The Desired End-State of Repealing 377A

I sent this letter to the Straits Times Forum just before the parliamentary debate on the Penal Code review but it was not published.

I refer to South Africa’s journey towards removing all forms of discriminations especially for their lesbians, gays, bi-sexual and trans-gendered (LGBT) community (ST, 19 Oct), and the recent petition attempts in Singapore to repeal section 377A of the Penal Code.

It took the South Africans ten short years from the repeal of their sodomy laws to the official sanction of the LGBT’s rights to civil union and adoption. Should the Singapore government accedes to the present repeal petitions or similar initiatives in the future, there is a need to comprehensively lay out the roadmap for the full integration of LGBT within the societal and legal frameworks. While the LGBT community has tried to assure Singaporeans that they will push for further LGBT rights only when society becomes more receptive, it did not stop the community from aggressively seeking the repeal of section 377A despite the current lack of societal receptiveness. The experience of countries like South Africa has also shown that the championing of additional rights for the LGBT community is not that far out in the time horizon. Hence it is important for these rights issues to be debated openly and critically now as part of the repeal initiative. Some of these issues include the minimum legal age for men having sex with men (MSM), the assimilation of LGBT world view into our education system and the media, the structure of possible future civil unions between members of the same sex and adoption procedures for such couples, to list a few.

While it is true that the non-criminalisation of lesbianism did not open these “flood-gates”, I half suspect it was for a lack of vocalisation by the lesbian community and solidarity considerations with their gay counterparts that these issues have yet to be championed. It will be naïve to think that the repeal of section 377A will be an end in itself purely for equality and acceptance. Let us bring to the table all the necessary implications for such repeal and avoid a “slow-boil” outcome if we are serious about according equal rights to the LGBT community in Singapore.