Who Sets Social Policy in Metropolis? Economic Positioning and Social Reform in Singapore^*

Abstract

Changes in social policy in Singapore reflect not only changing sociopolitical realities and popular attitudes, but also the island state's concerted effort to craft itself as a transnational hub, center for international business, and home-away-from-home for the skilled, moneyed cosmopolitans who drive the contemporary global political economy. Shifts in the de jure and de facto treatment of gays and lesbians provide a stark demonstration of these dynamics. This paper examines why the Singapore government has taken steps toward greater official tolerance of gays and lesbians, despite potential backlash and previous statements about Asian exceptionalism. It also considers how far the transnational environment and forces of globalization are likely to go in diminishing states' sovereignty in setting social policy—and how conversely empowering this diminution may be to certain (but not all) marginalized groups, who may find their appeals to transnational discourses, networks, and less culturally-relative identities increasingly validated as a result.

Notes

¹ Simon Elegant, “The Lion in Winter,” Time, July 7, 2003.

² Quoted in Goh Chok Tong, “Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's Interview with Time Asia Editor Karl Greenfeld and Southeast Asia Correspondent Simon Elegant on 5 Feb 2003 at the Istana,” unedited, unofficial transcript (2003), n.p.

³ Only 3,263,200 are citizens or permanent residents; the remaining 754,500 are “temporary.” Government of Singapore, Singapore Population (Singapore: Singapore Department of Statistics, 2001), p. 4.

⁴ Leong reviews a list of minor laws covering “the minutiae of everyday conduct”—imposing penalties on everything from failure to flush a public toilet to vandalism. Some of these laws are regularly enforced; others rarely are. Laurence Wai-Teng Leong, “Singapore,” in Donald J. West and Richard Green (eds), Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality: A Multi-Nation Comparison (New York: Plenum Press, 1997), pp. 127–128.

⁵ Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in neighboring Malaysia enunciates this apocalyptic rubric: “Western societies are riddled with single-parent families which foster incest, with homosexuality, with cohabitation, with unrestrained avarice … and of course with rejection of religious teachings and values.” Quoted in Dennis Altman, “The Emergence of ‘Modern’ Gay Identities and the Question of Human Rights,” in Anne-Marie Hilsdon et al. (eds), Human Rights and Gender Politics: Asia-Pacific Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 214.

⁶ Margie T. Logarta, Oh Behave, Singapore, March, Business Traveler Center, 2004 (cited April 2, 2004), available online at: < www.businesstravelerusa.com/articles.php?articleID = 558>.

⁷ Indicating the reception given Florida's thesis were a flurry of articles in PAP-controlled mass media proclaiming, for instance: “For Singapore to thrive economically, it must accept immigrant talent, artists and homosexuals” (Straits Times, July 14, 2002; also November 28, 2003).

⁸ Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), pp. 4–5.

⁹ Specifically, at least in the US (based on which case Florida develops his theory), “homosexuality represents the last frontier of diversity in our society,” so “openness to the gay community is a good indicator of the low entry barriers to human capital that are so important to spurring creativity and generating high-tech growth.” Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 256.

¹⁰ Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), pp. 255–258.

¹¹ Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 8.

¹² Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 249.

¹³ See Today, July 5, 2003.

¹⁴ Au Waipang, “Straits Times Editorial: Gay Tolerance,” Yawningbread.org (July 2003).

¹⁵ Straits Times, July 9, 2003.

¹⁶ The Singapore state would also likely respond favorably to arguments for gay rights framed in terms of shifting the financial burden for welfare support away from the state. Joseph Lo and Huang Guoqin, People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003), pp. 23–24.

¹⁷ Chua Beng-Huat, “Singaporeans Ingesting Mcdonald's,” in Chua Beng-Huat (ed.), Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 186.

¹⁸ Chua Beng-Huat, “Singaporeans Ingesting Mcdonald's,” in Chua Beng-Huat (ed.), Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 186

¹⁹ M. Ramesh, “The Politics of Social Security in Singapore,” Pacific Review 13:2 (2000), pp. 247–252. Though as Ramesh notes, Singapore's system of social security is more elaborate than PAP rhetoric would suggest and provides quite substantial support to state elites and the already wealthy (pp. 254–255).

²⁰ Stephan Haggard argues that in Singapore even more than in other Asian states, export-oriented industrial policies, limitations on social benefits, and government investment in education are “tied together in an extraordinarily explicit way,” even if mobile capital and export-oriented firms are not the only forces influencing social policies. Stephan Haggard, “The Evolution of Social Contracts in Asia,” unpublished MS, 2004, p. 27. One imagines, however, that firms are more vociferous in demanding the sorts of policies Haggard details than pro-gay antidiscrimination ordinances, regardless of their desire for smart, creative workers and the links Florida draws.

²¹ Stephan Haggard argues that in Singapore even more than in other Asian states, export-oriented industrial policies, limitations on social benefits, and government investment in education are “tied together in an extraordinarily explicit way,” even if mobile capital and export-oriented firms are not the only forces influencing social policies. Stephan Haggard, “The Evolution of Social Contracts in Asia,” unpublished MS, 2004, p. 28.

²² Mark Beeson, “Sovereignty under Siege: Globalisation and the State in Southeast Asia,” Third World Quarterly 24:2 (2003), pp. 357–358.

²³ Goh Chok Tong, “From the Valley to the Highlands,” speech by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the National Day Rally 2003, August 17, 2003 (cited December 28, 2003), available online at: < www.gov.sg/singov/nd.htm>.

²⁴ As a representative of the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister's Office explains, the PM's comment “was not a shift in policy … but an elaboration of the Singapore Civil Service's position on the employment policy of homosexuals.” That policy is based on “the principle of meritocracy” (email to the author from Mayna Teo, PSD Assistant Manager for Public Affairs, February 11, 2004).

²⁵ Straits Times, July 5, 2003. This editorial, a prominent gay activist points out, “is a landmark.” Given the status of the source, it “can be read as a statement of the government's new position.” Au, “Straits Times Editorial.”

²⁶ For instance, an enthusiastic Business Times editorial on the higher median household income and tech-savviness of gay than straight consumers (July 19, 2003), or a Straits Times piece on brand managers' efforts to court the gay market (August 17, 2003).

²⁷ Two July 30, 2003 television shows were emblematic of this shift. In Chinese and Malay, respectively, both aimed to debunk negative stereotypes of gays and lesbians. In contrast, another local channel had recently been fined $15,000 for “justifying, promoting, and glamourising homosexuality” in the course of an interview with Anne Heche in which she spoke of her relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres. Au Waipang, “Gay Tutorial on Chinese TV,” Yawningbread.org (August 2003).

²⁸ Under Singapore law, all organizations of 10 or more members must register under the Societies Act. Registration may be denied or revoked if the group is (or is deemed likely to be) detrimental to the public peace and general welfare, or used for unlawful purposes. See the full text of the statute online at: < http://statutes.agc.gov.sg>.

²⁹ John A. Guidry and Mark Q. Sawyer, “Contentious Pluralism: The Public Sphere and Democracy,” Perspectives on Politics 1:2 (2003), p. 273.

³⁰ Goh, “From the Valley to the Highlands.”

³¹ Straits Times, July 5, 2003.

³² Ho explains that the policy process is more technical than political in Singapore. Formulated largely by the executive, policies are legitimated by the legislature, then presented to the citizens—although the public's views are increasingly being solicited and may be at least minimally influential. Ho Khai Leong, The Politics of Policy-Making in Singapore (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 210–214, 20–36.

³³ For instance, the Forum section of the Straits Times and other local papers were awash with hundreds of pro- and anti-gay letters (i.e. Straits Times, July 23, 30, 2003). Some of those not published were disseminated via SiGNeL, Yawning Bread, and other channels.

³⁴ Lynette J. Kher Shing Chua, “Saying No: Sections 377 and 377a of the Penal Code,” Singapore Journal of Legal Studies (2003), p. 211.

³⁵ Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, pp. 252–258.

³⁶ Elegant, “The Lion in Winter.”

³⁷ Elegant, “The Lion in Winter

³⁸ Goh, “From the Valley to the Highlands.”

³⁹ Conducted in February and March 2004, the survey garnered 174 anonymous responses: 90 men, 70 women, and 14 who identify as transgendered (all FTM). Survey questions and data are available from the author upon request.

⁴⁰ Homosexual conduct was legalized in Britain in 1967, but still not in Singapore. It is rather ironic that regulations now justified in the name of “Asian values” are really a Western import.

⁴¹ These statutes are available online at: < http://statutes.agc.gov.sg>.

⁴² Chua, “Saying No,” pp. 219–221.

⁴³ Chua, “Saying No,”, pp. 210, 23, Leong, “Singapore,” pp. 130–131.

⁴⁴ Leong, “Singapore,” p. 131.

⁴⁵ Chua, “Saying No,” p. 234.

⁴⁶ Thomas Ng, “Law and Homosexuals,” in Joseph Lo and Huang Guoqin (eds), People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003), pp. 17–18.

⁴⁷ Leong, “Singapore,” p. 131.

⁴⁸ Laurence Wai-Teng Leong, “Walking the Tightrope: The Role of Action for Aids in the Provision of Social Services in Singapore,” in Gerard Sullivan and Laurence Wai-Teng Leong (eds), Gays and Lesbians in Asia and the Pacific: Social and Human Services (New York: Haworth Press, 1995), p. 16.

⁴⁹ Leong, “Singapore,” p. 132.

⁵⁰ Chua, “Saying No,” pp. 234–235, Leong, “Singapore,” pp. 132–133.

⁵¹ Chua, “Saying No,” p. 231.

⁵² Leong, “Singapore,” pp. 138–139, Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” pp. 16–17, PLU, History at Length, People Like Us, 2004 (cited April 2, 2004), available online at: < www.geocities.com/plusg1/history_01.htm>.

⁵³ As recently as April 2005, four men were arrested for engaging in sexual activity during a late-night “routine fire inspection” at a sauna. Fridae, April 28, 2005.

⁵⁴ Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, “State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore,” in Andrew Parker et al. (eds), Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 344–345.

⁵⁵ Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, “State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality, and Race in Singapore,” in Andrew Parker et al. (eds), Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 347–348, Ramesh, “The Politics of Social Security in Singapore,” p. 246.

⁵⁶ Aileen Kwa Siew Mae, “Singapore Women: Disrupting the Stories of the State” (MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1993), pp. 143–147, 81–98.

⁵⁷ Heng and Devan, “State Fatherhood,” p. 348. These efforts notwithstanding, the percentage of singles among those aged 35 to 44 has been increasing over time. Furthermore, the disparity between university-educated men and women is stark: 13.6% of men in this category are single versus 28.2% of women. Government of Singapore, Singapore Population, p. 7.

⁵⁸ Baden Offord, “The Burden of (Homo)Sexual Identity in Singapore,” Social Semiotics 9:3 (1999), pp. 309, 313.

⁵⁹ Straits Times, September 14 and 19, 1999. From a parliamentary debate on this serious social ill, referring to weekly, all-women “wild parties”: “One half dresses as they are—as women, while the other half dresses up as men. They bind their breasts, wear T-shirts, slacks, men's shoes and very short hair with glossy hairgel—just like young boys. … Even worse, the girls would hug each other and kiss; or one ‘type’ would sit on the lap of the other ‘type.’” The MP asked the Home Affairs Ministry to “come down hard on discos and bars that do these ‘strange’ things, so that parents and teachers can feel reassured.” Au Waipang, “Foam Party in Parliament,” Yawningbread.org (March 1999).

⁶⁰ Chua, “Saying No,” pp. 218, 242.

⁶¹ Baden Offord, “Singaporean Queering of the Internet: Toward a New Form of Cultural Transmission of Rights Discourse,” in Chris Berry, Fran Martin and Audrey Yue (eds), Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 133–134.

⁶² For specific ways in which this dichotomy is maintained, see Kwa, “Singapore Women”; or Heng and Devan, “State Fatherhood.”

⁶³ Offord, “The Burden of (Homo)Sexual Identity in Singapore,” p. 307.

⁶⁴ The “radical potential” of the coalitions thus implied is far less than in the United States, but Cathy Cohen's musings on the common interests of those at the margins of heteronormativity still seem germane. Cathy J. Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?,” GLQ 3 (1997).

⁶⁵ One letter to the editor of a local paper, invoking the specter of “sodomy, bestiality and even sado-masochism,” implored: “If we permit oral sex on the basis that it gives rise to pleasure and that more people are practicing it … [t]he number of pregnancies will decline and there will probably be a rise in alternative lifestyle practices that will threaten the institution of the family” (Today, March 18, 2004). Who knew?

⁶⁶ Offord, “Singaporean Queering of the Internet,” p. 136.

⁶⁷ Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” p. 23.

⁶⁸ PLU, NUSS Forum—Legislating Sexual Behaviour: Should the State Be in Our Bedrooms? People Like Us, March 29, 2004 (cited March 31, 2004), available online at: < www.geocities.com/plusg1/papers_01.htm>.

⁶⁹ Russell Heng Hiang Khng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet: The Before and After of the Increasingly Visible Gay Community in Singapore,” Journal of Homosexuality 40:3/4 (2001), pp. 82–83.

⁷⁰ Russell Heng Hiang Khng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet: The Before and After of the Increasingly Visible Gay Community in Singapore,” Journal of Homosexuality 40:3/4 (2001), pp. 81–83.

⁷¹ Interview with Russell Heng, December 2, 2003, Singapore. This tendency persists (for instance, New Paper, November 19, 2003; Lianhe Wanbao, series beginning July 9, 2004).

⁷² Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” pp. 20–21.

⁷³ William Peterson, “The Queer Stage in Singapore,” in Joseph Lo and Huang Guoqin (eds), People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003).

⁷⁴ Altman, “The Emergence of ‘Modern’ Gay Identities and the Question of Human Rights,” pp. 222–223.

⁷⁵ Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” p. 12.

⁷⁶ For instance, AfA conducted a large-scale, detailed survey of men who have sex with men (MSM) in 2002–2003 to gauge knowledge and behavior and tailor intervention strategies. In the Pink, AFA's MSM Survey 2002/2003 Results, n.d. (cited April 23, 2004), available online at: < www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid = 326&viewarticle = 1>.

⁷⁷ Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” pp. 21–22, 27–28.

⁷⁸ Most of this information (through 2003) is from PLU, History at Length; and Heng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet.”

⁷⁹ Leong, “Singapore,” p. 138.

⁸⁰ PLU tried first to register more furtively as a company in 1995 but its application was rejected. Joseph Lo, “Copernicus Revolution in PLU,” in People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore, pp. 133–134.

⁸¹ PLU posted the full exchange on its website, generating seven million “hits” in two years. Heng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet,” p. 92.

⁸² Five years earlier, the court had annulled a post-op FTM's marriage on grounds that both partners were female. Leong, “Singapore,” p. 134. Up until that point, transsexuals had been allowed to marry upon production of an identity card showing their current sex (and not a birth certificate stating their sex at birth). The 1996 amendments reverted to that initial policy (Straits Times, August 30, 1996).

⁸³ Chua, “Saying No,” p. 235; Leong, “Singapore,” p. 134; Straits Times, August 30, 1996 and June 8, 2003.

⁸⁴ Lee served as prime minister from independence through 1990, when he voluntarily handed power over to his deputy Goh Chok Tong. Lee assumed the specially-created position of “senior minister.” Lee's son Hsien Loong took the reins from Goh in August 2004.

⁸⁵ PLU, History at Length. Less than two years later, Lee went further in an interview for American National Public Radio, stipulating, “if you molest somebody and try to make him a homosexual, particularly if he's a minor, then the law will be enforced. … And if you have consenting adults, well, God bless both of them.” Au Waipang, “Radio Journalists Ask the Gay Question,” Yawningbread.org (December 2000). Lee's statement on consensual homosex was the first by a cabinet minister.

⁸⁶ PLU, History at Length.

⁸⁷ Au Waipang, “Singapore as Travesty,” Yawningbread.org (October 1997).

⁸⁸ A cognate government feedback-gathering initiative, “Remaking Singapore,” spawned an extended and heated discussion of homosexuality in Singapore in mid-2002 in its online discussion board, suggesting the higher profile GLBT issues (and Christian anti-gay opposition) have garnered in recent years. Au Waipang, “Remaking Singapore—the Homosexuality Thread,” Yawningbread.org (August 2002).

⁸⁹ Quoted in Straits Times, May 27, 2000.

⁹⁰ Au Waipang, “The Forum Attempt,” Yawningbread.org (June 2000). A cabinet minister elaborated: “I do not believe that a single group of people in Singapore has the right to publicise its lifestyle and impose it on others. I am an avid golfer, but I do not hold a forum on golfing to say how much I love golf and convince others it is good.” Quoted in Au, “The Forum Attempt.”

⁹¹ Straits Times, October 7, 2000.

⁹² Safehaven, One Church's Crusade against Homosexuality, Sintercom, 2001 (cited January 9, 2004), available online at: < www.geocities.com/newsintercom/sp/interviews/coos.html>.

⁹³ Lo and Huang, People Like Us.

⁹⁴ For instance, New Paper, March 2, 2003.

⁹⁵ Leona Lo, My Sisters—Their Stories (Singapore: Viscom Editions, 2003).

⁹⁶ Russell Heng suggests Goh chose to use gays as an (unsolicited) example partly because he was catering to an international audience and knew this issue would get favorable press without endangering any parliamentary seats. Thus, the gay issue may divert attention from more sensitive ones like race and religion, grant an appearance of openness, and yet have little concrete electoral or policy impact (interview, December 2, 2003, Singapore). At the same time, neither the goal nor the result was to garner a sudden influx of GLBT civil servants or “foreign talent.”

⁹⁷ Goh, “Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's Interview with Time Asia Editor Karl Greenfeld and Southeast Asia Correspondent Simon Elegant on 5 Feb 2003 at the Istana”; Straits Times, July 4, 2003.

⁹⁸ Au, “Radio Journalists Ask the Gay Question.”

⁹⁹ For instance, PLU sent a letter to all members of parliament and to local and foreign media urging decriminalization of all oral sex (PLU press statement, January 25, 2004). Their logic was that statistically, at least some of the offspring of Singapore's 94 MPs are surely gay, and those parents should not render their children criminals. Not all MPs appreciated the emotional appeal, nor would they “push ahead of what wider society is able to support” (in the words of one MP) to cater to a “special interest group” (Straits Times, January 27, 2004).

¹⁰⁰ Au Waipang, “The Monkey on Their Backs,” Yawningbread.org (July 2003).

¹⁰¹ Lee Hsien Loong, “I Have No Doubt Our Society Must Open up Further,” Straits Times, January 7, 2004.

¹⁰² Even so, a total of only 10 of 1,236 applications have been rejected in the past five years. Straits Times, July 17, 2004.

¹⁰³ PLU, The Registry of Societies and Us, People Like Us, April 17, 2004 (cited April 27, 2004), available online at: < www.geocities.com/plusg1/ros_00.htm>.

¹⁰⁴ See PLU, The Registry of Societies and Us, People Like Us, April 17, 2004 (cited April 27, 2004), available online at: < www.geocities.com/plusg1/ros_00.htm> for the full correspondence. For analysis, see for instance, Paul Tan, “Why Singapore Shouldn't Ban Gay Group,” Fridae, April 24, 2004; AP, April 6, 2004; post by Roy Tan to SiGNeL, “PLU May Still Function,” April 5, 2004.

¹⁰⁵ Cited in Today, June 21, 2004.

¹⁰⁶ Government of Singapore, Report of Censorship Review Committee 2003 (Singapore: Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, 2003).

¹⁰⁷ Government of Singapore, pp. 15, 18.

¹⁰⁸ Streats, February 27, 2004.

¹⁰⁹ Straits Times, August 28, 2004.

¹¹⁰ PLU press statement, March 9, 2004.

¹¹¹ Post by Alfian Saat to SiGNeL, “Re: PELU sucks bigtime!,” March 9, 2004; also (on both these cases) post by Yawning Bread to SiGNeL, “Somebody Wrote an Article for Sg Review,” March 12, 2004. On the other hand, a forum organized by the National University of Singapore Society at the suggestion of PLU on the topic, “Legislating Sexual Behaviour: Should the State Be in Our Bedrooms?,” did take place on March 29, 2004. The audience even included two MPs. PLU, NUSS Forum—Legislating Sexual Behaviour.

¹¹² Fridae, March 23, 2005.

¹¹³ Sunday Times, March 14, 2004.

¹¹⁴ Cherian George, “Singapore: Media at the Mainstream and the Margins,” in Russell Heng Hiang Khng (ed.), Media Fortunes, Changing Times: Asean States in Transition (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), pp. 178–179.

¹¹⁵ This incident—in which a performance artist snipped his pubic hair in symbolic protest against gay entrapment cases—reached the cabinet and National Arts Council, and “signaled the curtailing of the liberalizing trend in Singapore”: the government reprimanded that artist and cracked down on all unscripted performance art. Leong, “Singapore,” pp. 136–137, PLU, History at Length.

¹¹⁶ Leong, “Singapore,” pp. 139–140, Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” p. 15.

¹¹⁷ Offord, “Singaporean Queering of the Internet,” p. 142.

¹¹⁸ Leong, “Walking the Tightrope,” p. 18.

¹¹⁹ Media Development Authority, Internet Code of Practice (http://www.mda.gov.sg/medium/internet/i_codenpractice.html: 1997), clause 4(2)(e).

¹²⁰ George, “Singapore,” pp. 189–191.

¹²¹ George, “Singapore,” pp. 189–191

¹²² Offord, “Singaporean Queering of the Internet,” p. 143.

¹²³ Today, March 1, 2004.

¹²⁴ Email to Fridae Users from webmaster, “Fridae Announcement—6 January 2004,” January 6, 2004.

¹²⁵ K. C. Ho, Zaheer Baber and Habibul Khondker, “‘Sites’ of Resistance: Alternative Websites and State–Society Relations,” British Journal of Sociology 53:1 (2002), p. 133.

¹²⁶ Offord, “Singaporean Queering of the Internet,” p. 152.

¹²⁷ Heng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet,” p. 90.

¹²⁸ 10.1% identified as Christian in the census of 1980, 12.7% in 1990, and 14.6% in 2000. Government of Singapore, Singapore Population, p. 6. Still, the Christian critique is particularly salient since Christianity is the only religion in Singapore besides Buddhism that is growing at a significant rate, plus the religion “most strongly associated with the indices of socioeconomic progress and upwardly mobile class status.” Robbie B. H. Goh, “Deus Ex Machina: Evangelical Sites, Urbanism, and the Construction of Social Identities,” in Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Wei Wei Yeo (eds), Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 307–308.

¹²⁹ Goh, “From the Valley to the Highlands.”

¹³⁰ Heng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet,” p. 88.

¹³¹ Straits Times, July 12, 2003.

¹³² Linda Weiss, “Globalization and the Myth of the Powerless State,” New Left Review 225 (1997), pp. 3–27.

¹³³ Tan Chong Kee, “Transcending Sexual Nationalism and Colonialism: Cultural Hybridization as Process of Sexual Politics in ‘90s Taiwan,” in John C. Hawley (ed.), Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001), pp. 123–124.

¹³⁴ Heng, “Tiptoe out of the Closet,” p. 95.

¹³⁵ Offord, “The Burden of (Homo)Sexual Identity in Singapore,” p. 308.

¹³⁶ Tan, “Transcending Sexual Nationalism and Colonialism,” pp. 126–127.

¹³⁷ John D'Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity,” in Roger N. Lancaster and Micaela di Leonardo (eds), The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy (New York: Routledge, 1997).

¹³⁸ Dennis Altman, “On Global Queering,” Australian Humanities Review, July–August 1996: Dennis Altman, “Rupture or Continuity? The Internationalization of Gay Identities,” Social Text 48:14 (1996).

¹³⁹ Peter A. Jackson, “Gay Capitals in Global Gay History: Cities, Local Markets, and the Origins of Bangkok's Same-Sex Cultures,” in Ryan Bishop, John Phillips and Wei Wei Yeo (eds), Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 160. Altman cautions, however, that even if it appears that the forces of globalization foster a global common consciousness and identity based on homosexuality, sex/gender structures cannot be discussed independently of sociopolitical ones, such that not all societies proceed in a linear way toward a “Western-style queerness.” Altman, “Rupture or Continuity?”

¹⁴⁰ Jackson, “Gay Capitals in Global Gay History,” p. 160.

¹⁴¹ Au Waipang, “Singapore Needs to Think About Gay Marriage Now,” Yawningbread.org (March 2004).

¹⁴² Jackson, “Gay Capitals in Global Gay History,” p. 161.

¹⁴³ For instance, Reuters, March 7, 2004; Straits Times, March 16, 2004.

¹⁴⁴ Ann Pellegrini, “Consuming Lifestyle: Commodity Capitalism and Transformations in Gay Identity,” in Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé and Martin F. Manalansan, IV (eds), Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism (New York: NYU Press, 2002), pp. 135, 139.

¹⁴⁵ Logarta, Oh Behave, Singapore.

¹⁴⁶ Interview, December 2, 2003, Singapore.

¹⁴⁷ Tan, “Transcending Sexual Nationalism and Colonialism,” p. 126.

¹⁴⁸ Altman, “The Emergence of ‘Modern’ Gay Identities and the Question of Human Rights,” p. 224.

¹⁴⁹ Au Waipang, “Explaining Singapore,” Yawningbread.org (March 1997; revised March 2000).

¹⁵⁰ Haggard, “The Evolution of Social Contracts in Asia.”

¹⁵¹ For instance, Florida's arguments about tolerance of gays and economic competitiveness were cited to bolster a referendum campaign to overturn an anti-gay amendment in Cincinnati in the 2004 US elections.

¹⁵² Weiss, “Globalization and the Myth of the Powerless State.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meredith Weiss

*My sincere thanks to Stephan Haggard, Russell Heng, Eileena Lee, Roger Winder, and Sek Yong for their assistance and encouragement, and to Joe Peschek, Stephanie Di Alto and an anonymous reviewer for their suggestions. All remaining faults are of course my own.