06.05.08
Posted in Coming out, Politics at 4:42 pm by sayoni
Kanako Otsuji became Japan’s first openly lesbian politician when she was elected to the Osaka Prefectural Assembly in April 2003 at the age of 28 - making her the youngest person ever to be elected to the Assembly.
In 2007, Ms. Otsuji was an official Democratic Party of Japan candidate. She lost the Upper House election with 38,229 votes. If she had won, she would have been Japan’s first openly gay national politician.
Over breakfast, she talked to Sayoni about being an openly gay politician in Japan.
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- technorati: lesbian, gay, japan, kanako otsuji, politics, coming out
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01.29.08
Posted in Politics, Queer News, Religion at 11:58 am by pleinelune
On a boring bus-ride home, I was just musing that last week was the week to die.
I am not being morbid, really - at that time on TVMobile, the un-switch-off-able source of entertainment that subjects you to the terrible soap operas whether you want it or not, they were splashing news about Suharto’s death. Not that no one saw it coming, because I’ll bet you they were working on the eulogy and the news-report the minute Suharto was committed to the hospital.
And of course, a week ago, Heath Ledger was found dead on the floor of his SoHo of a drug overdose. Heath Ledger, as we all know, was the handsome hunk who played the gay cowboy on Brokeback Mountain, and did a wonderful job of it. While his young and sudden death is tragic, it is not something I particularly cared about, Brokeback or no Brokeback, until this. Read the rest of this entry »
- About: Pleinelune thinks everyone deserves to die with dignity. Even Hitler.
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11.13.07
Posted in Politics, Psychology & Research at 1:22 am by AnJ
Let me refer to the article by Detenber et al (2007). The famous article used to support the retention of 377A.
Reference:
Detenber, B. H., Genite, M., Ku, M. K. Y., Ong, C. P. L., Tong, H. Y., & Yeow, M. L. H. (2007). Singaporeans’ attitudes towards lesbians and gay men and their tolerance of media portrayals of homosexuality. Internal journal of public opinion, 19(3), 367-379.
The anti-repeal camp jumped upon this statement made in opening statement of the conclusion segment: “Overall, this study found that most Singaporeans hold negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, and are rather intolerant towards media portrayals of homosexuality.” (Page 373).
What the researchers did: they called up Singaporean citizens over a period of 5 days and conducted interviews. They found that 68.6% of the participants expressed negative attitudes.
Here’s the break-down of predictors for negative attitudes:
1. Religion: Specifically Christians and Muslims were found to be least tolerant among Buddhists and free-thinkers.
2. Age: Older people are less tolerant.
3. Educational level: More educated people are more tolerant.
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- About: AnJ dislikes intentional misrepresentation of studies.
- Forum discussion: LGBT rights
- technorati: Singapore, gay, lesbian, politics, anti-gay attitudes
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10.24.07
Posted in LGBT Rights, Politics at 12:28 am by pleinelune
Dear Ms Thio
I am not as learned as you in law. I am but a first-year law student. A law student who happens to identify as queer, and has spent the last two years working in the queer activism scene, who now loves a woman, who now wishes to rid this country of the blight known as section 377A.
Ms Thio, I am sure you know this section very well… in fact, you dedicated an entire speech to the impassioned defence of it, not even touching on things like marital rape immunity. I am surprised… I thought an educated, feminist woman like yourself would have some feelings on this section which effectively takes away the right of married women to their bodies…. but I digress. You expounded in detail upon the merits of retaining this law. You showed us all how much you hate us gay people - like we couldn’t tell from the letters to ST. When I read your speech, my first impulse was to laugh. Then as I read on, cringing at the leaps of logic, and wincing at the palpable hatred pouring out of the paper.
I will now proceed to rebutt you: point by point.
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- About: Pleinelune is irritated by rhetorical arguments
- Forum discussion: LGBT News and Rights
- technorati: gay, queer, lesbian, homosexuality, rights, 377a, singapore
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05.31.07
Posted in LGBT Rights, Politics, Singapore Gay News at 5:04 pm by lublub
The recent hoo-haa surrounding MM Lee’s statements on homosexuality has ruffled my feathers and poked at the idealist in me. It was heartening to see so many others rise up and stand up for who they are, by writing into forums, newspapers to defend themselves and others.
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- About: Lublub started out with a big dream.
But these days, she realizes that she doesn’t have enough hands or successes, and might not even see her dream fulfilled in her lifetime. But that doesn’t make the dream any less worth pursuing.
- Forum discussion: LGBT Rights
- technorati: gay, queer, singapore, activism, mmlee, homosexuality
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12.06.06
Posted in LGBT Rights, Politics, Singapore Gay News at 1:11 am by Guest Writers
As the Penal Code is being updated, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been soliciting feedback from the public about this proposed amendments. One of the avenues was through focus group discussions for welfare, grassroots, religious and women’s groups. I attended one of them by prior registration.
MHA’s Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry@ Home (REACH) officers had organised the focus group meeting well. Light food and beverage was catered before the meeting, as it was to begin at around dinner time. At the registration table, attendees were asked to record their Identity Card (IC) numbers on the list, to indicate attendance. It would no doubt be easier to monitor a person through this number.
Inside the low-lit room, paper and pencils were laid on their chairs for attendees. A REACH officer presented a general overview of the proposed amendments before the discussion began proper. It was chaired by three persons - Mses. Indranee Rajah (MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC, MM Lee’s team), Ellen Lee (a lawyer) and Rahayu. Attendees were invited to step up to the microphone to air their views. It soon became clear that the focus for the night was on the amendments which affected marital immunity for rape and criminalised gay sex.
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tags:
mha,
amendments,
discrimination,
feedback,
gay,
gay rights,
marital rape,
queer,
section 375,
section 377a,
singapore,
women's focus group,
women's rights,
women's rights,
penal code
- About: Written by still one.
"I am only one. But still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." - Edward Everettt Hale
- Forum discussion: LGBT Rights
- technorati: penal code, amendments, singapore, marital rape, section 377A, section 375, gay, queer, feedback, gay rights, discrimination, women's focus group, MHA, women's rights, women's rights,
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11.29.06
Posted in General, Politics at 1:59 am by Guest Writers
“Singapore,” Leong (1997: 142) wrote in 1997, “appears to be the last frontier in the Asian region for positive gay and lesbian developments”. Almost a decade later, however, this statement no longer rings true because Singaporean activists successfully held the first gay pride month there in Aug 2005 with little state interference. Called IndigNation, this gay pride month witnessed limited attendance and lacked the often-fully commercialized gay pride parade that has come to represent Euro-American gay pride (Armstrong 2002). Instead, IndigNation offered such free events as a poetry-reading, an art exhibition, and two public lectures on the history of same-sex practices in Singapore and China. The activists held IndigNation to protest both heavy state censorship of magazines serving gay Singaporeans and the state’s ban on such public gay parties as Nation. Incepted in 2001, Nation was a series of three parties that Asian gay portal site Fridae.com organized yearly to celebrate Singapore’s independence on Aug 9. Despite Nation’s reputation as the crown jewel of Asian circuit parties – it attracted a record 8,000 revelers in 2004 – and the US$6 million tourist revenue it generated that same year, the state banned it in 2005 on still-unverified allegations that Nation threatened public health as an HIV vector.
In view of the banning of Nation, homosexuality appears incompatible with the Singa-porean state. Although homosexuality, modernity and Americanization are not necessarily coter-minous (cf. Brenner 1998), the state treats them otherwise. Using antiquated laws that Singapore inherited from its days as a British factory, the state criminalizes same-sex acts as the results of the “immoral” American influence that industrialization exposed Singapore to in the late 1960s. However, I argue that homosexuality does indeed commensurate with the Singaporean state. Although Fridae.com continues to deny it, Nation presented the strongest statement of full national belonging gay Singaporeans have made thus far. Indeed, in attracting mostly moneyed gay men from Asia to its three nights of non-stop partying, Nation mimicked the Singaporean state in positing consumption as the basis of citizenship. In assuming that good consumption will literally buy gay Singaporeans full societal acceptance, Nation practices an assimilationist politics that Duggan (2003) calls “the new homonormativity.” Ironically, it takes IndigNation, with its free and diverse events that focused on inclusivity and community-building outside of consumption, to highlight both this commonality and the limits of homonormative model of gay citizenship that Nation presented.
The seeming incommensurability between homosexuality and the Singaporean state rests upon two bases. Legally speaking, same-sex acts remain chargeable offences in Singapore. Sections 377 and 377A of the Penal Code punish “unnatural” sex and gross indecency respectively, with life sentences as the maximum penalty. Media guidelines also forbid the positive portrayal of homosexuality. As recently as Oct 2006, the Media Development Authority (MDA) fined cable-TV provider Starhub Cable Vision (SCV) S$10,000 (US$6,500) for airing an episode of the American reality TV program Cheaters that featured footage of women engaging in ménage à trois and bondage sex. Although SCV aired the heavily pixilated footage at midnight, the MDA still found it guilty of promoting lesbianism (The Straits Times 2006).
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tags:
activism,
fridae.com,
gay,
gay activists,
gay community,
gay rights,
indignation 05,
lesbian,
nation,
parties,
queer,
singapore,
glbt
- About: Written by Chris K. K. Tan (koktan@uiuc.edu)
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: glbt, queer, lesbian, gay, indignation 05, nation, fridae.com, gay activists, singapore, gay community, parties, activism, gay rights
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08.07.06
Posted in General, Politics at 2:47 pm by Teng Qian Xi
I live in a country where the state believes they have the right to decide whether people should be digits, or creative or entrepreneurial.
I live in a country where the ministers claim that the ruling party’s majority votes means “the people want to be led.” (Dr Wang Kai Yuen, ST, April 4 2002) I live in a country where before the general elections, the ruling party redraws constituency boundaries to have more walkovers, bankrupts opposition politicians and castrates the national press while its ministers tell everyone to speak up, not to fear being “hit by a big stick” (Raymond Lim, ST, April 4 2002). This is safe because the people who spoke up before MPs encouraged them to are either overseas, silenced or dead.
I live in a country where no minister has campaigned publicly for the abolition of the Internal Security Act even if they believed that it was a violation of human rights. Even if they knew that Communism is demonised by the authorised history. Even if they knew that most of the population heads down to Orchard Road on Sundays.
I live in a country where the ministers who determine the political process are paid private-sector salaries. There are few other reasons to join the ruling party, so certified talents are worth their price.
I live in a country where the state announces that we must have a vibrant arts scene. So they build the Esplanade which is too big for most local performance groups. On National Day they say that promoting the arts is another way to attract more tourists to this ‘global hubcity’; they do not even pretend that pandering to foreign money is less important than giving citizens an awareness of their own country’s culture.
I live in a country where the front shelves of bookshops are crowded with one man’s words. Until recently, anything that disagrees these words could only be found in Select Books (Tanglin Shopping Centre) or overseas.
I live in a country where my parents have friends who were tortured by the Internal Security Department. So for them and others, an 18-year-old girl talking to the press about politics will never be seen as invulnerable. An 18-year-old girl who comments on a minister in an newspaper interview will be told she could cause someone in MOE to lose their job.
I live in a country where the national paper will announce that a poem has won a foreign prize, but they will not willingly add (until much later) that it is written from a lesbian perspective. What the paper’s employees think of homosexuality and its criminalisation has nothing to do with this.
I live in a country where the state makes its arguments too simple. Such as: the PAP = the country. Such as: democracy = protests = violence = disorder = national disaster. Such as: human rights = confusing Western concept that our people don’t need to learn very much about. Such as: history = one man’s story. Such as: Chia Thye Poh = opposition = Marxist = dangerous = 32 years of imprisonment = non-existence in the authorised history.
I live in a country with a population that is constantly hit by men in white with invisible and visible sticks. I live in a country where it is hard to expect people to value anything more than protecting themselves from these big sticks, or getting your own stick and white uniform.
- About: This article has been reproduced by kind permission of the author, Teng Qian Xi. The article was first published in NewSintercom.org and the2ndrule.com in 2002. This article was originally requested by the New Paper in early April 2002, but when Qian Xi sent it to them, they decided they could not print it until they managed to get a government scholar to write a retort. The two articles were eventually printed side by side on 19 May 2002.
- Forum discussion: Sayoni Forum
- technorati: teng qianxi, glbt, queer asian women, singapore
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