LGBTQ rights are almost nonexistent in Singapore. But an annual Pride event draws thousands. We talk to activists about their struggles.
Just this year, Singapore’s top court upheld section 377A. That’s a British colonial-era law prohibiting consenting sex between men. And while the government says it doesn’t strictly enforce that law, anyone who breaks it could face up to two years behind bars.
Meanwhile, thousands of Queer Singaporean activists and LGBTQ allies will gather in Hong Lim Park this weekend for an annual gay pride event — and send a clear message to lawmakers that they’re done being denied their basic human rights.
Read the full transcript here.
Host: The Times producer David Toledo
Guest: L.A. Times Asia correspondent David Pierson
More reading:
Pink Dot: Singapore’s yearly pride celebration gets bigger and brighter
A Singaporean erotic OnlyFans star faces months in prison — and sparks a debate
Same-sex penguin parents spark literary controversy in Singapore
Gustavo Arellano: What’s up, it’s Gustavo Arellano. Today, we bring you our last episode from our Pride Month coverage about queer people around the world and how they build and find pride in their communities. In this episode, Times producer David Toledo brings us to Singapore on the eve of their annual Pride celebration, where LGBTQ activists are pushing for liberation, especially when it comes to their sexuality.
Joshua Simon tape: it's not a very common thing to embrace your sexuality, you know, like the same way the world was shocked when you had like the Britney era and the 2000s and Christina Aguilera "Dirrty" or Madonna "Erotica" and "Sex" book, like, while that was like jaw-dropping for people in the west. I think it was even more here in Asia as well. It was like super taboo, but it was also very much a that's them. That's not us…
Toledo: The "us" here is Singapore. It’s a country that’s multicultural, really diverse. But it’s also a socially conservative place. I mean, you can end up in prison for things like vandalism or walking in your house naked. Or even selling chewing gum. Which means: Queer people there are up against a lot of restrictions.
Clementine Tan tape: it's a statement of fact, that social attitudes about the LGBTQ community are still evolving. They're not evolving as fast as we'd like it to be. Many of us are incredibly impatient. A lot of the changes that we are looking to see in the future are already overdue.
Toledo: Just this year, Singapore’s top court upheld section 377A. That’s a British colonial-era law prohibiting consenting sex between men, even in the privacy of their own bedroom.
Clementine Tan tape: In some sort of perverse kind of cosmic irony, even though it was left behind by the British, it's now retained on our books as a justification of Asian values, you know, conservative family values, and actually gave the gay rights movement is the one that's characterized as a foreign import.
Toledo: And while the government says it doesn't strictly enforce that law, anyone who breaks it could face up to two years behind bars.
Former Singapore prime minister clip: I think on LGBT issues, I've stated my position is one where we move carefully because it t is really a conservative population. I think we let the views evolve with time.
Toledo: But legal setbacks aside, tomorrow, thousands of Queer Singaporeans and LGBTQ allies will gather in Hong Lim Park for an annual gay pride event and send a clear message to lawmakers that they’re done being denied basic human rights.
Clip: chants
Toledo: I’m David Toledo. You’re listening to The Times, daily news from the L.A. Times. It’s Friday, June 17th, 2022. Today, the Queer Singaporeans working to shift social values – and the people on the ground trying to say loud and proud, gay sex is not a crime.
Joining me for this conversation is my L.A. Times colleague and foreign correspondent based in Singapore, David Pierson. David, welcome to The Times.
Pierson: Hi David. Thanks for having me.
Toledo: Of course, David, when I think of Singapore, I think of super strict laws. I think of people ending up in prison for things that would normally be a slap on the wrist anywhere else. Is that totally off base?
Pierson: It's not totally off base. Yes. Singapore has lots of laws that we consider strange in the U.S. There's one, there's a modesty law where you can't be seen naked in your own home, which kind of encourages, encourages you to draw to your shades. You can't buy booze after 10:30 at night. You can't carry a durian fruit on public transportation because of the smell.
Clip montage: smells like of rotten fish and custard, a rubbish dump. Blue cheese.
Pierson: And then there's also really, really strict laws about drugs. There's like traffickers are, you know, they face a death penalty. They executed someone recently. And it's like this tightly controlled state. Founded by Lewin U he's, sort of the founding father. And he wanted to clean up the place because it had a reputation for sin, in the past, as major port cities often do, and, and there's sort of this volatile undercurrent of racial tension there that they wanted to make sure that it would spill over into violence. So there's really a tight control there, but make no mistake, Singapore is not like authoritarian China.
Toledo: But like China, Singapore is trying to control its population. And part of that social control means not allowing for any kind of public deviation. Right?
Pierson: Right. So you have this backdrop of strict moral policing in Singapore as a way of developing the country. So sexual expression is not part of their DNA. It's something that's explored privately in Singapore. And then, add on top of that, another layer, which is that conservative Christianity has really flourished in Singapore. It is been embraced by the elite and a lot of the ethnic Chinese elite in Singapore, also frowns upon a lot of the sexual expression that we would consider quite normal in the West. And then on top of that Singapore is surrounded by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei. These are nations with still ultra-conservative, Muslim political influence. And so Singapore being this tiny little dot on the map in Southeast Asia doesn't want to rock the boat. So it's not gonna go out on a limb on progressive issues. It's still just this tiny city state trying to maintain order.
Toledo: I assume queer culture conflicts with that order. What does queer culture look like in Singapore?
Pierson: It is nothing like the West. It's a very marginalized community still, you know, it is still somewhat rare to see same-sex couples in, public. I mean stuff like conversion therapy is still legal in Singapore. You know, stuff that we've completely dismissed in other places. But there's a lot of safe spaces. There's like a neighborhood where there's a lot of restaurants and bars that cater to this community, but that wouldn't have been the case as recently as the 1990s, you know, this is only developed in the last couple of decades. There's this great sort of irony hypocrisy about Singapore, it's considered a nanny state, but many people don't realize that prostitution between a male client and a female sex worker is legal in Singapore and it's been legal for a long time. The sex workers are registered. The police know who they are. The idea being that this is a vice that can't be completely eradicated, so you might as well have some control over it. There's still a underground sex worker industry. And that would include same-sex activity versus the legalized form of sex work.
Toledo: So the moral high ground here isn't really an issue, because prostitution is legal. So what's really an issue here is not even being a sex worker. It's being a queer sex worker.
Pierson: Right.
Titus Low tape: Hi, I'm Titus Low.
Pierson: So Titus Low is a one of a kind erotic OnlyFans star in Singapore.
Titus Low tape: I started OnlyFans when I was about 21.
Pierson: He's a 22-year-old bisexual man who's gotten a notoriety in this sort of buttoned-up city state for, you know, kind of just being a thirst trap and flaunting his big muscles and his tattoos. And he ended up falling afoul of the law because he violated these strict obscenity laws in Singapore by sharing nude photos of himself to his customers.
Toledo: I can attest that Titus is super sexy. Listeners, go look on Instagram. But tell us, how did his OnlyFans account become national news?
Pierson: So Titus was underground at first with his OnlyFans. He was, he had quite a following on Instagram.
Titus Low tape: Hi. I'm Titus….
Pierson: But then as he realized how big of a following he had and, you know, his followers on OnlyFans aren't just in Singapore. They're all over the world. They're mostly in Southeast Asia. But he realized how much he had sort of bottled lightning, in a way.
Titus Low tape: It wasn't until like the second month that I started to post more daring content, I'm going to a sex toy masturbation day. Enjoy. That was when my stuff got leaked online. Then that was when I get more views and, I start getting more followers on OnlyFans.
Pierson: And he began sort of flaunting his success a little bit more on YouTube and showing things like giving house tours ...
Titus Low tape: OK. Welcome to my crib. OK, let's go to my house. So, um,
Pierson: ... talking about his $9,000 labradoodle, Charlie ...
Titus Low tape: Charlie, come here.
Pierson: ... cars that he was driving. And so that sort of attracted maybe some of the wrong attention. The thing about Singapore, you know, it's not the kind of place where they reward flashiness, you know, you kind of have to keep your head down, and he sort of did the opposite of that. As, you know, an OnlyFans creator would probably want to do.
Toledo: Or just any millennial influencer around social media. So, David, what happened to Titus after the authorities became aware of his OnlyFans content?
Pierson: So there was a police report, submitted anonymously, accusing him of sending obscene photos. And Titus and his lawyers don't know who filed that police report, but they suspect it had something to do with some of his content being leaked online to porn sites. And that put his content out in the open.
Titus Low tape: I was like quite shocked 'cause I was posting my own content. So I thought that nothing was wrong. It's it is unfair to me. So it's very traumatizing.
Pierson: And so he was ordered to get off OnlyFans because he was violating the obscenity laws, and he did briefly and then decided that he couldn't go without it. And was able to reset his password that he had suspended, got another device because the police had taken his devices, and then started posting content again. And this is when the police decided to sort of drop the hammer. He was detained. And now he's facing some serious charges in court.
Titus Low tape: It's quite ridiculous. After my case was in the news, the minister of communication in Singapore made an announcement that OnlyFans not illegal, but posting obscene content is. I think sex should be legal. After all, everyone needs their pleasure and some place to relax, you know. Even if it's illegal, I think people try to find a way. It’s a part of the human nature. Yeah. So it can't be stopped.
Pierson: I spoke to some other OnlyFans creators, and they say that, you know, only fans creates a safer environment for LGBT sex workers to make a living because I mean, it's just another form of safely making revenue for sex work in Singapore.
Toledo: Right But Titus' case is still ongoing. What do you think will be the outcome?
Pierson: So there have been obscenity cases in the past. One a few years ago, where a group of men had been sharing photos of unwitting women, sort of like a revenge porn kind of ring. And they faced several months in prison for their crimes. That's one way of looking at it. It looks like Titus is going to have to pay some price for defying the police order to get off OnlyFans and restart it again. And I think he's probably going to have to face a few weeks in prison.
Titus Low tape: Although I hope that justice will be done for me. Even to this day, I was the only creator being arrested. Why am I the only one being targeted?
Toledo: What does the average Singaporean think of Titus and his legal battle when it comes to his only OnlyFans content?
Pierson: Well, there's this sort of divide between old and young in Singapore. And young people, you know, they grow up with the digital world. And Titus is very much a citizen of this sort of world where they communicate in memes. He's on TikTok. And what he's doing really, I mean, they don't really bat an eye. Whereas the older generation, their attitudes towards things like premarital sex, same-sex marriage, it's a far more conservative sort of attitude. And so in Singapore, I think there is a generational divide on Titus.
Titus Low tape: I feel I belong somewhere else.
Toledo: I assume Titus is not the only OnlyFans creator. How have other creators responded to this case? Are they concerned about continuing to use OnlyFans as a platform?
Pierson: They're terrified. There was a chilling effect with Titus' case. And shortly after his story came out, posted on the internet was a list of other OnlyFans creators sort of outing them in Singapore. And there were reports of some of these creators being blackmailed by some of their fans saying, if you don't give money or free content, I'm gonna report you to the police, you know, because these reports could be made anonymously. But there are still some OnlyFans creators making content, despite all of this.
Toledo: After the break, we leave the world of OnlyFans and check in on queer Singaporeans working in a little up-and-coming medium called podcasts.
Toledo: So David, let's get meta and talk about podcasting on this podcast.
Joshua Simon tape: My name is Joshua Simon. I'm a radio presenter in Singapore. I've been a radio DJ for about 10 years now.
Toledo: This is Joshua, one of the hosts of a Singporean podcast called the SG Boys. What’s the story behind their show?
Pierson: So, yeah, the SG Boys are one of the first LGBT podcasts in Singapore. And they're named after a Instagram hashtag #sgboys. If you search, it generally surfaces a lot of shirtless beefy guys. But they wanted to reclaim it a little bit to make it more inclusive to everyone, even those without six packs.
Toledo: I can relate.
Pierson: I can relate too. It's hosted by Joshua Simon and Sam Jo, and they have an occasional guest.
SG Boys tape: Hi, hi. I'm Joshua Simon. I'm Sam Jo, and we are the SG Boys, the new gay podcast from Singapore.
Pierson: And what they want to do is they want to create a safe space where, you know, a lot of the questions that you can't ask openly in Singapore can be answered. I mean, there's obviously a lot of gay youth who don't know who they can turn to. So a lot of their episodes are quite intimate.
SG Boys tape: When you grow up in a country where you don't have your gay rights, you don't have a lot of representation, not education either. When you come out of the closet, there's also sort of a level of educating you with what I'm coming out as. Where there's a lot of these either negative or just like completely inaccurate perceptions of what a gay person is. So when I tell my mom I'm gay, her mind is, "oh, gay people," and linking that to the AIDS epidemic. Or "I'm gay, that means I am a drag queen for example, or I'm transgender." So it's answering those questions for them.
Pierson: They talk about the painful upbringings that they've had, the difficulty kind of navigating a society where they're often treated as second-class citizens. But they've been able to book a lot of interesting guests like Conan Gray and Melanie C. from the Spice Girls.
SG Boys tape: Guys, so, good morning. Thank you. So Melanie, you know, we've seen so much, of you, so much of the Spice Girls, actually, through the years.
Pierson: They have this sort of real authentic conversation about queer life.
SG Boys tape: The kind of conversations that we haven't unfortunately been able to have, say, in the media, there's a lot of red tape when it comes to LGBTQ+ themed shows being greenlit and the representation of characters from our community because there's a lot of censorship here.
Toledo: It's so interesting to me, the role that LGBTQ media plays in helping queer people shape and form their identity, especially in a place where queer media is so tightly controlled and suppressed. Can you tell me about the process of queer stories being filtered in Singapore? How does it happen?
Pierson: So the media environment in Singapore is tightly controlled. Most of the media outlets in the country are state-owned. And so there is an understanding of what is out of bounds in Singapore. So when they cover LGBTQ issues, it is from a certain perspective, and that is the perspective of a country that outlaws gay sex. When it comes to content on Netflix in other places, I mean, that is also censored. There's a lot of, you know, four-letter words that are taken out. There's a lot of sex scenes edited out. And so that's how a lot of that stuff doesn't get into the newspapers, doesn't get onto your streaming service. There's a fear in the government that young people can't be exposed to this stuff at such an age.
Toledo: So is what's edited out of queer media because of these censorship laws in Singapore – does it find a place in less regulated media like the SG Boys podcast?
Pierson: Well, yeah, considering that they talk about drag culture.
SG Boys tape: The SG Boys! I know much more people who are discriminated against because they don't conform to fairly strict ideas about gender, right.
Pierson: They talk about the loneliness being in the queer community and overcoming a lot of dating rejection.
SG Boys tape: I feel like with the podcast, I feel like I'm learning a lot. Like we got to know this polyamorous throuple. I've never heard of a throuple. And I went in with no judgment whatsoever. It was just more like, I felt like when I was doing the episode, I was just more curious than anything. I felt like I was a kid just listening to, "Oh, this is how love can be."
Pierson: And it wasn't until the latest season that they started talking about queer sex
SG Boys tape: The newest season that we just launched this year, Season 3, Episode 1 is called, “Let's Talk About Sex." And that's actually the first time we talk about sex on the episode, mainly 'cause the #sgboys hashtag is so synonymous with, with that, that we wanted to just take a while, but also 'cause that was the toughest one to feel comfortable talking about. Because I think it is a lot of shame. I think that we feel when it comes to our bodies and with sex. And sometimes you don't even want to share it with your really close friends, certain encounters that you've had, like worst night out or that walk of shame. I truly believe it’s just sort of years and years of feeling down, and then when you do find other queer people like you, you don't want to feel down again.
Toledo: We'll be right back.
Toledo: So, David, people like Titus and the SG Boys are trying to change the way Singaporeans see queer people. Are they making any progress?
Pierson: So, one of the biggest examples of how things have improved: Tomorrow, there's going to be the largest LGBT event in Singapore. It's the Pink Dot celebration, which is an event that takes place every year since 2009 to celebrate the community. And what that came about, that was sort of a game changer. This was sort of one of the few or one of the first opportunities to kind of get a sense of how big this community was.
Clementine Tan tape: We've become so large now, that we are the most visible example of the LGBTQ community.
Pierson: I spoke with one of the organizers, Clementine Tan.
Clementine Tan tape: I am a spokesperson for Pink Dot SG here in Singapore
Pierson: Tomorrow will mark the 14th edition of this rally.
Clementine Tan tape: In 2009, the activists then decided that they wanted to form what would really be a pink dot, uh, inviting attendees to dress in pink and assemble in the park. Every year as that rally was being held, the growing size of that pink dot in the park would represent the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community in Singapore.
Pierson: And essentially they’re a social movement here in Singapore, an advocate for greater inclusion of the LGBTQ community.
Clementine Tan tape: Pink Dot in its first year in 2009 was the first time the words "lesbian, gay and bisexual and transgender community" was uttered in our mainstream media on TV in a neutral way.
Pierson: And he told me that their intention is not necessarily to be like the other pride festivals around the world. They don't use the typical rainbow flag iconography that has been adopted as the international symbol of gay pride.
Clementine Tan tape: And the reason why we use pink is because in Singapore, I think there is a lot of skepticism about LGBTQ movements. There's an insinuation, for example, that we are influenced by foreign actors, and there is a, I guess, a genuine fear that we are importing cultural wars from countries like the U.S. And we've tried very hard to maintain what is our local roots. All of the organizers are Singaporean. A lot of the iconography and the symbolism that we use are immediately recognizable to Singaporeans.
Toledo: And what are some of the political goals that Pink Dot hopes to achieve?
Pierson: Well, in terms of the issues they've been advocating for, obviously the top of the list is decriminalizing gay sex, which exists on the books here as this colonial relic known as section 377A. But they also campaign for other issues like, you know, discrimination that the LGBT community faces across schools, workplaces, homes, and just, you know, broader society at large. But their biggest issue they've run up against is the political landscape.
Clementine Tan tape: The fact that I said that we've become large enough to not be ignored, it's a bit of a double-edged sword, because in the last 13 years as well, what we've also seen is a lot more resistance from religious conservative quarters here in society who have become more vocal and who have become more staunch in their beliefs, despite our best efforts to reach across the aisle and as much as our messaging has always been about inclusivity, diversity and equality.
Toledo: What doesn't make sense to me is, gay sex between men is illegal, but what about between two women?
Pierson: All right. Well, technically, consenting gay sex between two men in Singapore is criminalized, but the government has sort of reached this compromise of not enforcing it. What that means is they won't actually prosecute anyone under that law. And that's one of the reasons that the supreme court argued they wouldn't repeal the law because it isn't going to be enforced. But of course, people in the LGBT community say, what's the point of having a law if you're not going to enforce it?
Clementine Tan tape: A law that isn't going to be used should has no place in the books. It should never be there to begin with. But yet it's being retained as some sort of political to religious conservatives in Singapore who believe that it needs to be retained because it enshrines some sort of special Asian values, some sort of heteronormative norm, and that it is a statement of morality.
Pierson: As far as the difference between gay and lesbian sex, I think you have to do sort of a deep dive into colonial legislation. It's something that happened in the UK. A lot of ex-British colonies have had some kind of version of this law on their books. India in particular repealed those laws in 2018. Women, even though they're not prosecuted under the law, they still face the same chilling effect of being marginalized in Singapore, and this social discrimination that kind of, you know, stems from the retention of this law.
Clementine Tan tape: It's more than just about what two people do in the bedroom. It impacts identity, human decency, our dignity. Effectively, most of us grow up with the messaging that we are felons. It's messages that reach our parents. It's what's told to us in schools and it does impact our sense of worth, our mental health. And obviously it trickles down to all sorts of secondary policies that remain on the books that are buttressed, right? This idea that gay sex or gay relationships in Singapore are not normal, are deviant, are morally wrong.
Toledo: So this is the first rally back since that pandemic. How will Pink Dot look different this year?
Pierson: Well, yeah, considering that they were off for a couple of years, I think that people are just chomping on the bit to get out there. I think there's a greater sense of urgency on the organizers and the attendees right now. This is the 14th year that they signal the LGBT community as part of Singapore.
Clementine Tan tape: We are coming back with a bit of a vengeance. It is our opportunity to turn outwards again, to escalate in our messaging. To really try to drive the conversation even further. I think it's important for us to use this event as a way to democratize what issues matter to us the most. So the participants who attend this year's event will have the opportunity to say what these issues are to them, and the more individual and authentic they are, the more powerful that would be.
Pierson: They are craving change.
Toledo: David, thank you so much for this conversation, and happy pride month.
Pierson: Thank you very much. Pleasure being here.
Toledo: And that’s it for this episode of The Times, daily news from the L.A. Times.
Myself and Ashlea Brown were the jefes on this episode. Mike Heflin engineered it.
Our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian and Ashlea Brown. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera and Shani Hilton. Our intern is Surya Hendry. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
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I'm David Toledo. Gustavo will be back on Monday with all the news and desmadre. Happy pride, y muchas gracias.