The repeal of a colonial-era law will effectively legalise homosexuality in the conservative state.
"Singapore will repeal a law that bans gay sex, effectively making it legal to be homosexual in the city-state.
The decision, announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on national TV, comes after years of fierce debate.
LGBT activists in Singapore have hailed the move as "a win for humanity".
The city-state is known for its conservative values, but in recent years an increasing number of people have called for the colonial-era 377A law to be abolished.
Singapore is the latest place in Asia to move on LGBT rights, after India, Taiwan and Thailand."
Read the full piece here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62545577
Thousands of Singaporeans showed up in support of the LGBT community at the annual Pink Dot rally on Saturday.
For one day a year, Singapore’s Pink Dot movement throws an elaborate celebration for Pride Month with the goal of providing a safe space for members of the community to express themselves. It took place at Hong Lim Park, the only place in Singapore where political protests can legally be held.
This year, Pink Dot came back with a bang after two years of celebrating online, full of showy performances, placards featuring gripping, heartfelt messages urging change and representatives from a wide array of LGBT community groups and local sponsors.
For many years, one of the community’s greatest struggles has been getting Section 377a, a 1938 law that criminalized sex between men, struck off from the Penal Code. A lawyer at the forefront of this legal battle told Coconuts the importance of getting the law repealed, and discussed what the future holds for LGBT rights in Singapore.
As a lawyer who has been involved in several legal challenges ultimately dismissed by the courts, Remy Choo said his team never gets ahead and keeps its expectations low as they continue to push for lasting change.
“Sometimes, hope is a dangerous thing, so we hope for the best, but we expect the worst,” the 36-year-old told Coconuts on the sidelines of Saturday’s rally. “A lot of us don’t dare to hope, we hoped for a very long time and we’ve seen a lot of false stories.”
Choo has been a part of a group called Ready4Repeal since it was started in 2019 and is part of a legal team that challenged the constitutionality of Section 377A.
The archaic law has been challenged in court at least five times since 2011. Most recently, he represented one of the three plaintiffs in a new set of challenges that started in 2019. But the court dismissed those challenges, saying that the “entirety” of the law was “unenforceable” and hence, there was no constitutional issue to bring before the courts.
This reasoning was based on previous statements by senior government officials that they would not prosecute anybody under 377a. What this means is there is “no problem,” Choo said. Since the law is not enforced, the government does not see it as an infringement on rights.
But that raises an obvious question: Why keep pushing to get the law repealed when it isn’t enforced?
Because Section 377a is the “cornerstone” or essentially the “green light” for discrimination, Choo said. As it is officially in the law books, it sends a signal to the public that it is socially acceptable to “invisibilize” the community.
“You’re right, 377a is not the be-all and end-all of discrimination. But it is the signal that is sent that discrimination is officially sanctioned. And that’s a societal norm that is actually quite abnormal,” Choo said.
While Singapore is practically bursting with pride for racial diversity, LGBT representation is actively discouraged and erased.
This censorship is the reason positive representations of the LGBT community are largely absent in mainstream media (including Disney cartoons), and why many continue to face discrimination in areas ranging from housing to schools.
But Choo feels that despite years of rejection in court, the battle to repeal 377a has brought “growing acceptance” for the LGBT community because many realize that such laws “no longer make sense.”
“You can’t say, ‘I’m going to officially sanction discrimination,’ and also say with a straight face, ‘I treat every Singaporean equally.’ That makes no sense,” he said.
For the first time in Pink Dot’s history, the yearly invitations by organizers to government representatives were answered, with Kebun Baru SMC MP Henry Kwek of the ruling People’s Action Party and Sengkang GRC MP Jamus Lim of the opposition Workers’ Party showing up at Saturday’s rally.
In another hopeful sign that the government’s stance may be softening, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam told parliament in March that the government would consider the “best way forward” on the gay sex law and “respect” and “consider” different viewpoints.
But for some, that hope was dimmed by a nationwide LGBT survey, launched by the government shortly after Shanmugam’s statement, that was criticized for containing leading questions. The survey’s website went offline after receiving an “overwhelming response” and was never seen again.
A more optimistic survey result came from a recent poll conducted by market research firm Ipsos, which found that 44% of Singaporeans say they support the law, down from 55% in 2018.
What’s next?
If everything goes well and the law finally gets repealed, what happens next? There’s still “a lot of work to be done” since discrimination will not go away that easily if the law is struck off, according to Choo.
“There’s discrimination that we need to fight against, and educate the public about in the media. There are a lot of laws and regulations that prevent the public from seeing the community as equal,” he said.
A recent poll by journalist Kirsten Han showed that many respondents were worried that if 377a gets repealed, the government will implement other measures to try to “appease the conservatives,” leading to more legislation that could ultimately do more damage to the LGBT community.
Choo said he believes the government will be consistent in its decisions, and if they take one step forward and two steps back, they will eventually be called out.
“This is a government that has always taken pride in being pragmatic and in being consistent. If it takes a particular position in respect of 377a, there are other steps that it should eventually take that follow up as a natural consequence of the repeal,” he said.
Will the battle to repeal 377a eventually be won, maybe in the next five to 10 years? Choo says this is “realistic.”
But even when that happy day comes, the battle for equality in Singapore will no doubt still be far from over.
Thoughts on the repealing of Penal Code 377A in Singapore.
After many years of activism, demonstration, education, and court appeals, the parliament of Singapore finally decided to consider the repeal of 377A earlier this year. Today, the members of parliament, after long debates, have voted on the repealing of 377A. 93 for AYE, 3 for NAY, 0 Abstain.
At first glance, this seems to call for celebrations, but before we cover the streets with rainbow flags, it is important to consider how this is only but a small tokenistic step in the right direction. I could go into analysing the parliamentary debates, the colonial history of 377A, the case study of the (deeply failing and flawed) democracy of Singapore, but emotionally and mentally, I do not think I have the space for such analyses and debates. I may be an academic in my day to day life, but the repeal of 377A and the possibilities and limitations it presents affects me as a person and I want to utilise this space to unpack my personal thoughts on the matter, divorcing my current thoughts from the abstractly theoretical.
Earlier in this blog, I wrote about 377A and how parliamentary debates and mainstream discourse in Singapore in favour of keeping the penal code has always cited ‘’family values’’ as a key reason. This discourse was not spared from the discussion of repealing 377A. While it seems like there might be cause for celebration with the repeal of 377A, the repeal was also met with commitments from many parliament members to ‘’strengthen the family unit’’. Sure, sex between gay men are no longer illegal but is sexual freedom the only human right they think we are after? If they do think so, they are ridiculously misguided. While the repeal of 377A could potentially battle some previous homophobic stigma of ‘’criminality’’, the notion of ‘’strengthening the family unit’’ implies the queer communities are excluded from ‘’family’’. Back to the discourse on ‘’family values’’, it implies we can’t form and sustain good, loving familial bonds. Even worse, queer people in this discourse are positioned as an opposition against families, as though loving bonds and belonging aren’t also deeply important to us. Surely there should be space to question and challenge the harmful heteronormative norms surrounding the notion of ‘’family’’.
While all the other issues surrounding queer rights are important to me (i.e., quality education, gender affirming care, access to housing, etc.), the issue and exclusion of queer people in Singapore from the notion of ‘’family’’ brings me much sadness for personal reasons. Despite being in a straight-presenting relationship, my partner and I are ultimately in a very queer relationship. In consideration of where to live out our lives together and raise our families, places we do consider to some extent ‘’home’’ have often been cards laid out on the table. Of these places, Singapore was amongst the deck. However, with how unfortunately cruel and institutionally homophobic is, it is very difficult to truly consider a life in Singapore where we will be happy. Furthermore, we are very clear on our desire for children in our lives and I cannot bear to subject my children to an education system that will try to box them in skirts and pants, pink and blue, and teach them harmful lessons about sex. I cannot bear to subject my children to a space where queer people are only accepted in writing but forced to hide away from the public for being ‘’too public’’. I cannot bear to have my children raised in a space that will continuously question the legitimacy of their parents’ relationship and their family-hood. So what does all these mean for the future of me and my family?
I could go on but I suppose I shall another time when I feel less tired from my many messy thoughts about the situation. Until then, PinkDot SG and Heckin Unicorn (I only hyperlinked part 1 of Heckin’ Unicorn’s analyses but parts 2-5 should be easily accessible through the first one) have put up really good analyses and statements about the situation that strongly reflect my views. So perhaps check them out.
377A is getting repealed but the government is amending the constitution which could prevent the legality of same sex marriages. it’s actually one step forward but two steps back, i hate it here
So I have just watched Hannah Gadsby's Nanette on Netflix (after delightfully getting my brother's account).
What was so wonderful about it was that even though I've already gotten snippets of it through Tumblr GIFs, it still remains so powerful, so tear- and thought-provoking.
Now, India's passed a ruling to banish the colonial-era Section 377a from its laws. 377a criminalises sex between two men. And this country that I live in now, and have already been for something like ten years before I fucked off to London for a degree, has 377a as well, you know, courtesy of the Brits in the last two centuries. India's ruling, together with other catalysts, reignited debate about it - because guess what, for a country that firmly believes itself a first-world country (even though a Certain Interesting Association refuses to recognise it as such), 377a is very much in our books still.
The government does its wishy-washy thing where they say, "Oh, but it's not reinforced!" while refusing to put it down in black-and-white.
(Finding out which country this is is just a google away, fellow friends.)
Certain religious groups have furiously maintained that the law should remain - and I believe judging by the percentages of certain religious groups here, the odds are in their favour, if things should go to a vote. Not that things will go to a public vote anyway. I have never heard of a referendum held here in this part of the world. Weird. Power is all held by old men, usually Chinese and sometimes Indian, in this part of the world.
And it's so... I'm just so tired of the debate. And the opacity of the system. And things are never truly democratic here, even though we are being brainwashed to think we are. There is a pretty large petition going on to repeal 377a. I wish it all the best, even though hopes and wishes are all I can give the petition and my people.
And even then, it's not about a democratic vote here. As Hannah said, it's about not soaking a child in shame. It's about dignity and self-worth. It's about a person's right to be themselves, without harming others.
