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Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a four-part series that draws on a new report by Innovation for Change – East Asia, which looks into the lived experiences of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual plus (LGBTQIA+) community engaged in civil society work that goes beyond LGBTQIA+ rights. Download the synthesis report here.
F
or two decades, Alex Au had fought for queer rights in Singapore as part of the city-state’s first gay organization, the People Like Us (PLU), before a phone call from an old friend helped redirect his life’s course. Up until then, he had found himself feeling “stuck in an LGBTQIAN+ bubble, having reached roadblocks in terms of self-development.”
Thanks to his friend who asked him to help with bookkeeping in a migrant workers’ rights organization, Au later on stepped into a leadership role – clearly an opportunity to gain more knowledge and experience while discharging his duties in his new workplace.
Today, Au serves as vice president of the same organization, where he focuses on developing its digital database and corporate communications, putting to good use skills developed through two decades of organizing around LGBTQIA+ rights in Singapore.
“As queer activists, we ran with risks,” recalls Au of that time in his former organization. “We learned how to dodge and duck and yet speak up. Queer activism was a school for learning how to speak up.”
Like Au, many other queer activists in Singapore have expanded their advocacy to focus on other marginalized communities – with one goal in mind: to build solidarity among advocates fighting oppression and exclusion.
A new report by Innovation for Change – East Asia (I4C- EA), “Shimmering Lights in Shadows: Queer Activists in Non-queer Spaces,” tackles the issues and challenges confronting members of LGBTQIA+ communities working in civil society across four Commonwealth countries, namely, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji.
In Singapore, 11 queer activists, including Au, spoke about their lived realities, including challenges, in their civil society organizations against the political backdrop that frames, or confines, their work.
The Singapore chapter of the I4C-EA report, “Navigaytion: Singaporean Queer Activists Paving Alternative Pathways for Civil Society,” examines how queer advocates are contributing to intersectional solidarity in the Southeast Asian country. It finds that many experienced LGBTQIA+ organizers have moved beyond identity-based advocacy, using skills battle-tested in the city-state’s restrictive political environment to support other marginalized groups. These activists pursue a range of advocacies: from migrant workers’ and women’s rights to those of people with disability as well as criminal justice reforms.
Queerness as gateway
Choosing to go beyond LGBTQIA+ issues stems from both personal experiences of discrimination and a deep understanding that Singapore’s tightly controlled political landscape, which silences dissent, hurts other communities, too.
“I felt like migrant workers’ rights or gender equality issues were queer issues at the end of the day — they are people who have also been excluded by the structures set up by the state and are punished for being different from what the state wanted them to be,” says Vanessa Ho of Project X, which advocates for sex workers’ rights while working to expand inclusion within Singapore’s LGBTQIA+ sector.
For many activists, the challenges confronting queer people in the island country go beyond identifying oneself based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They also involve navigating Singapore’s closed civic space to forge broader solidarity amid systemic inequalities and oppressive systems that marginalize specific sectors of society including queer people.
This reality prompted Jolovan Wham, who works with migrant organization HOME, to ponder his role as a gay person, and set him on a path toward learning about other rights-related issues. “When you start questioning your role as a gay person in this world, you start questioning gender, you have to start reading about feminism and women’s rights,” he says.
Other activists interviewed for the I4C–EA report similarly found a sense of kinship with other sectors, particularly those pushed to the fringe of society, who similarly struggle with systemic disadvantages. In this light queer activists have formed coalitions to address broader forms of exploitation. Along the way the inequalities suffered by migrants, the impoverished, and other marginalized sectors became strong motivations for queer activists to advocate for, and alongside, these sectors while dealing with their own challenges as LGBTQIA+ members.
For Iman (not her real name), who volunteers at Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), which champions the rights of low-wage migrant labor in Singapore, “going to hospitals and seeing migrant workers with amputated fingers who weren’t getting compensated, whose salaries weren’t paid” opened her eyes to the stark realities confronting this sector and shaped her convictions.
“My convictions guide the work I do, not my identity. It’s a shared politics or desire for a particular future, rather than because we’re queer or because we’re brown,” says community organizer Kokila Anamalai, a member of Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), which calls for the abolition of the death penalty in Singapore. “We can come together on those identities as a community. But for me, your comrades are the ones who share your political values.”
Bringing skills to the table
Notwithstanding their own challenges as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, the Singaporean queer activists featured in the report expressed confidence that they are equipped for CSO work supporting specific sectors of society. Years of working on hostile ground for queer activists have taught them how to navigate, negotiate, and communicate sensitive messages without triggering backlash, thus creating openings for marginalized voices even in unwelcoming spaces.
Avin Tan spent 12 years in HIV/AIDS work before joining Special Olympics Asia Pacific, an organization for athletes with disabilities. He says navigating government policies while communicating about safe sex to queer communities requires constant creativity.
“Because of the HIV movement in the ‘80s, we have been able to mobilize ourselves very efficiently. Therefore, there is a lot of knowledge there that I can bring to the table,” Tan says.
For Au, two decades in queer activism prepared him for corporate communications at TWC2. Speaking on behalf of his organization on public policies affecting migrant labor without getting the organization into trouble tested his mettle. He learned how to “dodge and duck and yet speak up,” he says.
Being openly queer in restrictive spaces also creates what he calls a “rainbow flag” effect – signaling to other LGBTQIA+ people that such environments are safer than they might appear. Wham’s visibility at HOME sends reassuring signals to queer domestic workers and volunteers that they need not fret over potential hostility within the organization.
Persisting risks
In 2022 Singapore’s colonial-era law (Section 377A of the Penal Code) criminalizing sex between men was finally repealed after decades of queer activists pushing against this piece of legislation. This was a major triumph for the country’s queer community. But the government’s announcement that came with the repeal immediately dashed hopes that the legalization of same-sex marriage might not be far behind. It said the Constitution would be amended to ensure that the definition of “marriage” was decided by Parliament” and not by the courts, precluding any legal challenges from queer activists.
Beyond the repression of queer rights, the broader civic landscape that is generally marked by unwarranted restrictions by the Singapore government makes it difficult for queer activists to pursue specific advocacies.
Anamalai was one of three TJC members who was summoned for investigations under Section 7 of the controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), Singapore’s fake news law, in January 2024. This was after they had complied with POFMA correction orders for online posts that were deemed to have violated the law.
Human Rights Watch’s 2025 report on Singapore says the country has intensified its crackdown on activists by wielding POFMA and other controversial laws to “silence and intimidate independent media, opposition politicians, and civil society actors.”
Freedom House classifies Singapore as “partly free,” noting that the government restricts “freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.”
In such an environment Wham must constantly watch how he conducts himself in situations “of uncertain safety” such as in prison (he once served time over a Facebook post). For his part, Tan removes his rainbow badge when meeting officials from conservative countries. “It’s not like I am going back into the closet,” he says. “I know how to weave in and out, so I don’t feel unsafe.”
Still and all, Anamalai welcomes the challenge of navigating Singapore’s fraught civic space. “I don’t complain about having to navigate. I want to navigate. I want to figure it out,” she says. “It’s more important to build culture rather than structures. Structures that evolve with culture are more protective.”
Such resolve by no means downplays the reality confronting civil society workers and activists, notably those in the queer community, in Singapore, where “any kind of advocacy is generally unwelcome,” raising fears of safety.
Echoing the sentiment voiced by other queer activists, Iman says she’s not “seeking safety.” I’m seeking justice … something better not just for myself but for a larger group of people. Fighting for something entails a readiness to be unsafe. Choosing to protest, choosing mass action, choosing to align yourself with people power, unsafe as they are, are actions we need to do more of.”
To this end, Anamalai says the long-term strategy lies in building networks of support that go beyond individual activism. This means members helping one another by sharing knowledge on managing risks, preparing for police investigations or related circumstances, among others.
“When activists of all causes build a culture of solidarity, we share the risks together,” she says. “Comradeship means we don’t face it alone. And it makes us stronger to bear the costs.” ◉
Cristina Chi is a Filipino journalist who writes stories on education, disinformation, and human rights.
