Upon registeration at the welcome-desk, one of our members refused to give our IC as identification, which caused some amount of confusion for the desk-helpers. Apparently, no one had ever tried to hold on their privacy before]. She was eventually allowed to pass. We went inside, and waited for quite a long time for the event to start, even though we had arrived after seven. During this time, we went through the amendments like we were mugging last-minute for an examination.

Finally, people started coming in. AWARE members took up at least half the audience, and the rest was made up of Sayoni women and private citizens. Two girls, one of whom we recognised to be a PSC/President's scholar, started the event by welcoming everyone, and reading out the entire amendment in, all 8 pages of it, in flat tones. Before I zoned out, I noticed one comment on the powerpoint presentation: they explicitly stated that lesbian sex would not be criminalised. And the speaker added a comment that this was 'so as not to give the impression that we are regressive in the area'. We could only look at each in confused incredulity, aware of the glaring contradiction as 377A was still in place.

�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 m�nage � 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).

Family…
A place of warmth and love,
A place of acceptance,
Bestowed upon by birth.

One day, to one’s consternation,
What i never knew…
Acceptance is only acceptance,
When their mould i fit into.

What’s wrong with this?
I don’t understand.
Why’s love not a crime,
only between woman and man?

“She’s beautiful, Mum.
Personality, character and all.
You will like her
As you get to know her more.”

“Abnormal! My child,
You have grieved me so.
Same-sex love is spurious…
Please redeem your soul!

“… For God on high is full of wrath
for people of such kind.
Leave this lifestyle, please my child.
Don’t, by lust, be blind.

“… Your Daddy has cancer…
he’s weaker by the day.
Don’t you care for your father?
Can’t you stop your play?

“… Our relatives will mock us.
My friends, what will they say?
That i’ve failed at parenting,
thus my child is gay!”

A foot into the mould i put…
An awkward shape it is.
Cramped toes, sprained back…
In pain, I clenched my fists.

Family… supposedly…
A place of warmth and love,
A place of acceptance,
Bestowed upon by birth.

Alas, acceptance is acceptance,
When their mould i cramp into.
Would they care my heart smithereens
as long the facade fools?

*Author has chosen to remain anonymous.

When i was still in my undergraduate years, i had a good friend who doted upon me like a sister. She told me all she needed was a degree -never matter the grades- and she would get married and be a “tai-tai”. (A tai-tai is the wife of a rich man. A tai-tai does not need to work.) This same friend of mine later told me that in any leadership committee, it is best that girls do not take up more than half of the seats. Because women, in her experience, were incompetent. And woe to any club who has a lady-chairperson!- she exclaimed. *DOTS*

Women who put down groups of other women have always intrigued me.
You would think that being women, they would understand how things are like for women. They would see the stereotypes in place and how women still have some way to go in terms of equality.

But no… There is a surprisingly number of women out there who take in everything they have been told, without critical evaluation.

Women who endorse the following statements:
“A woman should not expect to go to exactly the same places or to have the same freedom of action as men.”
“Women  are unable to hold positions of power because they are overly emotional and illogical, desiring to gain too much control over men.”
“Men are less likely to fall apart in emergencies than women are.”
“Men and women have qualities that complement one another.”
“Lesbians endanger the institution of the family.”
“Lesbians tend to dress in opposite-sex clothing.”