“We aren’t really that diferent” Globe-hopping discourse and queer rights in Singapore
Robert Phillips Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Singapore is one of a few nations in Asia that has yet to decriminalize homo- sexuality yet has a queer scene that rivals other more liberal cosmopolitan centers. Since the introduction of the Internet into Singapore in 1994, queer Singaporeans have been exposed to a variety of regional and transnational dis- courses of sexual subjectivity and rights. In this article, I examine the ways that individuals and activists in Singapore reject the “globalization” of sexuality and instead create unique ways of speaking about queer rights. In the process, they are creating a rights movement that is beginning to fnd limited success.
Keywords: discourse, queer rights, transnational sexualities, Singapore, coming out, returning home, tongzhi
1. Introduction
One rainy evening in July of 2006, I sat at a large wooden table in a recently reno- vated shop house in the Little India section of Singapore. Te table was at the center of a large, almost empty, well-lit set of rooms that served as the writing space for Walter, a prominent queer1 Singaporean blogger, activist, and cultural critic. I had been reading Walter’s blog, which contained his outspoken views on the Singaporean government and its policies for the past few years and was ea- ger to interview him about the complicated relationships between queer activism and the Singaporean nation, relationships that were at the heart of my disserta- tion research. Before I had a chance to turn on my digital recorder, Walter asked me a question that I had heard many times since arriving in the city-state, “Why Singapore?” He was referring, of course, to the fact that I had chosen Singapore as the site of my research but more specifcally to the commonly held misconception
Journal of Language and Sexuality 2:1 (2013), 122–144. doi 10.1075/jls.2.1.05phi issn 2211–3770 / e-issn 2211–3789 © John Benjamins Publishing Company “We aren’t really that diferent” 123 within the city-state that it is not a very interesting place. I told him that I was intrigued by the fact that Singapore is one of the few countries in Asia that has yet to decriminalize homosexual behaviour, yet has a queer scene (including bars, dance clubs, saunas, businesses, fashion outlets, and resource centers) that rivals other more liberal cosmopolitan centers both within and beyond Southeast Asia. He then mentioned that just a few years prior, some in the international press were writing of the potential of Singapore to become the new capital of “gay” Asia (Agence France-Press 2003). I replied to Walter, “Isn’t it interesting, though, that there are people out there who think that Singapore could become the new capital of “gay” Asia when Section 377A of the Penal Code still criminalizes private con- sensual sexual intercourse between adult men?”2 As our interview progressed, Walter began relating his own experiences as well as those of Singaporean friends who had visited queer meccas such as Sydney (for Mardi Gras), Taiwan (for Taiwan Pride) or San Francisco (for Gay Pride) and how these travels had afected their perceptions of queer issues at home. We then began feshing out the diferences between the types of queer activism that I, as an American, had been exposed to and those of Walter and his friends, who had been born and raised in Singapore. I had begun my activist career as a teenager protest- ing homophobia, violence against queers, and government inaction to the AIDS pandemic with groups such as Queer Nation and ACT UP. Walter, on the other hand, was raised in a nation in which an assembly of 5 or more people still requires a permit from the police — a move implemented by the government in an efort to maintain social stability in the young city-state. As such, many Singaporean activists, including Walter had never taken part in any type of organized protest, at least not in Singapore. Walter made sure that I understood that the types of civil disobedience employed by Queer Nation and ACT UP would never be tolerated in Singapore because, he said, “the Western model is based on individual autonomy, based on the language of rights which have made them very ill-suited for navigat- ing the political minefelds of Singapore. If you use that type of language, it just doesn’t work…” (emphasis mine). In fact the very notion of “gay rights” was seen by many of the queer Singaporeans with whom I interacted as a Western import,3 incompatible with Singapore’s conservative Confucian-infuenced culture. Walter lamented the fact that even in situations where queer Singaporeans were willing to attempt to organize protests, the legal roadblocks were over- whelming. During my own time in Singapore it was next to impossible to ob- tain a permit for something as relatively simple as screening a flm with queer themes. Walter noted that to further compound the difculties, Singapore is “a society where things don’t happen without permission… you have to fnd a way to get permission or approval whereas the Western model is quite the reverse… in spite of disapproval, Westerners say ‘this is my right,’ it’s that kind of rhetoric.” It is
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 124 Robert Phillips
this Singaporean mindset — which revolves around pre-approval and permission from authorities that caused Walter so much frustration; on several occasions he likened these experiences to “banging (his) head against the wall.” Like my conversation with Walter, my interviews with other queer Singaporeans in 2006–2007 contained within them many compelling themes that spoke to the complicated relationships that exist between Singaporean queers, activism, and their nation. Te major themes in these conversations centered on the profound infuence of the Internet on queer subjectivity, the diferences between East and West and the corresponding rights discourses associated with these “regions,” and frustrations at gaining governmental permission for the most innocent of gather- ings. When I asked what they thought the most pragmatic and successful approach to gaining queer rights might entail, an overwhelming number of interlocutors gave responses which resonated with Walter who suggested that eforts should be focused on, “convincing our fellow Singaporeans that though we are queer, we aren’t really that diferent.” In this article, I examine these themes and I consider how queer rights activists and everyday queer Singaporeans deploy language in an attempt to convince their fellow citizens and their government that, as Walter suggests, queer Singaporeans “aren’t really that diferent.” I propose that some queer Singaporeans, through their interactions on the Internet, have been exposed to both western (or international) and regional discourses of queer rights and, as a result of local4 appropriation, have created a type of transnational “bricolage” — a product of the collapse of a set of already tenuous binary categories including east/west, in/out of the “closet,” and global/local. Tis new iteration of “rights” discourse has allowed them to fnd a unique way of speaking about queer rights and to subsequently create a queer rights movement that is beginning to fnd a limited success. In considering this success, it becomes important to think about how this lan- guage was produced in the frst place. To do so, I return to Walter’s frst question, “Why Singapore?” Besides the illiberal contradictions that shape the lifeworlds of everyday Singaporeans noted in the opening vignette, Singapore is of interest in that it can be imagined in a variety of ways including as “Disneyland5 with the death penalty” because of its perceived authoritarian leadership (Gibson 1993) or due to its lack of physical space and relatively recent history as an independent na- tion, what Marc Augé (1995) might categorize as a “non-place”. Singapore has also been described as “important node in international circuits of capital” (Chang, Huang & Savage 2004: 413), a description that I fnd particularly apt consider- ing that Singapore has been at the intersection of global fows of people, capital, and information since its founding, through a long British colonial presence, a Japanese occupation, a short merger with neighbouring Malaysia, and fnally in its current position as an independent city-state that began in 1965.
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As Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd remind us, “transnational or neo-colonial capi- talism, like colonialist capitalism before it, continues to produce sites of contradic- tion that are efects of its always uneven expansion but that cannot be subsumed by the logic of commodifcation itself” (Lowe & Lloyd 1997: 1). As such, in addi- tion to the universal rights discourses produced through transnational capitalism and global capital fows that fnd their way to Singapore, queer Singaporeans also interpret and draw upon a set of potentially conficting local sources of self-under- standing including Chinese diaspora, Singaporean nationalism, and global mo- dernity. Te queer rights discourse that is produced as a result of these interactions demonstrates how these queer subjects are both exposed to and concomitantly act as an integral part of various globalization processes. Recently, cultural theorists have tried to understand local appropriation and incorporation of apparently Western style concepts such as gay rights and various identity ideologies within the larger structures of new media technology, includ- ing the Internet, and late-capitalist fows of commodities and people. Much of this work assumed a “globalization of sexuality” (Binnie 2004) or “global queering” (Altman 1997) in which non-Western queer communities more or less “borrow” originally Western style identities and cultures. Tis line of thinking is problem- atic in that it imagines the local and the global as abstract and de-territorialized entities following pre-determined global circuits, including those within cyber- space.6 Yet, as James Ferguson points out that, [t]he movement of capital…does indeed crisscross the globe, but it does not en- compass or cover it. Te movements of capital cross national borders, but they jump from point to point, and huge regions are simply bypassed…. Again, the ‘movement of capital’ here does not cover the globe; it connects discrete points on it. Capital is globe-hopping, not globe-covering. (Ferguson 2006: 37–38) Ferguson’s notion of “globe-hopping” fts in nicely with the image of Singapore as a “node” in that it is crucial to understanding how the languages of queer Asian subjectivity are circulating globally and in the process creating and sustaining linkages between disparate groups of queer subjects across national and interna- tional borders. In what follows, I utilize this framework to examine the movement of tong- zhi, a transnational rights discourse that originated in East Asia and has subse- quently become integrated within a larger global circuit of queer discourses and identities. I suggest here that the introduction of the unique language of tongzhi into recognized global circuits has disrupted the fow of knowledge and in the process allowed for the formation of a unique iteration of queer rights discourse in Singapore. I argue that by utilizing elements from both Western and regional discourses, such as tongzhi, some queer Singaporeans are changing the way that
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they present themselves, as gendered and sexualized subjects, to their fellow Singaporeans. I briefy review the impact of the Internet on Singaporean queers before taking a more in-depth look at tongzhi thought. Tis helps set the stage for the discussion of the ways in which the production of iterative discourse is creat- ing social change within Singapore and beyond.
2. Situating Singapore
2.1 Internet
Since the late 1990’s Singapore’s government has been building an information technology infrastructure to facilitate a knowledge-based economy, an efort that was originally intended to maintain the city-state’s advantageous position created in the afermath of the economic crisis that hit the Asian region in 1997–1998 (Lee 2005, Rodan 1998). In addition to aiding the nation’s economy, the move also opened up Internet access for average Singaporeans, with the intention that it be used by citizens for commercial and educational purposes. One unintended consequence of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet is that it has led to new types of local and global engagements for Singaporeans (Ho, Baber & Khondker 2002). Tis is relevant in that Singapore is a nation in which all forms of mainstream media are tightly controlled by the government and strict codes ensure that few print publications or television programs reach out to queer communities.7 Te Internet thus serves as a vital source of information. Tat is not to say that before the Internet arrived in Singapore in 1994, queer Singaporeans had no idea about queer communities elsewhere or were unaware of queer activism in other cos- mopolitan locations both regionally as well as internationally. Te Internet did, however, make it much easier to access this information. In Singapore, as elsewhere, the Internet has also allowed for the creation and utilization of various online sites that serve the needs of diverse queer communi- ties. Tese include interactive forums such as SiGNeL, used primarily by queer men, and RedQuEEn and Sayoni, aimed at queer women, blogs such as Yawning Bread and PLURAL, and queer lifestyle sites such as Herstory, Fridae, and Trevvy.8 As a result, many queer Singaporeans have been able to use the Internet in a man- ner other than was originally intended and have moved beyond the simple ex- change of information to create a virtual public sphere in which to discuss issues of concern to their communities. Te Singaporean cybersphere has also become inundated with independently produced digital content such as personal and community blogs, websites, and interactive groups on social networking sites such as Facebook. Individuals and
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved “We aren’t really that diferent” 127 groups are also creating video archives on YouTube to document the history of queer Singapore, using Twitter to convey vital up-to-the minute information in sit- uations where mainstream media is absent or slow, and writing informational en- tries related to queer Singapore within dedicated pages on Wikipedia. Interactions within these discursive sites also allow queer Singaporeans to network with one another as well as with those outside of their home communities. Tis includes Singaporeans abroad and non-Singaporeans, some of whom at one time lived or worked in Singapore. For many with whom I interacted, the transnational nature of these multi-sited interactions was the spark that ignited a renewed interest in participation in the public sphere. Te ability to form online communities and the overwhelming presence of social media have been critical to the emergent forms of activism that have taken root in Singapore in the past few years. But I would also suggest that it is the free and relatively unhindered fow of information that has made the biggest dif- ference because the presence of the Internet has allowed queer Singaporeans to seek out information on what it is like to be queer in other places. Rosie, a queer Singaporean woman related her experience: For me, when I came out, I automatically reached to the Internet for information and what I found was mostly from Westerners. I felt afrmed that there were people who had gone through the journey, but at the same time, these people were not Asian like me and to some extent I didn’t feel the similarity. It was during her online search for “queer women Asia” and “lesbian Asia” that she happened upon a regional rights discourse, tongzhi.
2.2 Tongzhi
Te term tongzhi（同志）was frst appropriated in 1989 by a Hong Kong gay activist for the inaugural Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in Hong Kong in an at- tempt to emphasize the “cultural authenticity of same-sex desire in Chinese soci- ety” (Chou 2000: 1). Tongzhi discourse surrounding queer rights is a rather recent invention and the term literally means “comrade.” It was appropriated from what were reportedly the “national father” of modern China, Sun Yat-sen’s last words, “Te revolution has not succeeded, tongzhi still need to fght” (Chou 2000: 1). Appropriated from the political vernacular of the PRC, tongzhi is a creatively iron- ic usage deemed necessary for a repressed group. Many activists in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and to a lesser degree, Singapore reject such terms as “homosexual” due to a perception that it is a Western medical term that brings with it ideas of, among other things, sickness. Other terms such as “gay” and “lesbian” are also seen as being Western, in that central to these terms is not only a “positive, self claimed
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identity stressing the right to one’s body and homoeroticism, but the modern western discourse of romantic love and individualism” (Chou 2000: 86). Tongzhi is in many respects the Eastern version of a Western queer rights discourse and the terms are commensurable on many levels, yet there are diferences. Te Western queer rights model, as mentioned earlier, is based on ideas of autonomy and a lan- guage of rights. Tongzhi, on the other hand, embraces cultural references, a politics that goes beyond the homo-hetero binary, and focuses primarily on maintaining social harmony. As Chou points out, tongzhi is “accepted by many in East Asia and Singapore for its use as an indigenous cultural identity for integrating the sexual into the social” (Chou 2000: 2). Wei (2007: 582) posits that the Internet plays a large role in the promulgation of tongzhi discourse in China and my research con- frms that this is also the case in Singapore. Tere are recent Chinese equivalents for “coming out,” the Western term used to designate when one publicly discloses their sexual orientation. Tese include such phrases as chugui (出柜 out of the closet) and chulai (出來 to go out there). Yet, the phrase that I heard from some Chinese-acculturated Singaporean inter- locutors that mapped most closely onto an indigenous version of “coming out” was quite diferent. While a phrase such as “coming out,” implies a public pronounce- ment of one’s sexual orientation, hui jia (回家, homeward or return home) has a much diferent connotation. Rather than “coming out,” which in some cases leads to a rejection by and possible separation from the family, “returning home” im- plies returning to a safe place where one ultimately belongs. Tere is no equivalent term in English that corresponds to jia, but loosely translated it means home or family. Tis is not the same as the physical home or family but rather the larger social contexts in which one’s life is situated. Te idea of recognizing and subse- quently integrating oneself into the existing social order is thus key to understand- ing the concept of tongzhi. Tose queer Singaporeans exposed to tongzhi have certainly not accepted the tenets of this discourse wholesale, and just as tongzhi has spread from its origins in Hong Kong and Taiwan unevenly across the globe, so too is its spread across Singapore. Tere is an unevenness in exposure to tongzhi discourse across racial, ethnic, and class lines within the city-state. First, although the vast majority of Singaporean citizens come from a Chinese background9 (in which tongzhi dis- course would make the most sense based on its origins), there are nonetheless siz- able populations of Indian- and Malay-Singaporeans who do not necessarily share the same socio-cultural worldviews as their Chinese-acculturated counterparts. Second, few of my Singaporean-Chinese interlocutors ever spoke directly of tong- zhi thought and only a handful were even familiar with the term. Nonetheless, all of queer women and men that I interviewed, without exception, spoke of a world- view that was clearly infuenced by and resonated of tongzhi thought.
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For instance, I had met Clarence, an Indian-Singaporean at a book launch or- ganized by his partner, Vikram. Clarence and I used to spend Tuesday afernoons at the gym followed by dinner, shopping, and a trip to a local temple. During one of our leisurely outings, I asked him if his family knew about his sexual orienta- tion. He answered, I’m out to my family, but being Indian nobody discusses it because (sounding exasperated) I’m 37 years old and they think it’s still a phase. I’m not out to my partner’s family because he’s not out to them, so…as far as his family is concerned we are just best friends. I was intrigued by the fact that we were about the same age, yet had never cor- rected his partner’s family’s assumptions regarding the true nature of their rela- tionship. Tis tacit subjectivity, which is based on the assumption that the family already knows one’s sexual orientation (see Decena 2011, Tan 2011) however, is part and parcel of tongzhi. He told me that as long as he and his partner kept quiet about it, things would be fne. But, if you contest it they will take a stand and be against you…so for the beneft of the family relationships…at the end of the day it is no big deal because they accept me as a person, and I think that is of more value to me than for them to treat me as a gay person. Again, notice that for Clarence “family relationships” take priority over his indi- vidual subjectivity — that maintaining harmony within the family is paramount. Clarence’s comments also make clear that not all queer Singaporeans necessar- ily want their sexual subjectivity to be visible and that the Western notion of the “closet” or even being “out” are inadequate for thinking about the life experiences of Singaporean queers.
3. Striving for change
3.1 IndigNation
In August of 2005, the frst ContraDiction prose and poetry reading was held at Utterly Art, a small gallery located above a traditional medical shop on South Bridge Road in the Chinatown section of the city. Organized by poet Dominic Chua and writer Ng Yi-Sheng, the event featured local queer writers reading their work. ContraDiction was the frst event of many that took place that August at IndigNation, Singapore’s newly created pride month. IndigNation, of which ContraDiction was the inaugural event, was organized in response to the banning
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of the annual gay Nation Party earlier that year. Te 2005 ContraDiction event was simply subtitled “A Night With Gay Poets,” whereas the 2006 event was dubbed “Queer Words spoken in IndigNation,” indicating a distinct change in tone. Te works were given a rating of RA-18 (meaning that access is restricted to those under the age of 18) by the Media Development Authority (MDA) and were, by all accounts, becoming more and more political in nature. In 2007, many of the events that were part of IndigNation were cancelled outright due to the inability of organizers to obtain permits from the Police Entertainment Licensing Unit or the Media Development Agency, the two gov- ernment entities charged with monitoring such events. Some were refused per- mits because they were “against public interest,” while others due to the fact that organizers had not fled the necessary paperwork or made proper safety arrange- ments. Queer rights activists had a feld day with these cancellations, charging censorship and discrimination, creating a buzz within the Singaporean press, both online and of, and generating dozens of reports and interviews with organizers in international media outlets. However, the authorities were not the only ones who had issues with the events of the 2007 IndigNation. Some of my interlocutors had reservations about the ori- gins of IndigNation as well as the fact that organizers were acting aggressively de- spite the dissatisfaction of the authorities. Olivia, one of my key informants, felt that if queer Singaporeans were going to be staging “pride” events, that they should not be prompted by negativity. She told me, It’s giving us some visibility but I’m not sure if fghting is the way to go, since IndigNation started until now I made a conscious decision to not be a part of it because I feel that pride… we don’t need the cancellation of a party to be proud of who we are (laughs)… So, for me it is a radical step to not be part of IndigNation. Her partner, Audrey, had diferent reasons for not taking part, “…I wonder what IndigNation is doing to educate the “heartlanders”10 because everything IndigNation is doing is very highbrow and none of the “heartlanders” are aware of what is going on…” Audrey was referring to the fact that most of the partici- pants at IndigNation were individuals whose ideas were in keeping with those of a conventional CMEL (Chinese, middle class, English-educated/speaking, liberal) profle, leaving little room for the ideas of their fellow queer Singaporeans.
3.2 Pushing the OB markers
Despite some misgivings, one of the things that IndigNation did accomplish was that it tested the limits of acceptable public discourse in Singapore by pushing what are known as “OB markers.” An OB marker (Lyons & Gomez 2005, Tan
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2000), short for “out of bounds marker” is a Singaporean term used to designate those topics that are permitted to be discussed within the public sphere. In the case of Singapore, these boundaries are fuid and can change from one moment to the next. According to Tan (2000: 103) OB markers are invoked to “limit political engagement, civic action, and participation, and anything else remotely linked to politics.” Traditionally, the government of Singapore has sole discretion regard- ing the positioning of the boundaries for acceptable public discourse. In order to expand the boundaries, Singaporeans needed permission of the government. Although there has been a queer equality movement in Singapore since at least the early 1990’s, there have been no signifcant public queer rights rallies, marches, or parades of which to speak. Sharon, a Chinese Singaporean poet who spent several years abroad complained about the lack of motivation among her fellow queers. She told me that, “when I frst came back from Australia in 2001, afer three years of going for the pride parade every year over there, I heard we were having our frst pride parade here and I was very excited.” When she got to the appointed spot, she was frustrated in that all she found were “some cross dressers and some butches and they were waving the fag, that was the parade!” Puspawati, a Malay- Singaporean woman pointed out that (Singapore) is a place that is controlled by the government, nothing will happen if the government says no. Te only way for things to happen is when the govern- ment says yes… if tomorrow we wake up and the Minister Mentor says all the buildings have to be pink, then we will wake up to pink buildings. As a creative way of bypassing the legal restraints put in place by the government and further pushing the limits of the OB markers started by IndigNation, a small but dedicated group of activists came up with a new strategy.
3.3 Pink Dot
In August 2008, Singapore’s government made the decision to allow public dem- onstrations at the Speaker’s Corner, located within Hong Lim Park, without hav- ing to obtain a police permit. Almost immediately members of Singapore’s queer communities began organizing the frst ofcial public pride celebration in the his- tory of their nation. Interested individuals met regularly at a local nightclub and discussed logistics online in preparation for the event. Tere was much debate, in both cyberspace and the physical world, regarding just how to go about present- ing a positive face of Singapore’s queer communities to a public that, by and large, still misunderstood them. Initially, some had suggested a purely Western-style queer pride celebration complete with the stereotypical elements — disco music, scantily-clad go-go boys, drag queens, rainbow banners, and speeches calling for
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equality and the granting of rights. Eventually, others within the community ques- tioned this strategy and organizers found a diferent approach — one that incor- porated elements from both Western and regional rights discourse. On May 16, 2009, over 2000 queer Singaporeans along with their family mem- bers and supporters publicly gathered to celebrate their nation’s diversity at an event dubbed Pink Dot.11 Rather than staging the event as a protest, the organizers took a diferent approach and framed the event as one that promoted the freedom of all Singaporeans, including queer Singaporeans, to choose whom to love. Te website promoting the event made sure that participants understood, …this is NOT a protest nor a parade, just a simple call for open-minded Singaporeans to come together to form a pink dot, of which aerial photographs will be taken. Tis pink dot is a celebration of diversity and equality, and a symbol of Singapore’s more inclusive future. (emphasis in the original) Of importance here is the emphasis that the event is “not a protest nor a parade.” Tis statement serves two purposes; frst, it reassures potential participants that they will not be placing themselves in any legal danger by taking part in the event and second, it underscores the fact that the event is not about “rights.” In fact, there is no mention of “rights” anywhere on the Pink Dot website. In addition to advertising the event on the group’s website, a YouTube channel was established so that videos of the event could be shared and a Facebook page was created where users were encouraged to pledge their attendance. Te event was covered by the international press but received minimal coverage from Singapore’s government- controlled media (Leyl 2009, US State Department 2010).
4. “Love within families”
In May of 2010, Pink Dot was staged again and attracted over 4, 000 participants. Organizers expanded the 2009 theme of “Freedom to Love” to “Love within Families” to emphasize the diversity of Singaporean families and the impor- tance of kinship. Te 2010 version of the Pink Dot website featured several queer Singaporeans and their families in a series of online videos — “Pink Dot 2010: Focusing on our Families” — that told of the initial difculties faced by parents of queer children and their eventual acceptance back into the family unit.12 Tese vid- eos accomplished two things; frst, they put a human face to queers in Singapore by showing parents and children discussing the process of maintaining the cohesive- ness of the family in what is ofen a difcult situation. I suggest that the fact that there was a very public aspect to these stories speaks to the infuence of Western thought and the grand “coming out” narrative in which one publicly declares their
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved “We aren’t really that diferent” 133 sexual orientation. Second, and equally important, the videos utilized language that emphasized “traditional” Singaporean familial relations in which being a son or daughter of one’s parents takes precedence over publicly declaring oneself as queer — a way of thinking very in line with tongzhi thought. Tere were four vid- eos in the series,13 which according to the Pink Dot website, are about “celebrating the bonds of LGBT people and their families” (Pink Dot SG). I suggest that these videos thus serve as an example of the selective appropriation and combination of the Western notion of “coming out” and the tongzhi notion of hui jia (回家, home- ward or return home) in that while the children do publicly acknowledge their sexual identity to family and friends, causing initial difculties, in the end all of the children “return home” to the love and acceptance of their parents. In thinking about the narratives presented in these videos, there are several possible types of analysis (Bernard 2006, Cortazzi 2001) including thematic (fo- cusing on content), interactional (focusing on dialogic processes between speaker and listener), and performative (narrative as praxis). A fourth typology, one that I believe is the most appropriate way of looking at these videos, is structural analysis — a method that focuses on the way a story is told. William Labov (1982) original- ly developed this approach in order to examine frst person accounts of violence but the basic structure of his method is applicable in other situations as well. Te scheme is intended as a way to obtain a deeper understanding of the compelling power of narratives of personal experience, which he defnes as, “a report of a se- quence of events that have entered into the biography of the speaker by a sequence of clauses that correspond to the order of the original events” (Labov 1997: 396). Te “sequence of clauses” to which he refers allows for a hermeneutic engagement with the discourse under consideration (Labov 1982, 1997). It includes – an abstract (an initial clause in the narrative that reports the entire sequence of events), – an orientation clause (which describes the place of the events of the narrative and the particular situation of each participant), – a clause of complicating action (which reports a next event in response to a potential question, “And what happened [then]?”), – evaluation (in which the speaker refects on the problem and communicates emotion related to needs and desires), – resolution (which brings the narrative back to the beginning, so that the ques- tion “And what happened [then]?” is no longer appropriate), and – a coda (in which the story fnally ends and we are returned to the present). Below I present the transcripts from two of the videos from the “Focusing on Our Families” series. I frst situate each video and point out the various elements as they relate to Labov’s scheme. Tis is followed by a discussion of the way the stories are
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told and the types of language used. I suggest here that utilizing Labov’s method of narrative analysis allows for a more complete examination of the language used by queer activists and their families and how this language is transforming everyday life as lived in contemporary Singapore.
4.1 “Focusing on our families” (Part 1)
Te frst video of the series is titled “When one door closes, a closet door opens: A Singaporean mother’s appeal to parents of LGBT sons and daughters.” It features Eileena Lee, a 38-year-old sports therapist and her 67-year-old mother, Mdm. Yiap Geok Khuan. Te video begins with Mdm. Yiap, dressed in a pink blouse, speak- ing about her daughter while photographs of mother and child together in the 1970’s fash on the screen. Mdm. Yiap speaks Mandarin throughout the video and the transcript below is taken from the English subtitles. Orientation Madame Yiap: My daughter was very pretty when she was a little girl. Her hair was long like a Japanese doll’s. My customers adored her. When she was in second- ary school, she didn’t like wearing skirts. I started to worry. At that time I had no concept of homosexuality. I just didn’t want her to be a “tomboy.”
(Eileena appears wearing a pink polo shirt.)
Complicating Action Eileena: Tere was a lot of passive-aggressiveness in our relationship. I would know that she is unhappy about me but then she will pick on an incident which is totally not what she is unhappy about but she will use that to be un- happy about me.
(Mdm. Yiap and Eileena appear together on the screen.)
Evaluation Madame Yiap: I was prejudiced. All my gestures told her that I didn’t care about her, and I was very cold towards her. We stopped communicating and we drifed apart. I didn’t know what being gay was about so I thought she could change. I tried reading up, but there was no answer. I started to look at it diferently (long dramatic pause). I must accept it. Tis was a gif from God. I had to accept it.
(More old pictures of mother and daughter.) (Eileena appears on screen alone and addresses the camera.)
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Resolution Eileena: It’s a relief that I can fnally be and be au- thentic. Now she wouldn’t expect me to fnd a man to marry…she will probably expect me to bring home a girlfriend if eventually I fnd a life partner. (Madame Yiap appears on screen alone and addresses the camera.)
Coda Madame Yiap: As parents, shouldn’t we love them even more? We should not (long pause) reject them. We must support them even more so that they can do even more for society.
(Te screen reads: Not every LGBT person has the love and understanding of his or her family.) (Cut to Madame Yiap and Eileena laughing and trying on a pair of pink rabbit ears). (Te screen reads: Tat’s why we have to come together to show them they have our support.) (Te screen reads: Hong Lim Park 15.05.2010 Pink Dot.) Tis is perhaps the most viewed of the four videos that comprise this series. Part of the reason for this is the sincerity that both Madame Yiap and her daughter, Eileena, display throughout. Te video itself runs for little more than two and a half minutes, yet it contains a great deal of information. It not only tells of the sometimes difcult relationship between mother and daughter, it also helps to ex- plain the manner by which Eileena’s sexual orientation is being framed — perhaps for the beneft of other parents who are in the same situation as Madame Yiap. Specifcally, in the evaluation portion of the narrative, Madame Yiap states that, “Tis was a gif from God. I had to accept it.” I suggest here that her statement im- plies that Eileena was “born this way” and that there is no point in trying to change her. It also speaks, on some level, to the Singaporean discourse surrounding trans- sexual individuals who are seen to have a congenital medical condition that can be “corrected” with pharmaceuticals and surgery. By emphasizing the notion that her child was “born this way” and that it was “a gif from God,” Madame Yiap speaks to the immutability of Eileena’s orientation. As such, Madame Yiap is situating it squarely within the prevailing Singaporean worldview thereby potentially lessening the sense of confict that non-normative sexualities ofen bring to family dynamics.
4.2 “Focusing on our families” (Part 2)
Tis video, titled “From son to daughter: A Singaporean family’s transformation” features postoperative transgender female Jamie Yee, a 36-year old nurse and her
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 136 Robert Phillips
parents, Mdm. Yee Yoke Lan, 58 and Yee Chang Kim, 70. Te set-up of this video is quite similar to the frst and begins with the parents, both dressed in pink shirts, against a white background. As they speak, old photos of Jamie and her family fash on the screen. Like Mdm. Yiap, Mr. Yee speaks Mandarin throughout the video. Orientation Mdm. Yee: When I gave birth to Jamie, on the very frst day that she was out, she had to go for a complete blood change because she had severe jaundice. So ac- tually, from that time, I already knew that she was a very special baby. Jamie: When I was about 5, when I was in kindergar- ten, um, I was always gravitating towards the girls toys, cooking, and dolls, and stuf like that.
(Jamie appears alone on the screen, wearing a plaid shirt with pink highlights.)
Complicating action J amie: Afer National Service is when I actually started my transition. I was working in a restaurant as a girl and I’d saved up some money and I was thinking about going for the surgery but, I remembered that mom ac- tually told me, cause my dad is very conservative, and she was saying, she was warning me not to do anything drastic until afer my dad has passed on, so that he doesn’t have to deal with it. But it kept going on in my head that it’s not fair that I keep wishing that my dad passes on so that I can do what I want to do… So I sat down (she is sobbing “you’d think that afer all of these years that it would be easy”) I actually sat down with mum and spoke to her and said that I could actually go ahead without letting anybody know but I needed their blessings. (Jamie’s parents appear on screen.)
Evaluation Mr. Yee: When I heard that Jamie was going for the operation, my heart ached. It still does. I asked myself, “Why did my child turn out like this?” I could not ac- cept it then. I spent some time thinking about it. Since Jamie had decided to undergo the surgery, if I were to stop her, something bad may happen. Afer consid- ering it carefully, I thought that she should make her own decision. If she wants to undergo the surgery, she should go ahead with it. It was her wish.
Resolution Mdm. Yee: We used Medisave and our savings to help her, to help pay for the operation costs so we decided to let her go ahead and do it in Singapore where we feel
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that with us around giving her the support, it would be much safer. We would feel better.
Coda Mr. Yee: As parents, no matter what our child turns out to be, we still need to care for them. We cannot possibly take care of them for life. When we get old or leave this world who will take care of them? We can only hope that they can take care of themselves.
(Jamie and her parents appear on screen smiling and holding a Pink Dot placard.)
Jamie: Home is supposed to be a safe place where you can go to for warmth and love and I guess that’s im- portant because at the end of the day you know that there’s somebody that you can go home to who doesn’t judge you, who loves you for who you are.
(Te screen reads: Pinkdot (sic) celebrates the family. Hong Lim Park 15.05.2010) As with the previous one, the video featuring Jamie and her parents relies on the sincerity displayed by the participants in order to get their message across. Te dif- fculties that Jamie experienced as a transgender woman going through her transi- tion becomes clear during the complicating action portion of the video as she is visibly upset and speaking through her tears while recounting her story. Further, her mother reiterates the gravity of Jamie’s situation when referring to the fact that she and her husband used their retirement savings in order to help their daughter pay for her surgery. As with Mdm. Yiap, the Yees show a deep concern for their daughter’s wellbeing and emphasize the overarching theme of Pink Dot — “Love within Families.” Troughout the narratives in both videos, the queer Singaporeans and their families construct epistemically clear accounts of their experiences, relating their stories in a linear fashion with a beginning, middle, and end which correspond nicely with Labov’s scheme. Te only element that is explicitly missing is the abstract or initial clause, which presents a summary of the entire set of events. However, it could be argued that this is not a necessary element of the videos under consideration. Te context in which they are presented already informs the viewer to some extent that they will be experiencing a story that begins with fa- milial and personal strife and ends with the individual and family healthy, content, and intact. Te stories told certainly relate a “coming out” narrative that is very famil- iar to many queer individuals, both in Singapore and the West, in which an in- dividual publicly and deliberately declares their sexual orientation. At the same time, however, these stories are related in such a way that actually rejects large
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 138 Robert Phillips
portions of the master Western “coming out” narrative that involves a linear series of stages (Savin-Williams & Diamond 2000) that culminates in public disclosure, revolves around the individual, and ofen leads to a separation from the family. To the contrary, the videos are centered on family and a desire on the part of both the children and parents to maintain harmony within the household. Tere is neither desire for separation nor overemphasis on the individual. Much like the narratives of queer South Asians that Gopinath (2005) considers in her work, the narratives of the queer Singaporeans related here, “run counter to the standard ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ narratives of the closet and coming out that are organized exclusively around a logic of recognition and visibility” (Gopinath 2005: 16). Tese Singaporean nar- ratives further reject the “Western” illiberal assumption that “to be public and vis- ible implies acceptance” (Boellstorf 2003: 226) in that all of the participants are well aware that they are still misunderstood and stigmatized by a large proportion of the general population. Tis group of activists have efectively taken elements of the regional tongzhi discourse and the transnational “lesbian and gay” discourse and translated them in such a way as to frame the “coming out” narrative in a man- ner that is easily comprehended on the local level. I suggest that the key to the success of Pink Dot, which is due in part to its public promotion through these videos, lies in the language. I believe that, in many respects, these narratives speak for themselves and it should be clear by now why Pink Dot has become so successful. I will however, briefy note some salient features. First, Eileena’s mother (Mdm. Yiap) and Jamie’s father (Mr. Yee) speak only Mandarin in the videos. Tis invokes a connection with the heartlanders and sends the clear message that the people involved with Pink Dot are not all CMEL (Chinese, middle class, English-educated/speaking, liberal). Second, the language used by all of the parents and their children is characterized by discursive prac- tices that index their mutual concern — there is little hint of concern for the self. I suggest that this points directly to the infuence of tongzhi thought within these families. Mdm. Yiap speaks of her “worry” that her daughter will turn out to be a “tomboy.” Mr. Yee wonders, “Who will take care of them?” Jamie wants to delay her surgery until her father dies to spare his feelings. Te concern for the wellbeing of their children is especially prominent when Mdm. Yiap asks, “…shouldn’t we love them even more?” and Mr. Yee states that, “…no matter what our child turns out to be, we still need to care for them.” Te language used by all participants is very non-threatening and there are no demands for “rights.” On the contrary — the discourse focuses on the family.
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved “We aren’t really that diferent” 139
5. Coda: Transnationalizing tongzhi — Hong Kong, Singapore, Salt Lake City
In 2011 and 2012 Pink Dot attracted over 10,000 and 15,000 participants respec- tively and by most accounts the events could be said to be successful. Tis is espe- cially true in terms of gaining media exposure, a feat that was aided by the fact that Man Investments (the organization behind the Man Booker Prize) and Google Singapore were ofcial sponsors. Te 2011 Pink Dot celebration continued the theme of “freedom to love” and the website contained a similar set of promotional videos. One of these videos, simply titled “Pink Dot 2011: Support the Freedom to Love,” stands out. Like the videos of previous years, it was quite simple and minimally produced. It featured a series of vignettes that highlighted the sexual orientation of queer individuals or couples that was somehow hinted at, exposed, or made public. For instance, a young man is sitting with his family at a wedding when an older woman asks, “Daryl, When is it your turn?” to which he sheepishly replies, “I’m focusing on my career frst.” A young woman (likely a relative) sitting nearby looks directly at the camera and says, “If only I could tell him there is no need to hide.” Later in the video, two young men enter an apartment through the kitchen and greet a woman making sandwiches. Te frst young man addresses her as “Ma,” the second addresses her as “Auntie,” indicating a type of familial in- timacy. Te men leave the room together and the woman smiles warmly and says, “If only the world could see what I see.”14 Afer inviting the viewer to attend Pink Dot 2011, the announcer states, It will not end prejudice and discrimination overnight, but with Pink Dot we can come together to let lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people know that they are not alone. We can stand together to make a statement about the Singapore we want to live in, a Singapore that is more open-minded and inclusive. So come join us at this years’ Pink Dot. Come support the freedom to love. (Pink Dot SG 2010) Five months later and 14, 000 km away, an organization called Support Love Courage (SLC) organized their own version of the Pink Dot celebration in Salt Lake City, Utah that attracted around 3, 000 participants. Pink Dot events were held in other cities including a solidarity picnic in New York City and a full-blown Pink Dot celebration in Montreal, which attracted 300 participants. Pink Dot Utah is signifcant, however, not because of the number of participants it attracted, but rather because of the similarities that this Western US state shares with the tiny is- land nation in Southeast Asia. Although homosexual sex is not currently illegal in Utah, it was considered a misdemeanour until 2003 when the US Supreme Court invalidated all US sodomy laws. Te state also prohibits same-sex marriage and does not recognize those performed in other states or nations and has a limited
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 140 Robert Phillips
recognition of domestic partnerships. Further, Utah is a state that is highly infu- enced by Mormon thought, which condemns homosexuality. Organizers in Utah created their own version of the video noted above, “Pink Dot 2011: Support the Freedom to Love,” and in fact, recreated it almost scene by scene. Te Singaporean version opens with a group of young men who are partici- pating in National Service teasing a fellow trainee about photos of his boyfriend that they have seen on his cell phone. Te Utah version features a similar scene but plays on the current American media obsession of “bullying” by staging the same scene in the hallway of a high school. One group of dedicated queer Singaporeans have combined the regional tong- zhi discourse with prevailing transnational queer rights discourse in a unique way that fts their local situation. On the other side of the globe, an equally dedicated group of queer Utahans have adapted the Singaporean discourse to ft their local situation. Both groups have found success; while the queer Singaporeans are push- ing the political OB markers put in place by their government, queer Utahans are testing the limits of “cultural” OB markers, put in place by their society. Tere can be no doubt that the Utahans generally follow a Western model of queer rights, but they have, nonetheless, found integrating a set of transnational values from an apposite culture to be of beneft, too. My research points to the fact that the lan- guage used in this discourse — a lexicon that embraces both the Western notion of “coming out” and the regional language of tongzhi — is moving in an uneven manner between seemingly incongruent cultures. Tis discourse is hopping from point-to-point, connecting discrete nodes, and creating and sustaining linkages between and across transnational borders, demonstrating that perhaps Walter was right and that queers “aren’t really that diferent.”
Acknowledgement
To protect their confdentiality, I have changed the names and many identifying details of all Singaporeans mentioned in this essay. My research in Singapore from 2003 to 2007 was generously supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, an Intel Research Digital Home Group Dissertation Research Fellowship, and the University of California, Irvine School of Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology, and Center for Ethnography. I would like to thank William Leap and Heiko Motschenbacher and the anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Language and Sexuality for their time and efort. Any errors and omissions are entirely my own.
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Notes
1. One preliminary note on terminology: In my time doing feldwork in Singapore, I found that, for the most part, the people with whom I interacted used the terms LGBT, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer when referring to themselves and to those in their social and activist circles. Some informants did speak in local terms such as ah qua (a derogatory Hokkien term for “gay man”) of pondan (Malay for “efeminate male”) at diferent times and in diferent contexts. However, for the sake of consistency, simplicity, and inclusivity, I utilize queer. Further, like Blackwood (2005), I use queer to acknowledge that Singaporeans are exposed to discourses that are part and parcel of globalized discourse of sexuality and subjectivity.
2. It should be noted that Section 377A criminalizes specifc homosexual acts, not homosexual subjectivity. As such, the activist movements described in this paper, performed within the pro- scribed legal framework, are allowed by the current government.
3. Like Puar (2001) and others, I eschew the Western/Indigenous binary. While I do not fnd it useful for thinking about issues surrounding the movement of rights discourse, it is nonetheless necessary to use these terms in order to make clear about which set of ideas I am writing.
4. Te notion of the “local” is highly problematic in the case of Singapore, especially when it is juxtaposed with other terms such as “regional” and “global.” Singapore’s spatial and historical construction lies at the very heart of a nexus in which the global, regional, and local converge. Geographically and spatially, the nation of Singapore is at once a city and a state. Its historical formation has been highly infuenced by transnational late-capitalist fows of ideas, commodi- ties, and peoples. Te “local,” in the case of Singapore, is in many respects inseparable from the “regional” and “global.”
5. Gibson asserts that Singapore, like the American theme park, Disneyland, is considered by some to be “the happiest place on earth.” Further, he suggests that in reality, like Disneyland, Singapore is sterile, conformist, and lacking in any type of substantial authenticity or originality. Additionally, he notes that while Singapore is, on the surface, a clean and well-run city-state, it is in fact a technocratic, authoritarian state with a draconian legal system.
6. As a corrective, several bodies of literature have emerged in recent years. A series of insightful ethnographies concerned with sexualities and genders in the Asian context include Blackwood 2010, Boellstorf 2005, Manalansan 2003, and Rofel 2007. Perhaps more signifcant is the corpus of writing on queer Asia that has emerged from within Asia including Berry, Martin & Yue 2003, Martin, Jackson, McLelland & Yue 2008, and Yue & Zubillaga-Pow 2012.
7. While the Singaporean authorities police the Internet and have the ability to block access to various websites, there is, in reality, very little actual censorship of queer websites. Additionally, many of the websites on which queer Singaporeans interact have servers based outside of Singapore and are out of reach of authorities.
8. See SiGNeL:
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 142 Robert Phillips
9. Chinese are the largest ethnic group in Singapore (74%) followed by Malays (13%), Indians (7%), and Other (3%) (Statistics Singapore 2012).
10. Te term “heartlanders” was popularized in 1999 by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong when he used it to characterize the majority of Singapore’s population. He was using it to de- scribe a demographic who are generally less educated, members of the working class, inhabitants of HDB housing, and distinctly local in their perspective on most issues.
11. Te color pink has long been associated with non-normative sexualities. Tis color is also the result of mixing together of the two colors of Singapore’s national fag — red and white. Pink Dot is a play on the epithet “red dot” which refers to the fact that on many maps, Singapore ap- pears as a red dot on the tip of the Malay Peninsula.
12. All four videos (including a version of video 1 with both Mandarin and English subtitles) can be found at
13. Tere are two other videos besides those examined in this paper, Parts 1 and 2. Part 3 looks at two brothers, one of whom is queer, and Part 4 is a comprehensive overview of several queer Singaporean stories. It is hosted by the 2010 ambassadors: Adrian Pang (actor and television presenter), Tan Kheng Hua (actress), and Johnson Ong (aka DJ Big Kid — DJ and music pro- ducer).
14. Te complete list of statements is as follows: “If only I had the courage to stand up for him,” “If only I could tell him that there is no need to hide,” “If only I could let them know that their love for each other is beautiful,” “If only they could realize that they don’t have to feel guilty for who they are,” “If only I could show her how much she means to me,” and “If only the world could see what I see.”
References
Agence France-Press. 2003. Singapore is Asia’s New Gay Capital.
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved “We aren’t really that diferent” 143
Boellstorf, Tom. 2003. Dubbing culture: Indonesian gay and lesbi subjectivities and ethnogra- phy in an already globalized world. American Ethnologist 30(2): 225–242. Boellstorf, Tom. 2005. Te Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chang, T. Chang, Huang, Shirlena & Savage, Victor R. 2004. On the waterfront: Globalization and urbanization in Singapore. Urban Geography 25(5): 413–436. Chou, Wah-shan. 2000. Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies. New York: Haworth Press. Cortazzi, Martin. 2001. Narrative analysis in ethnography. In Handbook of Ethnography, Paul Atkinson, Amanda Cofey, Sarah Delamont, John Lowland & Lyn Lowland (eds). Tousand Oaks: Sage. Decena, Carlos. 2011. Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-Sex Desire among Dominican Immigrant Men. Durham: Duke University Press. Ferguson, James. 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press. Gibson, William. 1993. Disneyland with the Death Penalty.
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Statistics Singapore. 2012. Singapore Residents by Age Group, Ethnic Group and Sex.
Author’s address Robert Phillips University of Manitoba Department of Anthropology 15 Chancellor’s Circle 432 Fletcher Argue Building Winnipeg, MB R3T2N2 Canada [email protected]
© 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 11 “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith”
Queer Indians, Internet Technology, and the Reconfguration of Sexual and National Identity
Robert Phillips
On a warm evening in August of 2007, I made my way through the congested bylanes of Chinatown towards my familiar haunt, the Backstage Bar, one of Singapore’s openly gay nightspots. I had been spending several evenings a week there in that it afforded me an easy way to network with openly gay men and most visits usually yielded at least one potential interview subject. I climbed the darkened stairway and entered the small smoke-flled room, decorated with old Broadway and flm posters, took a seat at the main bar, and ordered a drink. Almost immediately, a Malay man in his mid-twenties came in from the balcony, took the stool next to mine, and struck up a conversa- tion. After the obligatory small talk regarding where I was from and how I was getting on in Singapore, I told him of my ongoing research regarding the role of technology in national and sexual identity among queer Singaporeans. He seemed interested and, because I was eager to recruit more Malay informants for the project, I handed him my card. I encouraged him to call me should he be willing to give an interview. Moments later, as I was standing up to use the restroom, a young Chinese man who had been sitting across the room, approached the Malay man, rolled his eyes and said in a rather sarcastic voice, just loudly enough for me to hear, “Don’t waste your time on him, he’s only into ‘black’ guys.” As I made my way through the crowded bar towards the restroom on the exterior of the building, I could not help but wonder what the Chinese man meant by his comment. Eventually I realized that he was not, as I had initially thought, implying that my sexual preference tended toward men whose ancestors hailed from Africa, but rather those whose origins lay in the Indian subcontinent. I am assuming that he had gotten this impression because many men who frequented Backstage Bar knew that my closest friend © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 in Singapore, who accompanied me on most of my nights out at various pubs and clubs, was an expatriate Indian from New Delhi. The Chinese man’s comment is revealing on several levels, but of interest here is how it illustrates the racialized discourse of everyday life in Singapore. While making his comment, the Chinese man emphasized the word “black”, 188 Robert Phillips
seemingly to make clear his disdain for Indian-Singaporeans. The comment serves as an example of a dominant dynamic within this particular queer1 com- munity, which mimics Singapore’s larger culture, one that relies heavily upon racial classifcation as a means of identifcation as well as exclusion. In this essay, I seek to expand this discussion by utilizing the experiences of self-iden- tifed queer Indian-Singaporean men as a lens through which to further explore these relationships. In doing so, I hope to think through some broader proc- esses related to issues of ethnicity, sexuality, and the nation (see, for example, Boellstorff, 2004, 2005; Jackson, 2003; Manalansan, 2000). My current research involves queer Singaporeans with the primary focus being the role of new and emerging technology in national and sexual identity. In this essay I am interested in sharpening the focus to think of those Singaporeans of Indian descent who self-identify as queer.2 While conduct- ing dissertation feldwork from 2005 to 2007, I noticed an absence of queer Indian-Singaporean men in public spaces such as gay pubs and discos as well as semi-public spaces including gyms, saunas, and events organized by queer sociopolitical groups. In the process of searching for participants to interview for my study, I quickly realized that a vast majority of queer Indians in Singapore do not enact their sexual identities openly in the public sphere, choosing instead to live more private lives. As such, while I encountered most of my Chinese and Malay informants in pubs or in public gay ‘cruising’ areas, the bulk of Indian informants were met through references via informal social networks or while interacting in online chat rooms.3 In this chapter, I do two things. First, I discuss the double minority status of queer Indian men in Singapore and examine some of the unique challenges that they face within the greater society. As with members of other diasporic communities around the globe, queer Indian-Singaporeans have assumed a unique type of identity forged through a combination of factors brought about by, among other things, processes of transnational migration. As Indians form one of the smallest ethnic communities in Singapore, they are far outnumbered by more dominant Chinese and Malay groups.4 All of these ethnic groups share a type of ambigu- ous subjectivity, especially in terms of their relationship to the nation. Queer Indian-Singaporean men are both an ethnic and a sexual minority, further com- plicating this relationship. This dual-minority status has had a distinctive effect on the formation of this particular group’s views on the nature of Singaporean national and sexual identity. Second, I examine two examples of online interac- © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 tion, focusing on how queer Indian men in Singapore use the Internet as an alternative public sphere where they are able to construct and debate narra- tives of culture, identity, and national belonging. I conclude by suggesting that through the use of such practices, many queer Indian-Singaporeans have “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith” 189
formed alternative narratives of self that confound the often conficted and contested relationship between queer identity and national identity.
Marginal Subjects
Throughout dozens of interviews in Singapore, many informants, of all ethnic backgrounds, spoke of a general marginalization of non-Chinese within the greater society. Interviews also revealed that the exclusion of non-Chinese was particularly pronounced within Singapore’s queer communities.5 For example, a number of Indian-Singaporean interlocutors recounted stories of having satisfying intimate relationships with Chinese-Singaporeans. Yet, these relationships, for the most part, did not extend past the private realm of the bedroom or the semi-private realm of the sauna and into public spaces such as restaurants, pubs, and dance clubs. When asked about the dating scene in Singapore, Srini, a 25-year-old accountant, gave a response that spoke to the experiences of many of my Indian-Singaporean interlocutors. “You tend to be left out in the sexual sense, I think that people are not ready to acknowledge the fact that they have slept with a South Asian man, the majority, not openly. It’s happened to me and my friends before. We think that they like us, but they are discreet about it.” He continued, “I met this guy, a Chinese man, and he was all over me. But then two weeks later we met in a club and he came up to me and asked me not to tell his friends that he was with me for the last two weeks; he was not willing to acknowledge our relationship.” Krishna, a 30-year-old bartender at one of Singapore’s many queer bars was one of my key inform- ants for the project. We had many long conversations regarding all aspects of the place of minorities within Singaporean society. He spoke often of feeling like an outsider in his own country and community, especially in terms of the discrimination he felt from the majority Chinese:
At the end of the day people tend to talk. I think that it has to do with their upbringing in the Chinese community, whether straight or gay, the parents make them think of everything in terms of race. It’s stereotypical behaviour … oh, the Indians smell of curry and coconut hair oil, the Malays all are after your money. So they (queer Chinese men) think that we are all supposed to be like that … as they grow up they get the wrong impressions of us.
These stereotypes are perpetuated both within Singaporean society at large as © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 well as within Singapore’s queer communities and, according to many of my queer Indian interlocutors, made many feel that they were foreigners in their own country. 190 Robert Phillips
Chinese Entanglements
Because Singapore has a majority Chinese population, the everyday lives of Singaporeans of all ethnic backgrounds are affected by the multiple and potentially conficting sources of self-understanding contained within the world views brought over by many Chinese migrants beginning in the mid- nineteenth century. Ethnic Chinese have settled in and around Southeast Asia for hundreds of years and have, in many respects, brought their homeland with them. When leaving their home country, emigrants often carry powerful and enduring cultural values with them and once in their new homeland, they utilize what has been referred to as “memory of place to construct imaginatively their new lived world” (Gupta and Ferguson, 1992: 11). In some instances, as is the case with many Chinese Singaporeans, association with the “homeland” grows that much stronger when it is absent. In fact, the association of Singapore with China is so compelling that some of my informants regularly spoke of Singapore as the “third China” or “Singapore, China”.6 Because of Singapore’s ethnically diverse population and the city-state’s lack of history as an independent nation, the government is continually trying to forge one unifed national identity, yet is caught between conficting ide- ologies. While Singapore’s government has consistently worked to inculcate ideas of modernity and technological prowess, many members of its majority- Chinese population are powerfully affected by contemporary ideologies of Confucianism (Lee, 1998, 2000). This powerful and deep-rooted ideological force is at once a global import to Singapore as well as one of the foundations of the current government. When Singapore’s frst government was formed by the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1954, the main goal was to form a political party that would be able to work effectively with the multicultural and multilin- gual population of Singapore.7 During the formative years of the Singaporean nation, the new leaders had a surfeit of political and economic issues to deal with and had little time to devote to the instillation of cultural or moral values. Yet, when these crises had passed and the nation had gained some sense of stability, the PAP was more than eager to address issues surrounding cultural values. To this end “attention (was) translated into such actions as the introduc- tion of moral education in schools … bilingualism, and the encouragement of cultural activities” (Tan, 1989: 14), the focus of which was very Sino-centric. I suggest that this pragmatic discourse, which confates China and Singapore © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 on various levels, has had a signifcant effect on ideas of Singaporean national and sexual identity. In addition to this discourse, those dealing with other elements of Singaporean culture that have had a lasting impact on how Singaporeans construct ideas of the nation and what it means to be “authenti- cally” Singaporean. Some of Singapore’s religious and philosophical traditions, “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith” 191
such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, are rather tolerant of homosexual- ity, while others, such as Christianity and Islam, are less so. Dominating all these traditions, though, is politico-philosophical Confucianism, the ideals of which are emphasized by the current government as a way for Singaporeans to reclaim a cultural heritage that many see as having become diluted as it was transmitted over time and space. While the government of Singapore cer- tainly appreciates the economic and technological progress that come with the adoption of Western values, many government offcials nonetheless object to “practices of excessive individualism or excessive permissiveness, uncontrol- lable promiscuity and drug culture, sensual music and pornographic art, all of which could produce unhealthy and harmful effects in a culturally conserva- tive but racially sensitive society like Singapore” (Tan, 1989: 14). This neo-Con- fucianism, then, “is also an attempt to reduce the infuence of Western values which emphasize individualism and materialism” (Tan, 1989: 15). While this neo-Confucian discourse could be construed as going against Western values, I suggest that it is concomitantly about subtly opposing any non-Chinese ethnic culture by replacing it with a culture of “Chineseness”.8 Although the current racial make-up of Singapore is 74 per cent Chinese, 13 per cent Malay, 9 per cent Indian, and 4 per cent Other (Statistics Singapore, 2010), the founders of the nation assumed that the process of nation building necessitated the homog- enization of language, ethnicity, and culture and the People’s Action Party adopted “traditional Chinese values” as a cornerstone of this process. These various actions by the government of Singapore, centered on ideas of Confucianism and “Chineseness”, normalize the ethnic Chinese male, who is both heterosexual and Mandarin speaking, as the prototypical Singaporean citizen, increasing the alienation that many non-heterosexual non-Mandarin speaking Singaporeans feel. I suggest that it is a combination of these and other factors—marginalization along lines of race and language and an inability to publicly articulate non-normative sexual subjectivities that has led some queer Indian-Singaporean men to experiment with different ways of living. These alternatives revolve around issues of space and place and include migratory practices that transgress national borders and fxed locations (Manalansan, 2000).9 In interview after interview, Singaporean interlocutors echoed the idea that in the context of their own nation, there was “no room” for ethnic and sexual minorities. When asked about solutions to this problem, a signifcant number of subjects spoke in terms of “travel” and recreating “home” and the © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 concomitant new possibilities of self and identity that were believed to occur when able to leave Singapore, however briefy, in order to more easily experi- ence alternative ways of life. Many queer Indian-Singaporean men told me that they don’t feel “at home” at home or in their homeland. As a corrective, they have turned to cyberspace 192 Robert Phillips
in a search for queer authenticity. For these men, the virtual world of cyber- space is much more tolerant and forgiving; it serves as an anti-structure against the highly structured and regimented life of the centre. It also allows them to re-think and re-confgure their relationship with their nation.
Queering the Nation, Online
The introduction of broadband Internet in 1998 ushered in a new era in Singapore. Although the government had intended that this new technology be used for educational and commercial purposes, Singaporeans of all persuasions quickly realized that, in addition to these government mandated purposes, the Internet was also the perfect tool with which to access information that had not appeared in government issued or controlled media. It has also permitted Singaporeans to interact within a virtual public sphere, such as in the online forums of government-supervised newspapers or on sites dedicated to queer lifestyles and causes. These sites, made possible by the illiberal pragmatic political climate within which they operate, also allow for the discussion of a range of issues that affect their communities as well as the acquisition of information about rights struggles elsewhere. Interactions within these discursive sites also allow queer Singaporeans to network with one another as well as with those outside of their home communities. This includes Singaporeans abroad and non-Singaporeans, some of whom at one time lived or worked in Singapore. Perhaps most signifcantly, it allows for anonymous participation within a virtual public sphere. This is a crucial step for those, like many of the queer Indian-Singaporeans with whom I interacted, who were not comfortable interacting in the physical public sphere. These online interactions have opened up a new world in which queer Indian-Singaporean men can interact with one another as well as their fellow citizens. My research suggests that these interactions are empowering and have had a considerable effect on queer Indian-Singaporean subjectivities. Thomas, a 50-year-old clerk who has been visiting queer sites since the late 1990s serves as a good example of the effects of interacting online, “When I frst went online, it was eye opening and liberating to a certain extent … inter- acting with other gay and lesbian Indians online has given me confdence as a person, an Indian person.” He continued, “The fip side that you must look at is that as much as I see myself as a Singaporean, that I am still a minority. I’m © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 also Christian and gay, so you know it is a triple whammy for me, you see? So in a way it did make me feel less unsure of myself as a person.” For the most part, Thomas interacted on two online sites, SiGNeL and Fridae, which are discussed below. “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith” 193
SiGNeL
SiGNeL (Singapore Gay News List) is a Yahoo group and email forum that was founded in July of 1999 as an offshoot of the gay rights group People Like Us (PLU). At the time of writing this newsgroup has 2755 registered members. According to the PLU website, “SiGNeL is not a ‘gay’ group in the sense of being restricted to gay people. SiGNeL is open to everyone regardless of sexual ori- entation, to serve members who are interested in, and who confne discussions to gay issues pertaining to Singapore.”10 Postings range from queer themed articles taken from The Straits Times and other local newspapers to inquiries regarding legal rights in specifc situations to movie reviews and announce- ments of public events of interest to the community. In most instances, a member posts an article or observation and the other members comment in an interactive and engaging manner. While the postings are moderated, the interference is quite limited and the moderator generally only disallows posts that are deemed defamatory to religious or ethnic groups (postings of this nature are prohibited by Singaporean law) or that do not pertain to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender issues.11 The site is completely text based though many of the postings contain Internet links to more complex sites. The layout is quite simple as well as searchable. I was able to meet, both online and in the physical world, several of the regular queer Indian users of the forum. A vast majority of them used pseudonyms when posting in that they felt that using their real name or even a personal email address would put them at risk of being ‘outed’ to friends, family, or employer. Interactions on this forum allowed these queer men to actively but anonymously participate in ongoing debates dealing with issues of race, class, gender, and the role of queer Singaporeans within the greater culture.
Fridae
Stuart Koe, a Singaporean scientist and entrepreneur, founded Fridae.com in 2001. According to the website, the purpose of the site is to “build Asia’s largest gay & lesbian community—united in diversity, and transcending geographi- cal borders. Fridae empowers gay Asia to: come together, stay connected, be informed, overcome discrimination, nurture personal growth, and foster healthy relationships”.12 The site according to Koe, receives over 400,000 hits © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 per month. While considered a Singaporean site, servers are based in Hong Kong in order to avoid the scrutiny of Singaporean authorities.13 Once the site is accessed, the user is given an array of choices. On the left side of the homepage is a bar that allows the user select from nine different options. 194 Robert Phillips
These are News/Features, Lifestyle, Personals, Agenda, Fotos@Fridae, Shop, City Guide, Perks, and Promotions. Many of the options are self-explanatory. Others such as Perks (giving the user the ability to join the site for a nominal fee) and Agenda (a listing of events of interest to the queer communities) are not. Until at least mid-2006, Fridae also had a highly traffcked Forum section where members could debate current events. While no reason was given for discontinuing the Forum section, users currently make use of the “comments” option provided with each article. While not as interactive as a traditional online forum, the “comments” section at the end of major articles is often the site of long-running debates among users. At the time of writing, there were 119 profles of men who described them- selves as Indian, a small number in comparison with the countless thousands of profles posted by Chinese-Singaporeans.14 The most signifcant aspect of Fridae, for queer Indian-Singaporean men is that it allows them to meet other queer Indians, from both Singapore and abroad. I interviewed Vik, a labourer, several times during the course of feldwork. He spoke often of the everyday diffculties he experienced in the physical world and with many other queer Indian men in Singapore had feelings of not belonging. In our frst interview, I asked a question about Fridae, and he said that he had never heard of it. He eventually signed up and created a profle. During our fnal interview, he told me, “Once I discovered Fridae, I saw the world better. I read articles from all over the world and understood. Then I met a gay Indian friend on the site, he told me that he knew what I’m going through and made me feel better; it opened me up and made me come out of the closet discreetly.”
Conclusions
The often-conficted relationship between queer Indian-Singaporeans and their homeland is characterized by a long-standing desire to integrate into a nation that in many respects makes no room for minorities, sexual or otherwise. Yet, I suggest that web-based interactions have allowed queer Singaporeans to re- imagine themselves as part of the national narrative, a narrative that is itself ‘imagined’. Lian suggests that in the case of Singapore, there are four “cultural world orders superimposed on one society—namely Confucian-Chinese, Islamic-Malay, Hindu-Indian, and Christian-Anglo Saxon—out of which a common community has to be constructed” (Lian, 1999: 42). Anderson speaks © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 to this constructed community identity within the nation by frst acknowledg- ing that, “[n]ation, nationality, nationalism—all have proved notoriously dif- fcult to defne, let alone analyze” (Anderson, 1983: 3). Nonetheless, he explains that what we conceptualize as the nation is neither a natural nor a real entity and is rather, an “imagined community”. Anderson is putting forth the idea “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith” 195
that the nation is in fact “an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson, 1983: 6). John Kelly (1995) bases his work on that of, among others, Anderson, when he suggests that we consider the “nation” as a narrative “constituted dialogically and useful and important politically, for a State trying to regulate a capitalist market, or for a people to contest politically within and against the institutional framework of a State” (Kelly, 1995: 257). I fnd this image of the “nation as narrative”, especially compelling when thinking about the situation faced by many queer Indian- Singaporeans. When the nation is framed in this manner, in conjunction with web-based interventions, it allows for new conditions of possibility—especially in terms of re-writing the nation. In combination with notions of queer identity, the idea of the “nation” thus becomes a useful tool with which to think about the impact of the Internet in Singapore. I argue that interactions on the Internet have allowed queer Indian- Singaporean men to stake a primary claim as citizens within the greater nation, rather than solely as queer Singaporeans. In doing so, they have begun to form their own unique type of identity that realigns the nation and national belong- ing with non-normative notions of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. The men who told me their life stories and accounts of their interactions on the Internet represent ways in which many queer Indian-Singaporeans have formed alternative narratives that refect the often-conficted relationship between queer identity and national identity. Yet, through the transnational online practices described above, many of these minority Singaporeans have been able to leave the physical environment of their nation in order to enact new forms of citizenship that transcend geopolitical borders. Ideas of what it means to be queer, an ethnic Indian in Southeast Asia, and a citizen of Singapore are being reconstituted and given new meaning. There is a concomitant shift in the way the nation is being viewed by these temporary transmigrants. Some would argue that processes associated with transnational migration could eventually lead to the dissolution of the nation- state and a concomitant loosening of national ties. My research suggests that, at least in the case of those queer Indian-Singaporeans with whom I interacted, these processes instead contribute to a reconstitution of national “space” as well as a desire to inhabit and take part in the political processes of their home country. Rather than viewing the Singaporean nation as a place from which to permanently escape, Singaporeans, particularly queer Indians, are using their © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 experiences gained while interacting in cyberspace to re-think the way that they imagine their nation. More signifcantly, perhaps, is the effect these online prac- tices have had on the way queer Indian-Singaporeans view their relationship to the nation. I concluded each interview by asking my interlocutors to imagine what their life might be like if they were to emigrate from Singapore to a nation 196 Robert Phillips
where they could experience a life free from marginalization based on race and sexual orientation. Although a hypothetical question, I was interested in deter- mining whether or not these ethnic and sexual minorities had any real ‘con- nection’ to their nation. In a majority of cases, interlocutors looked at me with confusion; they were not interested in permanently emigrating from Singapore, but in fact longed to stay in Singapore in order to contribute to the nation- building process. The answer to my question provided by one queer Indian interlocutor speaks volumes and sums up the sentiments of many respondents: “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith”. This response plays into an over- arching theme of this volume—that of illiberal pragmatics—and the fact that so much of the recently constructed Singaporean lifeworld, among citizens of all racial, ethnic, and sexual identities, is infuenced by a logic of ambivalence. Through online interactions, the queer Indian-Singaporean men with whom I interacted were fnding a renewed interest in claiming an identity that inte- grated a series of conficting identities—that of being Singaporean, Indian, and queer, allowing them to generate alternative narratives through which they can re-imagine their relationship to the nation. © Yue, Audrey; Zubillaga-Pow, Jun, Oct 01, 2012, Queer Singapore : Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures Hong Kong University Press, HKU, Kong, ISBN: 9789882208766 Notes 219
11. In his excellent analysis of Roystan Tan’s oeuvre, political scientist Kenneth Paul Tan alludes subtly to the queer possibilities in Tan’s flms. He notes how 15 offers a “homoerotic subtext [that] is clear and poignant” despite the flmmaker’s disa- vowal of such a reading (Tan, 2008: 240). He also characterizes Tan’s autobiographi- cal confessions in “Mother” as references to the flmmaker’s “vaguely implied homosexuality” (Tan, 2008: 236). 12. The Uhdes label Solos as “the frst gay fction feature” (Uhde and Uhde, 2010: 154) and praise it as “one of the best flms the city has produced” (Uhde and Uhde, 2010: 153). 13. In her trenchant analysis of the “revisionist, ego-based psychoanalytic” work of Richard C. Friedman and Richard Green in the 1980s (Sedgwick, 1993: 70), Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick critiques the notion that “mothers … have nothing to con- tribute to this process of masculine validation [in gay boys], and [points out how] women are reduced in the light of its urgency to a null set: any involvement in it by a woman is overinvolvement; any protectiveness is overprotectiveness; and, for instance, mothers ‘proud of their sons’ nonviolent qualities’ are manifesting unmis- takable ‘family pathology’” (Sedgwick, 1993: 75; Sedgwick quotes from Friedman, 1988: 193).
Chapter 10: The Kids Are Not All Right
1. An earlier version of this essay appears as ‘Censure and Censor’, 19 March 2010, in S/ PORES: New Directions in Singapore Studies, http://s-pores.com/page/3/?s. I thank the editors for allowing me to reproduce the ideas introduced in that paper here.
Chapter 11: “Singaporean by birth, Singaporean by faith”
1. One preliminary note on terminology: In my time doing feldwork in Singapore, I found that for the most part, the individuals with whom I interacted used the terms “LGBT”, “gay”, “lesbian”, “bisexual” or “queer” when referring to themselves and to those in their social and activist circles. Some informants did speak in local terms such as ah qua (a derogatory Hokkien term for gay men) or pondan (Malay for effem- inate male) at different times and in different contexts. For the sake of consistency, simplicity, and inclusivity, I utilize queer. My research in Singapore suggests that the logic of enumeration, in which potentially endless number of initialisms such as LGBT, LGBTQ, and LGBTQI etc. is insuffcient to capture the “unstable identity process” (Phelan, 1997: 60) demonstrated by many of my Singaporean interlocu- tors. Additionally, most names and many identifying details have been changed to protect the anonymity of informants. 2. In my research, I have interacted with numerous Singaporean men of Indian descent who have sex with other men (MSM), a majority of whom are married with children. While their sexual behaviour may be ethically perceived and described as bisexual or even gay, this particular group of men does not self-identify in this manner. As such, their experiences are not represented in the current essay. 3. Due to the relative anonymity that comes with communications that occur in cyber- space, it was impossible to defnitively determine if the persons with whom I were interacting online were truly Indian-Singaporeans. However, most of the men and women whom I encountered online eventually agreed to meet offine. In these instances, their identity was verifed. 220 Notes
4. It should be emphasised that a vast majority of current Singaporeans are the product of diasporic migrations that have taken place since the early nineteenth century. In addition to the minority ethnic Indians, ethnic Malays are a minority in Singapore despite being politically portrayed as indigenous bumiputras. Singapore’s majority Chinese are themselves a minority within the greater Southeast Asian region. 5. While this essay primarily examines marginalization of queer Indian-Singaporeans, it should be noted that in many instances queer Malay-Singaporeans face similar problems. 6. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is viewed as the “frst” China whereas Taiwan (Republic of China) is seen as the “second” China. Depending on the perspective of the speaker, Singapore or Hong Kong is often spoken of as the “third” China. 7. There are four offcial languages in Singapore. English is the language of adminis- tration and commerce. Among the other languages, Malay is the national language and Mandarin and Tamil are considered offcial languages. 8. For more on the idea of “Chineseness” see Chun 1996. For a comparative discussion of the idea of “Americanness” see Grewal, 2005. 9. The marginalization encountered by queer Indian-Singaporeans is, of course, not unique (See, for example, Bhaskaran, 2004; Gopinath, 2005; Ratti, 1993). In addition to the interviews conducted in Singapore, I conducted abbreviated interviews with queers of Indian origin in other cosmopolitan cities including Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. While the content of these interviews varied widely, interlocutors in all locations spoke of marginalization along racial lines. 10. People Like Us (2011), http://www.plu.sg/society/?p=39 (accessed on 13 October 2011). 11. For a full listing of content guidelines see People Like Us (2011), http://www.plu. sg/society/?p=40 (accessed on 13 October 2011). 12. Fridae (2011), http://www.fridae.com/aboutus/ (accessed on 13 October 2011). 13. The other site discussed in this chapter, SiGNeL, is a Yahoo group and as such, the servers are located in the United States. 14. At the time of writing there were approximately 350 profles posted by men who identify as Malay.
Chapter 12: “We’re the gay company, as gay as it gets”
1. Although the offcial website is known as ‘Fridae.com’, this chapter uses ‘Fridae’ rather than ‘Fridae.com’ to refer to how the website has become a ‘brand’ or ‘cultural icon’ for other offine and online practices. This usage is also consistent with how the company names itself on its website. See Fridae (2010). 2. See Davis (2008) for a toolkit for sustainable LGBT businesses that includes a short profle on Fridae. 3. On how the State embraces new media and suppresses the civil society, see Rodan (2003). 4. On the legal and political ramifcations of Singapore’s Internet censorship laws, see Hogan (1999) and Rodan (1998). On gay business raids, see Anonymous (2010). 246 References
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