A new generation of Singapore queer activists is being born, and it's happening on the Internet. Harnessing the new technologies of the web, young people are reaching out to each other, trying to forge a community of empowered gay youth.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to many of us. After all, young people have always adapted faster to advances in tech, and the Internet's been enormously helpful for the development of a gay community in Asia. Time Magazine even noted in March 2001 that what the West had done for gay liberation in 25 years, Asia was accomplishing in five years because of the Internet.
It's true that the big names in our local activist scene are mostly in their '30s or above, and the country's most popular gay male blogger is surely 54-year-old Alex Au of Yawning Bread who also writes a column for Fridae. But our most popular gay female blogger would have to be the 21-year-old Adrianna of Popagandhi. It's also worth noting that several established gay-centered organisations in Singapore, such as the RedQueen mailing list and the Safehaven Christian group, were founded by leaders when they were in their early or mid 20s.
Growing up in the age of casual Internet use has given the new generation of activists a unique perspective on coming out. "I came out on the Internet first - then only could I even think of coming out to people in real life," remarks Indu, 18, of Plume.sg. "The Internet is our playground, in so many ways."
Many of this generation first begin sharing their sexual identity on their blogs - a relatively safe, semi-anonymous space for personal disclosure, but also one with tremendous potential for influence. Jasper Chen, 17, remembers coming out a year ago on his popularly-read blog. "It was a mass coming-out, a major coming-out," he recalls.
He mentions the case earlier this year of Colinandkero.blogspot.com - a blog by two 17-year-old gay Singaporeans which chronicled their romance in detail, with G-rated photographs of them kissing each other on the cheek. This site received hundreds of comments for every posting, both homophobic and supportive, and its address was forwarded under pretenses of fascination and disgust to almost every wired Singaporean below the age of 22. The two boys had more of a political impact on their generation than most professional activists could ever dream of. Their blog was shut down, sadly, following their breakup three months later.
The groups on the followings pages mainly focus on strengthening bonds and culture in the gay community. They are determinedly non-commercial, providing free access to their ideas through the Web. Some, however, of them retain some of the distance and safety of blogs, never directly confrontational with government bodies. "Gone are the days when activists walk down the streets with placards and banners," mourns Sagara, 22, a filmmaker.
One thing's for certain, however - you can't criticise the young people we've interviewed of being ignorant and apathetic about activism. These kids care about a lot more than partying, sex and homework - they're idealistic, and they're building the gay communities of the future.
Zee, 20, Editor-in-Chief of Plume, may say it best: "I think our generation is going to push the envelope."
PLUME.SG
I'm at a lunch meeting with the editorial team of Plume.sg. Launched at the end of August 2006, Plume is a news and resource site specifically designed to empower LGBT youth in Singapore, with a mission to provide a platform for self-expression through writing and community building.
Zee is chairing. Only 20 years old, between polytechnic studies and army service, he alternately describes himself as "an aspiring writer," "a raging politicqueerosaurus" and "a serial club hopper." Not long ago, he and Gayguy, aka 17-year-old Jasper Chen, were the masterminds behind Gay to the Bone, a blog that began a year ago where gay, lesbian and bisexual people could share their coming-out stories and experiences.
I steal some of Zee's egg sushi and ask him why he started up Plume.sg.
"In truth, it was out of frustration," he admits. "I was an angsty teenager who realised there was a lack of resources for gay teens and youths in Singapore. In terms of community building, there still are gaps which needs to be filled for gay society to progress. I guess it's part youthful idealism, part motivation, part insanity, part defiance towards mainstream society and an irrational anger at the gay community for being helpless about its young. "Gay youth" is a prickly subject and the adults can't go all out and do anything really active because it's a minefield. Someone has to do it."
Over the course of IndigNation, Singapore's queer pride month, Zee and GayGuy gathered writers below the age of 23 who'd be willing to contribute thoughtful articles to the site. Features range from political rants to poetry to musings on gym culture. Occasionally, trained counsellors are invited to write pieces on how to endure coming out.
Surveying the team, I notice that our table could be a racial harmony poster - the writers are Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian; gay, lesbian, bisexual and "pomosexual" - and there's news of a young lesbian male-to-female transsexual writer coming on board. Surprisingly for a queer group, they're experiencing a "testosterone shortage" - more queer girls than guys are coming forward to volunteer as writers.
All the members are busy people - they're in polytechnic, junior college, university and army - but still they're eagerly thinking up new initiatives. They're figuring out how to engage with Pink.sg, a youth-led open blog with similar themes. In the middle of a discussion on outings and events (ensuring the safety of youth in this context), someone suggests printing gay pride T-shirts, and a new debate arises.
Indu (better known as Pleinelune) is possibly the busiest of the writers. At the age of 18, she's in a top junior college, four days away from taking her A-levels. This hasn't stopped her from serving as a supporting member of Plume, as well as volunteering as the co-head for the Youth Outreach Programme of Action For AIDS, and being a founding member and Administrator of Sayoni.com, a one-year-old forum for queer Asian women.
"Barely a year later after I came out to myself, I started blogging," she explains. "I soon found myself debating hotly on mailing lists, especially on certain topics in Signel [a gay mailing list in Singapore]. I realised there was so much that queer men did not know about queer women and so many prejudices to break down. It was going to be difficult empowering women in such an environment. This was what sparked the beginning of Sayoni, with a group of women I had met there."
She acknowledges that it hasn't been easy, trying to balance activist work and school life. "Being a teen activist means you have to field urgent calls and messages from your colleagues during lectures and tutorials," she says. "It is having to worry about whether the website you manage has gone down while your peers gossip about teachers. But it has been a worthwhile experience. I would not trade this for 4As and 3 Special paper distinctions [the highest pinnacle of achievement for a JC student] and an accompanying ABC scholarship from ABC institution."
Ironically, neither Zee nor Indu are explicitly out to their families. But that hasn't hindered their ambitions for how to develop Plume in the future.
"We're cooking up plans," says Zee gleefully. "We're using the Internet to reach out and establish ourselves first, so everyone in the current editorial team is a founding member with varying degrees of involvement. The site that you see is really the virtual version of a gay organisation, by youth, for youth, still in its infancy."
QUEERCAST
Queercast, Singapore's first gay podcast, is uploaded weekly by 21-year-olds Nicholas Deroose and Ian Lee, with hefty tech support from the 17-year-old Jasper Chen, who's also a founding member of Plume.sg.
When I find them, the three of them are having burgers at Carl's Junior. I congratulate them on their fifth podcast. Hosted on Blogspot, it's another mix of madcap, queeny humour by Ian and Nicholas, a 30-minute frolic through news of gay wrestlers in the US and threats of expulsion of lesbians in Singapore schools.
"We try and combine entertainment and education in a local context," Nicholas says.
"Hey, that was my line!" pipes up Ian.
"Okay, Ian came up with that, you can quote him," concedes Nicholas.
The two boys have natural chemistry as MCs because of their close friendship. "We've been friends since Year 1 in Polytechnic, five years," Ian says. They met through TPAJ, a now-defunct gay, lesbian and bisexual support group that started up in their school - though Ian admits that it wasn't a case of instant bonding. "When I first met Nick, I'm like uuggggh!! So noisy!" he says. "But of course he clawed his way in, and after a while it's like bidda-bada-boom, we're best friends."
"The real saving grace of this show is definitely Jasper," adds Nicholas. "For a while right, Ian and me were having real technical difficulties. We really appreciate jasper's work."
Since their first upload on September 19, 2006, Nicholas and Ian have tackled topics serious, risqu�, and taboo, including HIV, gay rights, masturbation, and speculation over which celebrities are gay, trying and maintain a balance between fun and information. The show's has already featured social worker Leow Yangfa as guest star, who with Nicholas was featured in SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century, a publication of the queer support group Oogachaga and most recently drag queen Bernice who is familiar face in the clubbing scene.
The team's still building a following, with over 100 uploads of their fourth episode. But they've been especially glad to receive some very positive feedback already. They're especially enthusiastic about their latest fan mail, from a gay female listener, who said she was touched and that her straight friends were also fans.
"I was like, oh cool! Lesbians are listening to us too?" says Ian. "We're finding our female fanbase."
"Yeah," agrees Nicholas. "We want to reach out to the entire community. It's a very male-dominated scene out there, but we want to reach out to all the four letters of the GLBT - the giblets."
It's tough for the three boys to find time to meet together - Jasper is in polytechnic, Nicholas is still serving his army service, and Ian is working. But they're intent on developing this project. They've already bought a new domain name of Queercast.net. "This is probably going to get too big to hold onto a public domain website," says Ian. "We decided to go a little bit more professional."
For upcoming episodes, Nicholas is hoping to invite Oogachaga Co-ordinator Bryan Choong. "We want to cover all aspects of the queer community," he emphasises. "People are not aware that there are other colours in the rainbow flag."
THE LETTER
In the wake of the Short Circuit screening of gay and lesbian films in Singapore, it's clear that there are a quite a number of young queer filmmakers putting out gay-themed work, some of which is received with approval at mainstream film festivals both locally and abroad.
The Letter, however, was a short film that generated some controversy upon its release on the Internet. Created last year by a 22-year-old director who wishes only to be known as Sagara, the movie is based on the true story of an acquaintance of his in school, an openly gay senior student from junior college who committed suicide over unrequited love for a straight schoolmate.
The film was shot as part of the Canon Digital Film Festival, and Anderson Junior College (AJC) was kind enough to allow Sagara and his team to film on the school premises. Although the film didn't make it into the finals of the competition, Sagara and his team were pleased to receive a warm response during a screening at Mox Bar and Cafe.
"Subsequently, I got mails from people asking me about the film," Sagara says. "I decided to put it up on Youtube for better access... Youtube is the main place to get your film across."
The 26-minute movie was uploaded on Februrary 9, 2006. Comments were mixed: some viewers found it touching to the point of tears, while others found it amateurish, a judgment which the director himself agrees with, since it's his first film. However, the most significant response came from an institution: the same school that had been so generous with its premises to begin with.
Sagara remembers: "I got a call from AJC asking me how come I got the permission to shoot this film. They even threatened to sue me if I continued to put it up on the net. The film did not implicate the school at all. We merely borrowed the uniform (we made
sure no badges were shown though) and we only used their location (we were careful not to show any AJC logo)."
Sagara's been tactical about defending his right to distribute his film. "They gave me a warning and I decided to let things cool off by taking it off from Youtube for a while. But then, people started asking for it again. So recently, I put it up on Youtube again. Well, until those people from AJC come a-knocking again."
Some critics have condemned the pessimistic depiction of gay life in The Letter, but Sagara claims he wants to use the film to show the tragedy of obsessive infatuation instead. "Hopefully people WON'T commit suicide over love," he says. "It's just not worth it, hurting other people." His films aren't meant to be seen as political mouthpieces, either. "I'm proud that The Letter lent a voice to the gay community, but it wasn't intentional. I'm keen to do gay-related films, but I wouldn't say I'm being a gay activist. That's too much of a responsibility to bear."
For now, Sagara is working on several new projects, including writing musicals and a feature-length film, also gay-themed, entitled Carmen and Joe, to be released in mid-2007. Naturally, Sagara isn't the only gay filmmaker using the Internet as a means of broadcasting. Director Boo Junfeng, also 22 years old, has been listed by Singapore newspaper The Straits Times as one of 25 young people to look out for, and recently used Youtube to upload a promotional ad for the book SQ21. The beauty of Internet video-sharing is that it allows the powerful medium of video to be distributed without messy negotiations with broadcasting stations. A virtual unknown can make an image that will be seen by thousands.
What other youth-led initiatives have sprung up across Asia, both online and offline? If you know of anything, post it as a comment - after all, these young adults are building our future.