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In Singapore, a cancelled talk on sex and gender spotlights divide on LGBTQ issues
- Singapore repealed its anti-gay sex law in November 2022, but conservative values still run deep in the city state
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An axed talk in Singapore on sex and gender featuring an academic, an LGBTQ counsellor and a drag queen has again cast a spotlight on divisive undercurrents that still exist in the city state.
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The Science Centre, organiser of the panel discussion, cancelled the event after receiving “feedback” from the public. It said it would also “review [its] approach” and offer refunds.
The cancellation on Sunday came after Protect Singapore, an NGO that advocates pro-family values, urged its more than 2,000 Telegram subscribers to voice their concerns about the forum to the Science Centre and Singapore’s Education Ministry.
Researchers told This Week in Asia that members of the public have been more vocal about LGBTQ issues since the repeal of Singapore’s anti-gay sex law in November 2022.
In his August 2022 announcement to repeal Section 377A of the penal code that criminalises gay sex, then-prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said there was significant risk of the legislation being struck down by judges in future legal challenges, and that societal attitudes towards LGBTQ people had “shifted appreciably”.
Lee, the son of Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew, also said the constitution would be amended to protect the definition of marriage as that between a man and a woman.
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