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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".
Statistical problems
It is unknown exactly how many homosexuals there are in Singapore or what percentage of the population they constitute. The main reason for this is that section 377 of the Singapore Penal Code criminalises 'carnal intercourse against the order of nature' which includes even consensual, private, adult homosexual acts. The penalties are either:
- life imprisonment, or
- imprisonment for up to 10 years with or without a fine.
As such, in any survey or census, no citizen would readily admit to being what is essentially, in the eyes of the Law, a criminal. By the same token, it is impossible to determine how many murderers, rapists or grand larcenists there are.
This statistical vacuum was not regarded as any problem in the past and no population census conducted in Singapore has ever bothered to quantify such people. However, with the increasing cognisance of equal, universal human rights, freedom of individual expression and the growing political and economic clout of homosexuals, this hitherto neglected aspect of sociological statistics will become increasingly important in the future.
The 2000 U.S. decennial census estimated (by extrapolation from hard data) that the proportion of gay men in America was 2.5 percent and of lesbians, 1.2 percent (source: Scientific American, March 2005 issue, page 20, 'Gay and Lesbian Census' by Rodger Doyle ) even though socio-psychological studies from the Kinsey era to the present day show that the same percentages of those claiming greater erotic attraction for the same sex were 7.7 for men and 7.5 for women. No conclusive explanation exists for this anomaly. Figures in Singapore may be broadly similar.
- Read PLU3's review of previous international studies:
Available statistics
In 2001, Fridae, Asia's largest English language-LGBT web portal, polled its gay and lesbian members residing in Singapore. Of the 595 respondents, 39% declared that they were "attached" or "living with a partner." 40% of the respondents who were in relationships had been with the same partner for more than 6 months.
A high proportion of respondents lived with their parents, while only 22% owned or rented their homes. This was despite the relatively high income levels of the respondents, with 50% earning more than S$80,000 (US$47,000) per annum – 20% reporting income levels of more than S$180,000 per annum, 11% between S$120,000 to S$180,000 and 19% between S$80,000 to S$120,000.
Historical background
See the articles:
Singapore gay culture
See the articles:
Singapore gay personalities
Historical
Paddy Chew- Singapore's first AIDS victim to come out to the general public (1998)
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)
Contemporary
- Alex Au - Singapore's most widely-respected gay activist, regarded by many as being the founding father of the Singapore gay movement.
- Dr. Russell Heng - 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.
- 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.
- Eileena Lee - Singapore's most well-known lesbian activist.
- Kelvin Wong - the main activist who spearheaded local gay Buddhist and sports organisations.
- Clarence Singam - the motive force behind the gay Christian organisations Safehaven and the Free Community Church, Oogachaga support group, charity work for the mainstream underpriveleged, and IndigNation, Singapore's inaugural, month-long gay pride celebration held in August 2005.
- Charles Tan - PLU3's effectively-bilingual, diplomatic, affable and unflappable spokesman.
- Alfian Sa'at - Singaporean writer, poet and playwright with an active interest in Muslim affairs.
- Max Lim - Singapore's first "pink" entrepreneur and impresario known by a wide swathe of the local gay community. He was the first to organise outdoor gay parties in the 1980s 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.
- Dr. Stuart Koe - Singaporean academic and entrepreneur, the founder of fridae.com, Asia's largest English-language LGBT web-portal.
- Dr. Tan Chong Kee - 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.
(For more information, including photographs, see the article Singapore gay personalities)
The future
- The greatest impediment to the achievement of absolute gay equality in Singapore is the rampant spread of HIV infection amongst Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). The Ministry of Health is contemplating measures to curb this exponential increase. These may include the closure of gay saunas. However, activists from Action for AIDS have drawn up guidelines for safe sex in saunas which they published in August 2004. If these are ratified by the Ministry of Health, it would avoid such a drastic eventuality which would impact a considerable portion of the economy.