Hi Charmaine,

Thanks for reaching out to me. I understand the hesitancy about the illegal gay sex law. I need to provide a quick history of this, hope you won't mind.

So in 1819, when the British rented Singapore from the local landlord, they implemented a sightly remixed UK Penal Code here and in India.

One statute within that, Section 377 - and its subsections (a, b, etc.) deal with sexual crimes "against the order of nature". Yes, we inherited a legal system making LGBTQ+ sex illegal.

BUT here's the kicker - the original law criminalizes "carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals". So that means oral or anal sex, fingering, using sex toys - EVEN between heterosexual adults, was illegal too! This was clearly bonkers.

Since we gained independence in 1964, the original law has been slowly broken down to be more specific, separate subsections for bestiality, etc.

But as this was happening, guess who shows up protesting? Religious zealots - who happen to form a large majority in Singapore. Repeal it altogether, and they will be out in force.

So now the law is frozen at its most reduced version without disappearing altogether. Only men cannot cannot have sex with men. Lesbians? All good.

This is still too little for the zealots, but also more than the LGBTQ+ community feel is fair either. In other words, 377A in Singapore today is nothing more than a token of appeasement. The stalemate pieces leftover from a decolonization process.

To ensure that 377A never gets weaponized against gay men, the law minister and police have publicly stated that gays and pride parades are fine by them, and what you do in the bedroom as adults is none of the state's business. Workplace discrimination is also illegal.

Today, 377A is only enforced as an additional criminal charge on top of other sexual offences - like when a male forces himself on another male.

I hope that answers your question!