Singapore gay history - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pre-Colonial period

Relatively little is known about pre-colonial Singapore

Early history of Singapore

The early history of Singapore refers to the history of Singapore before 1819, when the British established a trading settlement on the island and set in motion the history of 'modern Singapore'. Prior to 1819, Singapore was known by several names in written records dating back as early as the 2nd...

, let alone the history of homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

during this period. Nonetheless, it can reasonably be assumed that ideas and practices relating to sexual minorities were similar to other contemporary and nearby Malay

Malay people

Malays are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations...

societies.

As with all pre-modern societies, traditional Malay culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

did not contain the idea or the figure of the modern gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

individual. However, Malay society did acknowledge the reality and existence of alternatives to heterosexual practices. ‘Third gender

Third gender

The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized as neither man nor woman, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders...

’ or transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

individuals, who are called mak nyah
Mak nyah
Mak nyah is a Malay term for a male-to-female transsexual. The name is preferred by Malaysian transsexuals to various derogatory terms , as these slurs are variously directed to gay men as well as transsexuals. Mak nyah is formed from the word mak, meaning 'mother', and 'nyah', meaning 'transition'...

, were socially recognised, tolerated and even incorporated into community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

life. They occupied a stable, albeit arguably marginalised position within society. The mak nyah are similar in many ways to the hijra

Hijra (South Asia)

In the culture of South Asia, hijras or chakka in Kannada, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women's clothing and other feminine gender roles. Hijras have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from the antiquity, as...

in India or the fa'afafine

Fa'afafine

Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture.Fa'afafine are biological males who have a strong feminine gender orientation, which the Samoan parents recognize quite early in childhood. Not always are they raised as female children or rather 'third gender' children...

or Mahu in Polynesia. Unfortunately, there is limited scholarly knowledge about homosexuality in traditional Malay culture.

Population Growth & Urbanisation

From the establishment of British rule in 1819 to the eve of World War II, Singapore's population grew rapidly from a small village of a few hundred to a large city of nearly a million. This growth and urbanisation is significant, given that the rise of large modern cities and urban culture has been correlated with the rise of the modern gay identity.

However, even prior to the emergence of that identity, the sheer scale of the city and its lifestyle, as well as the largely immigrant nature of its society, would have provided the opportunity for anonymity and discreet exploration of alternative sexuality, in the context of a British colonial city operating under Victoria-era morality laws.

Imbalanced sex-ratio

The balanced sex-ratio and settled family-based indigenous society was distorted for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries by mainly male migrant labour from China, India and Indonesia. Among the Chinese, who grew to form three-quarters of the population, the gender ratio at one point was 15 men for every woman.

Many of the women in this context were also in Singapore as prostitutes rather than as wives of male immigrants. At the other end of the social spectrum, white colonial elite society also suffered a gender imbalance, with many single young men arriving to serve in the colonial civil or military service, or as junior staff in European firms. Even the more senior staff who may have been married often chose to leave their wives and families back home in Europe, which was seen as a more healthy, safe and comfortable place for women and children.

The sheer gender imbalance in pre-war colonial Singapore would likely have encouraged numerous homosexual liaisons. In many ways, the social climate and sexual opportunities available to the men of the period would have been similar to prisoners, sailors and boarding school students, which are all groups prone to 'situational' homosexuality.

Social Climate and sexual behaviour

Demographic changes led to Singapore acquiring a reputation as a 'sin city', filled with brothels, opium dens and gambling houses catering to lonely migrant men working in a strange foreign city. While the private lives of the Asian population were generally less well recorded, documents suggest that, at least elsewhere in similar colonial settings, European men were known to sometimes develop homosexual relationships with each other or else with local men, such as servants or houseboys.

Traditional Asian attitudes to homosexuality

Bret Hinsch in chapter 6 of his book 'Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the Male Homosexual Tradition in China' has detailed evidence, derived from the works of literati Li Yu

Li Yu (author)

Li Yu , also known as Li Liweng was a Chinese playwright, novelist and publisher. Born in Rugao, he lived in late-Ming and early-Qing dynasties....

and Shen De Fu, of institutionalised gay marriage practices amongst Hokkien men in Ming dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

China(see also: http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=qhistory&x=chistory). The subculture was exported along with the human tide into Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

and practiced discretely 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 (http://www.yawningbread.org/guest_2005/guw-102.htm,https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no24331.htm) 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

Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

(see section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code

Section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code

Section 377A of the Penal Code of Singapore is the main remaining piece of legislation which criminalises sex between mutually consenting adult men.Section 377A states that:...

). 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 in order to appear equally 'civilised' many Asians disavowed their longstanding cultural tolerance of sexual minorities.

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

Cruising

Cruising may mean:*Cruising , driving around for social purposes, especially by teenagers*Cruise , in aviation*Cruising , leisurely travel by boat, yacht, or cruise ship...

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

Section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code

Section 377A of the Penal Code of Singapore is the main remaining piece of legislation which criminalises sex between mutually consenting adult men.Section 377A states that:...

. Meanwhile, transvestite

Transvestism

Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...

prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

in Bugis Street

Bugis Street

Bugis, in the city-state of Singapore, was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of trans women, a phenomenon which made it one of Singapore's top tourist destinations during that period....

became increasingly prominent. The State and mainstream society initially accepted it is as a vaguely undesirable but inevitable vice

Vice

Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...

, 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 transgendered people had been in traditional Malay society. The difference was that the community was now much more public, urban and multi-ethnic. Prostitution and interaction with international visitors also added a new dimension to the life of this community.

Another arena in which GLBT issues were being played out was in National service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

. 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 were listed as conditions in a Singapore Armed Forces

Singapore Armed Forces

The Singapore Armed Forces is the military arm of the Total Defence of the Republic of Singapore; as well as the military component of the Ministry of Defence. The SAF comprises three branches: the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and the Republic of Singapore Navy...

(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. In any case, most homosexuals did (and do) not declare their sexual orientation during this examination and go on to serve in all variety of vocations. Gay men do not come out for many reasons, the most common being that they are not comfortable with declaring their sexuality to a State and organisation that is perceived to be homophobic. Some gay men also refrain from coming out as they wish to perform their duties alongside others, and find the segregation of homosexuals offensive.

The 1970s

With growing prosperity, many homosexuals, especially the English-educated middle class were exposed, via travel and the mass media, to the social liberalism

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

of the West and the nascent gay movements there. This exposure introduced the idea that local society could evolve similarly. The growing popularity of travel to Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

and Japan in the late 1970s also introduced Singaporeans to traditional Asian societies that were more accepting of homosexuals.

Meanwhile, several nightlife entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

s 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

My Place

"My Place" is the first single by the rapper Nelly from his album Suit. It features Jaheim. It was released as a double A-side with "Flap Your Wings" in the UK and New Zealand. The song is about inviting a girl over to Nelly's house. It reached #4 both on the U.S...

, Black Velvet

Black Velvet

Black Velvet may refer to:* "Black Velvet", a song by Alannah Myles* Black Velvet , a Canadian whiskey* Black Velvet , a mixed drink* "Black Velvet", a song from the Ferry Corsten album Twice In A Blue Moon...

, West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

, El Morroco, The Library

The Library

The Library may refer to:* The Library , a publication of the Bibliographical Society* The Library a World Fantasy Award-winning 2002 novella by Zoran Živković...

, Studio M and even the NCO Club at Beach Road. Nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

s like Pebbles Bar located on the ground floor of the now demolished Singapura Inn Hotel, which is now the landmark of Forum Galleria in Orchard Road, Tropicana Inn, which is now Pacific Plaza and less popularly Treetops Bar at the Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn is a brand of hotels, formally a economy motel chain, forming part of the British InterContinental Hotels Group . It is one of the world's largest hotel chains with 238,440 bedrooms and 1,301 hotels globally. There are currently 5 hotels in the pipeline...

, were increasingly packing in the gays and became icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

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 1971, an exposé of the hidden lives of Singapore homosexuals in the English language evening tabloid The New Nation, entitled 'They are different' carried a large photograph of a pair of holding hands apparently belonging to lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

s. It caused a stir and raised mainstream awareness of the existence of gay people who were not transgendered.

During the decade, there was a well-known transsexual model featured occasionally in Her World
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 magazine to be published in Malaysia and Singapore. The magazine was published since July 1960...

magazine. On the silver screen, cinema goers enjoyed a Chinese language Shaw Brothers production entitled Ai Nu (Love Slave) which starred actresses Lily Ho and Pei Ti as a lesbian couple in a period setting. In the final scene when Lily Ho wanted to desert Pei Ti to pair off with the male hero, she was asked for a final kiss. Whilst they were kissing, 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 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 skillful, some like Prof. S Shan Ratnam

Shan Ratnam

Emeritus Professor Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam was the professor and head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the National University Hospital of Singapore specializing in human reproduction research. His work on contraception contributed to Singapore's success in population control...

were authorised to perform male-to-female sex-reassignment surgery at Kandang Kerbau Hospital 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

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

Prof. Tsoi Wing Foo. Later, the more technically-demanding female-to-male variety was also offered there and at Alexandra Hospital

Alexandra Hospital

Alexandra Hospital is a 400-bed hospital located in the south-western part of Singapore. Nestled in a 110,000 square metre land, the hospital is a picture of tranquil setting, lined with mostly colonial style buildings built since the late 1930s...

, performed by gynaecologists such as Dr. Ilancheran. A Gender Identity Clinic and Gender Reassignment Surgery Clinic were set up at the National University Hospital

National University Hospital

The National University Hospital , established in 1985, is Singapore's only university hospital. It serves as a tertiary hospital as well as a clinical training centre and a research centre for the medical and dental faculties of the National University of Singapore...

two decades later. In fact, for thirty years, Singapore was one of the world leaders in gender-reassignment surgery. Bugis Street

Bugis Street

and Johore Road started to become populated with a range of genders from transvestites to iatrogenic intersex

Intersex

Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...

individuals to fully transformed women. Local hospitals and clinics also attracted transgender clients from other countries in the region, especially Malaysia and Thailand.

Meanwhile, the rise of gay cruising and gay nightclubs led to the formation of informal social networks of friends. Within these networks, information and rumours spread within the gay community about the sexuality

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

of local television, sports and entertainment celebrities, university professors, children and relatives of politicians, and even the occasional Cabinet minister himself. This form of informal networking and 'knowledge' constituted the nascent beginnings of a gay community, which was beginning to acquire a sense of itself within the larger society.

The 1980s

The early 80s 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-80s, 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

Katong is a residential area in the east of Singapore near the seafront. Formerly located by the sea, land was reclaimed all the way to East Coast Park to provide more land for housing and recreational purposes due to shortage of land in the late 1960s after Singapore gained independence.Katong was...

) and Studebaker's which later morphed into Venom (at Pacific Plaza

Pacific Plaza

Pacific Plaza was an Oriental shopping and food court complex situated in Wembley, London. It closed in April 2011. It aimed to be similar to Oriental City at 399 Edgware Road, but was much smaller and has much fewer facilities and shops....

). 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

Far East Plaza is a shopping centre in Singapore, located in the heart of the Orchard Road shopping belt. Opened in 1982 together with a metro that has since closed down, the mall had cheap fashion and food outlets. Over the past few years, Far East Plaza has been a center for youth culture in...

, which remains to this day the oldest lesbian bar in Singapore.
Such events were now officially sanctioned and no longer discouraged by their managements. No police raids at these establishments took place. With these weekly gatherings for energetic dancing to let off steam and meet new friends, homosexuals felt the first bonds of a relatively cohesive community- a warm feeling of being welcomed into a new brotherhood, in contradistinction to erstwhile isolation, alienation and loneliness for many.

Distant rumblings of a nebulous entity dubbed the 'gay plague', later standardised in nomenclature as AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, were heard emanating from America. There was some relief when US doctors discovered that it affected not exclusively gays, but also Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

ans and haemophiliacs. However, it caused some local homosexuals to cast a wary eye on Caucasians and promiscuous Singaporeans returning from Western countries. The possibility that it would become a problem here seemed remote at the time.

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 organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

(NGO) called Action For AIDS (AFA) in 1988 which provided support and counseling 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, Boat Quay

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 was the busiest part of the old Port of Singapore, handling three quarters of all shipping business during the 1860s...

, back alleys in the Central Business District

Central business district

A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

, Raffles Place MRT Station and Tanjong Pagar

Tanjong Pagar

Tanjong 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 urban planning zones....

, 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-80's onwards, pubs and karaoke

Karaoke

is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...

bars like Babylon and Inner Circle started to sprout up along Tanjong Pagar

Tanjong Pagar

. 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

Ann Siang Hill is a small hill, and the name of a one-way road located in Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area in Singapore...

and the surrounding back alleys would eventually come to give Tanjong Pagar Road the reputation of being Singapore's gay quarter.

Large bookshops like Borders

Borders Group

Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....

, Kinokuniya, 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

Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...

The 1990s

The expansion of gay spaces in the 80s were curbed to some degree in the 90s. Singapore's rapid economic growth had been attributed by its leaders to 'Asian values

Asian values

Asian values was a concept that came into vogue briefly in the 1990s to justify authoritarian regimes in Asia, predicated on the belief in the existence within Asian countries of a unique set of institutions and political ideologies which reflected the region's culture and history...

'. 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

Cruising

Cruising may mean:*Cruising , driving around for social purposes, especially by teenagers*Cruise , in aviation*Cruising , leisurely travel by boat, yacht, or cruise ship...

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

Tanjong Rhu is a residential neighbourhood in Kallang in the south-eastern part of Singapore.-Etymology:Tanjong Rhu is an old place name in Singapore that appeared in de Erédia's 1604 Map of Singapore, referred as "Tanjon R"....

's Fort Road Beach in November 1993. Amongst the 12 men arrested was a Singapore Broadcasting Corporation

Singapore Broadcasting Corporation

Singapore Broadcasting Corporation was a partially privatised mass market media conglomeration, which dominated the entire television and most of the radio broadcasting industry in Singapore during its existence...

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 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

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

, one that held sway until 2004. Ng was also charged in court for committing an obscene act in public. (For more details, see: http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2005/yax-420.htm)

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

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

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
The New Paper is Singapore's second-highest circulating paid English-language newspaper, first launched on July 26, 1988, by Singapore Press Holdings . According to SPH, its average daily circulation for August 2010 was 101600....

, began to sensationalise homosexual activities with attention-grabbing headlines like 'Swimming Pool Perverts' or 'Homosexuals Pollute East Coast'. In 1992, the Censorship Review Committee recommended that 'materials encouraging homosexuality should continue to be disallowed.' In 1996, I-S Magazine's publishing license was suspended for one issue because of gay content appearing in the personal ads section.

It was against this deterioration in public image and treatment that a Singapore gay movement 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-90s.

Activists such as Alex Au

Alex Au

Alex Au Waipang, also known by his Internet nom de plume as Yawning Bread, is part of the Singapore gay equality movement.He is the author of a website, where he provides analyses of Singaporean politics, culture, gay issues and miscellaneous subjects.-Biography:Au, English-educated and of...

, a member of People Like Us

People Like Us

People Like Us is a British comedy programme, a spoof on-location documentary written by John Morton, and starring Chris Langham as Roy Mallard, an inept interviewer...

, the first gay equality organisation in Singapore, saw the potential of the Internet as a vehicle to unite the gay community

Gay community

The gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...

and foment intellectual discussion. The Singapore Gay News List (SigNeL) was started on 15 March 1997 and has been instrumental in discussing issues of interest to the community. On Oct 15 1998, RedQuEEn!, an e-mail list for queer

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

-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 defacto chronicle of Singapore gay issues and history as they unfolded.

LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

s could visit foreign websites to remain updated on gay news from around the globe or even view and download pornography

Pornography

Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

, 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

Proxy server

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...

s. As a token of this restriction, to placate social conservative

Social conservatism

Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...

s, prominent porn

PORN

Porn is a common short form for pornography. It may also refer to:* Progressive outer retinal necrosis, a disease of the retina* PORN, a French industrial rock band...

websites such as Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. 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. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

and Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...

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.

Web services like IRC

Internet Relay Chat

Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...

and ICQ

ICQ

ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...

allowed locals to engage in online chat not only with fellow gay Singaporeans but also with the international gay community. What started out as a communication tool for like-minded university students soon became a key "gay space" with the entry of players like Singnet

SingNet

SingNet is a subsidiary internet service provider branch of Singapore Telecommunications. It is one of four commercial internet system providers in Singapore .-Services:*Consumer Dial-up services...

and Pacific Internet

Pacific Internet

Pacific Internet was headquartered in Singapore and was the largest telco-independent Internet Communications Service Provider in the Asia Pacific region with direct presence in Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Australia, India, Thailand and Malaysia...

which provided reasonably-priced internet access services. Notable IRC channels which fostered gay forums included #GAM & #GSG.

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 10 signatories. The application was lodged with the Registrar of Societies on 7 November 1996. However, it was rejected on 9 April 1997 with no reason given. PLU

PLU

PLU can stand for:*People Like Us, a British mockumentary* People Like Us , the pseudonym of British musician Vicki Bennett*Pacific Lutheran University*the SIL code, a language code, for the Palauan language...

's appeals all the way to the Prime Minister's Office

Prime Minister's Office

The Prime Minister's Office is a small department which provides advice to a Prime Minister in some countries:* Office of the Prime Minister * Office of the Prime Minister * British 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 get married to opposite-sex spouses. They were finally granted their wish on 24 January 1996 via an announcement by MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

Abdullah Tarmugi

Abdullah Tarmugi was the Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore as well as the Member of Parliament of East Coast Group Representation Constituency from 1996 to 2011.Born to a Javanese Father and Chinese Mother...

without much public fanfare or opposition.

On 11 December 1998, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...

responded to a gay man's question about the place of homosexuals in Singapore, live on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

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 5 March 1999, Singapore's pioneer gay portal SGBOY.COM was started as a not-for-profit hobbyist site hosted on GeoCities. It was developed into a major portal and added forums and chat functions. It was the first such non-political website in the island-state and offered an outlet for closeted gay people with light-hearted stories and a counselling email service. It's very first editor was artist/photographer Jason Wee.

Church of our Saviour banner

In November 2000, the Church of our Saviour

Church of Our Saviour

Church of Our Saviour is a baroque church in Copenhagen, Denmark, most famous for its corkscrew spire with an external winding staircase that can be climbed to the top, offering extensive views over central Copenhagen...

which runs the "Choices ministry", a branch offering religious counselling for homosexuals seeking to change their sexual orientation similar to the ex-gay

Ex-gay

The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that seek to get people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires, to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relationship...

movement, put up a large banner outside their church in Queenstown

Queenstown, Singapore

Queenstown1 is one of the early housing estates in Singapore, built before Toa Payoh and Ang Mo Kio, and was a test bed for much of Singapore's public housing...

. It read, "Homosexuals can change". The sign was visible to everyone travelling on the MRT

Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)

The Mass Rapid Transit or MRT is a rapid transit system that forms the backbone of the railway system in Singapore, spanning the entire city-state. The initial section of the MRT, between Yio Chu Kang Station and Toa Payoh Station, opened in 1987 establishing itself as the second-oldest metro...

. It took several months before the church removed the banner.

Minister's first public scientific statement on homosexuality

On 1 December 2002, the Sunday Times printed an extract of a speech made by Minister of State for Health, Balaji Sadasivan, an ethnically Indian neurosurgeon who was fluent in Mandarin. 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 Cabinet Minister had publicly quoted scientific findings about homosexuality:http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2002/yax-299.htm.

Prime Minister Goh's landmark statement

The 7 July 2003 issue of Time Asia magazine carried a feature article entitled The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter
-Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030707/sea_singapore.html which examined Singapore's prevailing bleak economic climate against a wider backdrop of Asian NIE

NIE

NIE or Nie may mean:* Nie , a Chinese family name**Nie Er, Chinese composer**Nie Rongzhen, Chinese Marshal*NIE , a Polish weekly magazine by Jerzy Urban...

malaise at the time. In it, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong

Goh Chok Tong

Goh Chok Tong is the Senior Minister of Singapore and the chairman of the central bank of Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He also served as the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore from 28 November 1990 to 12 August 2004, succeeding Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime...

, unprompted and of his own volition, 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 gays would now be allowed to serve in 'sensitive positions' in the Civil Service

Civil service

The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....

. This unleashed a media frenzy with both brickbats and bouquets tossed up by the general public. The gay community was elated.

The comment however, caused a strong reaction from anti-homosexual fractions of Singapore, resulting in heated debate and campaigning in the mass media. Reporter M. Nirmala of the Singapore Daily, The Straits Times, covered this in her article on July 23, 2003, titled "Gay Backlash.". The debate and its political implications are also documented and discussed in the article "Imagining the Gay Community in Singapore" whose abstract is reproduced below:

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 mobilized 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 liberalization. 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.

Gay backlash

The 7 July 2003 issue of Time Asia magazine carried a feature article entitled The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter
-Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...

which featured Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong

Goh Chok Tong

, saying that though homosexual acts remain illegal in Singapore, his government is now open to employing gays, even those openly so. While this was greatly welcomed by the gay population of Singapore, it also drew strongly negative reactions from self-proclaimed conservative individuals. Foremost amongst all were the National Council of Churches of Singapore, 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

Cornerstone Community Church

Cornerstone Community Church is an independent, Pentecostal multi-congregational Church based in Singapore. The church currently has eight services over the weekend, comprising its English, Mandarin, African, Indonesian, Filipino, youth and children congregations...

.

In particular, the second group conducted a meeting to discuss a strategy and plan of action for Christians to tackle what they termed as a "volatile situation." The meeting supposedly ended with a decision to draft an immediate plan of action that every pastor and church could adopt in the battle against homosexuality. In particular, Yang called for Christians to "express their concern" to their Member of Parliament, through letters or during meet-the-People sessions, and send their views to the Feedback Unit and write letters to the media.

Though Yang subsequently varied the details of the meeting, and also denied being the main organizer, the website of his church did publish a statement on July 20 titled "Don't Keep Silent." In it, the statement wrote "We cannot stand idly by. Homosexuality is a sin and it is far more rampant, militant and organised than most of us actually believe it to be. The battle lines are now drawn and it is time for the Church in Singapore to rise up and make a stand."

This meeting was subsequently followed by repeated letters to the forum of Singapore's daily, The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

. Most prominent of all was a letter signed by eight persons, including Dr (Mrs) Thio Su Mein, the Dean of the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore

National University of Singapore

The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

. The letter itself was heavy with various claims, prominent ones including that the removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association is due to lobbying

Lobbying

Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...

and pressure by gay activists, that citizens should enjoy the civil liberty of viewing homosexuality as repugnant, perverse, immoral, and undesirable without being termed as bigots, and that a homosexual agenda would threaten the integrity of the family of racial/religious harmony.

The events of the above were summarized in an article by M Nirmala on July 23, 2003 titled "Gay Backlash." This was published in the local daily, The Straits Times.

Several prominent members of the Singaporean Christian community disagreed with the stance taken by the National Council of Churches of Singapore. These include Reverend Yap Kim Hao, the former bishop of the Methodist Church in Singapore

Methodist Church in Singapore

The Methodist Church in Singapore is the church that Methodists in Singapore belong to. The Church has 44 churches island-wide with more than 38,000 members, making it one of the largest Protestant denominations in Singapore. Its current bishop and head of the Church is Bishop Dr Robert M...

, and Catholic Theresa Seow, President of the (Singapore) Inter-Religious Organisation. Interviews of the Reverend and Sister Seow were also included in Nirmala's article.

Ban of film, "Formula 17"

In July 2004, Formula 17
Formula 17
Formula 17 is a 2004 film which was directed by Chen Yin-jung . It stars Tony Yang , Duncan , King Chin , Dada Ji , Jimmy Yang , and Jason Chang . It is a gay romantic comedy film about Chou T'ien-Tsai, a romantic Taiwanese male who takes a trip to visit an online boyfriend in person for the first...

, a Chinese-language teenage romantic comedy and Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

's highest-grossing film of the year was banned because of its gay theme http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/07/23/2003180053. 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".

Community response to rising HIV incidence

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. (Source: AFP).

Gay teenagers infected with HIV

On 21 May 2005, the Straits Times reported that 3 teenagers caught the AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

virus in 2004, the biggest in a year since 1985, when HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

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. (Read The New Paper
The New Paper
The New Paper is Singapore's second-highest circulating paid English-language newspaper, first launched on July 26, 1988, by Singapore Press Holdings . According to SPH, its average daily circulation for August 2010 was 101600....

report: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,89439,00.html)

Singaporean first to advertise civil partnership in UK

On 6 December 05, UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/06/nelton106.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/06/ixnewstop.html reported that Singaporean Ghani Jantan and British civil 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 law which came into effect in the UK on Monday, 5 December 05, granting gay unions almost all the legal rights and obligations which apply to heterosexual marriages. The story was also carried by Singapore's Today
Today (Singapore newspaper)
Today is a free English-language compact in Singapore published by government-owned MediaCorp print media arm. It is distributed from Monday to Sunday....

newspaper http://www.todayonline.com/articles/89636.asp.

External links

An archive of Dr. Russell Heng's paper on Singapore gay history from the 1960s to 1998, published in the Journal of Homosexuality
Journal of Homosexuality
The Journal of Homosexuality is a peer-reviewed academic journal This forum for research into same-sex desire examines sexual practices and gender roles in their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts. In the fall of 2005, the Journal celebrated its 50th volume.- History...

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:http://www.yawningbread.org/guest_2001/guw-073.htm
An article by Alex Au
Alex Au
Alex Au Waipang, also known by his Internet nom de plume as Yawning Bread, is part of the Singapore gay equality movement.He is the author of a website, where he provides analyses of Singaporean politics, culture, gay issues and miscellaneous subjects.-Biography:Au, English-educated and of...

on the importance of documenting and organising often all-too-ephemeral gay history:http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid=1556&viewarticle=1&searchtype=all
Singapore gay equality movement
Trevvy

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Pre-Colonial period

Population Growth & Urbanisation

Imbalanced sex-ratio

Social Climate and sexual behaviour

Traditional Asian attitudes to homosexuality

British law & homosexuality

World War II to 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

Church of our Saviour banner

Minister's first public scientific statement on homosexuality

Prime Minister Goh's landmark statement

Gay backlash

Ban of film, "Formula 17"

Community response to rising HIV incidence

Gay teenagers infected with HIV

Singaporean first to advertise civil partnership in UK

See also

External links