cruise such as Le Bistro, Pebbles Bar, Treetops Bar, Vincent's lounge, Niche, Marmota/Legend/Shadows, Spartacus, Rairua, Boat Quay and Esplanade Park, see the article Singapore gay venues: historical).
[edit] Non-commercial/non-sexual venues
Formerly located at #04-02/04, Yangtze Building, 100A Eu Tong Sen Road, not to be confused with the same unit number at Pearls Centre with which it is intimately linked. It is now located at 56 Geylang Lor 23 Level 3, Century Technology Building.
A Singaporean Christian church which welcomes all people regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or economic status. It conducts Sunday services at 10:30 am.
Set up by activists to inculcate pride in being gay and in staying HIV negative, it was formerly located at 22a Rowell Road, above the AFA headquarters, in the Serangoon or Little India area and at Bianco - 21 Tanjong Pagar Road, #04-01, Singapore 088444 (above Mox Bar & Cafe) and operates every Saturday from 4-8pm. From April 2008, it will be operating out of 54 Rowell Road, back in the Serangoon or Little India area.
Its main features are the extensive library of local and international gay literature as well as non-fiction books whose catalogue can be searched online on its website, and an archive of Singapore gay history and culture. Events are held every 2nd Saturday of the month. For this and other information, please email pelangipridecentre@yahoo.com or see www.pelangipridecentre.org
[edit] Arts venues
The following list consists of exhibition and performance venues where many works dealing with LGBT themes or by LGBT arts practitioners have been held. However, they are not exclusively used for such purposes.
45 Armenian Street. Founded in 1990 by the late Kuo Pao Kun, it is Singapore's first independent contemporary arts centre, centrally located in the civic district. Its sub-sections include a black box theatre, a gallery, a dance studio, the Blue Room and two multi-function classrooms. It was the venue for the nascent PLU Sunday meetings in the early 90s. The historic PLU 2 pre-registration discussion was also held in the Blue Room in 2003.
- The building at 21 Tanjong Pagar Road
A growing arts, entertainment and lifestyle block managed by Guan Seng Kee Pte Ltd, just next to Ya Kun Kaya Toast. The lift serving the upper floors has a modern interior but is rickety and painfully slow. The building houses the following establishments:
- 1) Space 21
An unrenovated 1950-sq ft art space and multi-function hall situated on level 3, the second home of Utterly Art.
- 2) MOX Bar & Café website on level 4.
- 3) Bianco (formerly known as The Attic)
The topmost floor is a vault-like loft under the same management as MOX Bar & Café. It has a seating capacity of up to 150 people and is suitable for exhibitions, fashion shows and performances. It was the former location of the Sunday services of the Free Community Church (from 2002 to 2004) and Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble [5](from 2004 to 2005). Currently, it houses Bianco which contains a small bar and has an all-white decor from which it derives its name. Dr. Russell Heng's talk When Queens Ruled! A History of Gay Venues in Singapore was held here on 16 Aug 05 as part of IndigNation, Singapore's first gay pride month. It has been the home of Pelangi Pride Centre since mid-2007.
208 South Bridge Road, Level 2 (above Xposé)
It provides exhibition space and management services to local and Asian artists, and photographers. The most active gallery on the Singapore art scene, it is a leading showcase of works by established painters like Martin Loh and Chng Seok Tin, as well as popular young artists like Trina Poon.
It was the venue for the very first event of IndigNation, Singapore's historic, inaugural, government-approved gay pride month celebration in August 2005. This was an exhibition of paintings by artist Martin Loh entitled Cerita Budak-Budak, meaning 'children's stories' in Peranakan Malay. The event was followed up with Contra/Diction - A Night with Gay Poets held on 4 Aug 05, Singapore's first public gay poetry reading session which was attended by over 70 people, with standing room only.
[edit] Entertainment and cruising venues
- See the article Singapore gay venues: contemporary
[edit] External links
- The Yawning Bread website: [6]
- Fridae.com: [7]
- Utopia's Singapore listings: [8]
- Trevvy/SgBoy: [9]
- An archive of local and international LGBT-related video and newsclips shown on Singapore television on YouTube: [10] and Google Video: [11], and video recordings of LGBT events held in Singapore: [12].
