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Negotiating LGBTQ rights in Singapore: The margin as a place of refusal

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  • Kamalini Ramdas

Abstract

The complex diversity of urban life in cities is often the cause of social friction but it can also spark change. Densely populated cities are places where individuals find community but they are also places where some communities become marginalised and excluded. In the city-state of Singapore community-based activism is an important strategy for minority groups claiming a right to their place in the city. Conceptualising the margin as a place of refusal, the paper focuses on how Singapore’s LGBTQ communities have contested and negotiated from their place at the margins of the city-state, calling into question the Singapore State’s hegemonic narratives of family and community for heteronormative nation-building. These contestations have resulted in strategies that both adopt and elide individual rights-based narratives that have centred primarily on the repeal of Section 377A of Singapore’s penal code. While the repeal of 377A remains critical, the paper focuses on three examples of Sayoni’s community advocacy, Pink Dot and education, which extend the discourse beyond the issue of repeal, and the single identity category of sexuality. Even as the fight for repeal continues, LGBTQ subjects are resisting, negotiating and advocating against violence, discrimination and making space for love and community in ways that co-opt and destabilise social norms in Singapore, thus occupying the margin as a place of radical openness.

Suggested Citation

  • Kamalini Ramdas, 2021. "Negotiating LGBTQ rights in Singapore: The margin as a place of refusal," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1448-1462, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:7:p:1448-1462
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098020962936
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Chang, Pao-Li & Nguyen, Phuong T. B., 2019. "Made in Singapore," Economics and Statistics Working Papers 1-2019, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1305-1326, May.
    2. Emma Spruce, 2021. "The place of transversal LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1520-1528, May.
    3. Amin Ghaziani, 2021. "People, protest and place: Advancing research on the emplacement of LGBTQ+ urban activisms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(7), pages 1529-1540, May.

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