Hi, I am Roy. I am gay and this is my story.
When I was in Primary 5, my form teacher had made me
the class chairperson. He felt that I had the maturity and responsibility to
represent the class. In Primary 6, I was given the Model Student of the Year
award. This continued in my later school years, where in Secondary 1, I was
made the class chairperson, before becoming a student councillor, and also in
my junior college years, when I was made the class representative, and
representatives of most subjects that I had undertaken. Things weren’t always
rosy. Learning to be responsible was based on trial and error. It was also a
journey to understand myself, to understand what was right and wrong and what I
should do, in a position of responsibility. But so is life.
In Primary 5, there was a Malay girl and an Indian
girl who had kept to themselves. The class was made up of largely Chinese
students and because they were more comfortable speaking in Mandarin, they had
formed cliques among themselves, mostly. I decided to make friends with the
Malay and Indian girls, partly because I never felt myself as belonging to
cliques, and they also seemed like friendly people. When I was in reservist a
few weeks ago, there was this Indian guy who was in the same vocation as some
of us but when we had gone for a firing range, he had kept silent mostly. Most
of the other guys were simply more comfortable speaking in Mandarin because of
their background. So, I thought that I would start making conversations with
him, since if it was me, I would like to be able to speak to someone for the
hours that we were going to be there. It turned out that he was a funny and
smart guy and we had engaging conversations. Some other people also began
having conversations with him because he was interesting to talk to! In my
current group of close friends, two of my closest friends are Malay. I do not
seek out specifically to make friends of any ethnicity but if it so happens
that I hit it off well with anybody, I would be grateful for the opportunity to
establish closer relationships with them.
I had generally done quite well in school.
Academically, I was top in Geography, English Literature and Art in some of my
secondary and junior college years and had won awards. I was also on the Dean’s
List for one semester when I had studied in the National University of
Singapore. (I do not mean to bring this up because I am proud of my academic
achievements and want to highlight them – no. What I want is to share with you
the different facets of my life, so please understand it in this way.)
I wasn’t really an athlete though. I know some gay
guys are. But I am not. I am bad with balls, period. Not all balls of course. I
was good with the shuttlecock. But that’s because mom had also represented her
school in badminton and she taught us how to play it well – at least then! So
yes, I am generally terrible with most balls and I am relatively OK with the
shuttlecock, thank god.
When I was in national service, I was what you would
describe as being “garang”. I was always one of the first to do things or to
volunteer, if it was within my capability. See, I had believed that if we could
do things fast, and if we could help each other along, we could get things done
quicker and we could move things along faster. During my NSF days, I could even
manage gold for IPPT and finished the Standard Obstacle Course in about 8
minutes. For the most part, I don’t believe in the regimentation that the army
had enforced though, because forced discipline takes the autonomy out of people
and it has been shown in numerous research that when people do not have the
autonomy to do things according to their own will, they would have lesser
commitments and ownership over what they do, and the standards would
necessarily be lowered. But of course, with autonomy comes responsibility, and
if we want to be given the trust to handle things, we would need to be aware of
this responsibility and exercise it wisely.
I told my family that I am gay at various stages in my
life. I had told 3 of my closest friends that I am gay when I was 15, and then
I had decided to tell my sister as well, who was older and whom I was close to.
She started telling me of many of her gay friends, who appeared out of nowhere,
and how they had decidedly turned straight all of a sudden. I told my mom when
I was 20. When she realised the meaning of what I had said, she cried and went
into “denial” for many years. I told my younger sister that I was gay when in
my early twenties. She never did speak to me about it in the initial years
after I told her. I never did tell my dad but I had brought my boyfriends home
before, and he has seen me surf gay social networking websites and go on mobile
phone applications.
Before I had told my family that I was gay, I thought
that we were the model family. We had relatively good relationships and we
would talk about issues and come out with solutions together. But after I told
them that I am gay, we grew apart. They didn’t know how to deal with the fact
that I was gay and I resented them for not being able to deal with it.
Gradually, I stopped feeling close to them and reduced the amount of
conversations that I had with them. I wanted to move out of the house. On
hindsight, I realised that they needed their time and space to deal with the
information that I had presented to them. No one had spoken to them about what
being gay is like, and what they knew about being gay was from what they had
heard or seen in the media – it was portrayed negatively and as something to be
judged. Because I had rejected them as well, I did not share with them more
about my life and had allowed them to also adopt these media-influenced
stereotypical views about me.
The turning point came when my older sister got
married a few years ago. I was so touched and happy for her. Slowly, my
defences towards my family came down and I started reaching out to them again.
In my eagerness to want to be accepted, I had forgotten that they, as well as
I, needed our time and space to learn more about one another and to grow with
one another in this journey. Only during then was I able to realise this and
could start allowing myself to open up to them again. I learnt to respect that
they have their journeys to understanding, just as I had mine, and we need to
learn to respect one another for that. Gradually, my sisters learnt and
understood that I am still a respectable person, who happens to be gay, and who
still believes in love, commitment and a long term partnership with someone
whom I can be with for a long time. My mother started speaking to me about
boys. Sometimes she would continue to be in a state of denial but sometimes she
would surprise me with her words of advice. I had asked her once about why I
had to go out with guys with which nothing would work out thereafter. She
advised that perhaps that was how I could then learn to find out more about
what I want in my partner – by meeting these men to learn more, and she was
right. Dad and I never discussed about my being gay, but I know he is OK
because he had once mentioned that no matter which partner that we choose to
eventually be with, what matters is that we are happy. And dad has learnt to
respect and trust me for what I know and understand.
During the few years when I was upset with my family,
I had also undergone a period of learning for myself. In my late teens and
early twenties, I have met, dated and gotten involved with many men. Some of
them came into my life for a few weeks or a month and then disappeared from my
life. I didn’t understand why and blamed myself for it. I thought that I wasn’t
good enough. I felt that there had to be something about me which people found
not worthy. Because of the low self worth that I had for myself, I started
rejecting other people in the same way that I was rejected. For many years, I
knew that I had low self esteem, and I knew that I needed to learn to become
stronger and more confident of myself. But I didn’t know how to. I thought that
if I could find someone else to love me that this person could help me become more
confident and that I could learn to love myself more. Of course this didn’t
happen because when they say you need to love yourself before you could love
someone, it is true. Because of my low self esteem, I would bring my
insecurities into relationships that I was in. I would start being distrustful
and judgmental towards my partners because I felt that I wasn’t good enough and
would come out with reasons to think that they would want to leave me for
someone else.
See, first of all, I didn’t know how to manage
relationships. I didn’t have any relationship to look to or learn from. I
wasn’t taught in school how to manage relationships or handle sexual relations.
As a society, we choose to be embarrassed about the very thing that we spring
out from. The sad thing is that as teenagers, we go through the same concerns
that our youths have – when should I have sex, should I have sex, what should I
do if my partner wants sex, how should I insist on condom use if my partner
doesn’t want to use a condom, and so on. As teenagers, we think about these
things but when we become parents, we choose to forget about these and we
choose to allow our youths to be put in harm’s way because we have issues
dealing with our own beliefs about sex. We become selfish. We think we have to
conform to certain norms – society says we cannot talk about sex and we
shouldn’t. My religion says I should not encourage discussion about sex and
even if I know that in my youth, I would need information on sexuality issues,
I will deny the right of youths to have that because my religion says so. We
think we know better, but truth is, we have become influenced by others and we
speak what others speak, and what authority speaks because we want to belong
and be part of a group. We are scared of being different, sidelined – to become
an outcast. And then we start discriminating. Against other ethnicities nationalities, the elderly etc. It becomes a
chronic societal issue.
In the past few years, I have embarked on a journey to
learn and discover more about myself. Along the way, I’ve read more than 100
books to learn how to love myself, to strengthen my self belief and become a
more confident person. Now I know that I need to believe in myself and my own
worth. I will insist on using condoms because I know that I need to protect my
own health. Over the past few years, I have tried to be less judgmental and to
be more empathetic. I try to understand the lives and circumstances of others
as far as I can so that I wouldn’t judge but would learn to then accept and
embrace who others are. I have learnt that if I can be happy and contended, I
would not look at others and compare myself with them. I’ve learnt that even if
others disagree with me or with what they believe to be me, I need to respect
that they should be given the space and time to understand and digest their
beliefs and make sense of them. For some people, they don’t think through their
beliefs because they choose to wholeheartedly absorb what is told to them, and
that’s fine. I have to respect that.
Why am I sharing this story with you, my fellow
Singaporeans. I am gay but being gay doesn’t define me. Being gay is only one
aspect of me which I am proud of, yes, but it is not something that makes me
who I am. It is definitely something that has enriched me. I had to learn to
understand why people choose to look at me differently and sometimes, judge me.
I had to learn to understand why people are not able to accept me and why they
hold the attitudes they hold. It has made me more introspective and more aware,
not only of myself, but of others as well, and for the better. I’ve learnt that
people judge because they do not know. They see a gay person and that’s all
they see. But is it any fault of theirs? Humans process information according
to how much they can contain – To understand that a gay person has different
aspects to his/her life takes time and most people simply think it’s easier to
judge a person as being gay than to understand the person as a whole. And this
is why I have decided to share this story. I am like the friend you have, your
classmate, neighbour or a family member. And I am gay. Are our lives any
different? No. But I am gay, and because of that, you might have certain
judgments because you think you should have them, because that’s what others
say you should have. I am giving us an opportunity to understand me better.
There are hundreds and thousands of gay men and women
in Singapore. Some of them live with low self esteem and self-judgment. Some of
them live their lives feeling lesser of themselves because they think that
their family or friends are not able to accept them. They are then unable to
have fulfilling relationships and lead destructive lives. But this doesn’t have
to be. I have learnt to be stronger and to learn to embrace myself. I have
learnt to understand the importance of my life and to live it as proudly as I
can. And I know my fellow gay friends can as well. But we need your
understanding.
What I am asking for is a right to live my life as a
person. I seek to live a life where I lead mine, and you lead yours, and we
learn to understand and respect one another and our spaces. What I am asking
for is not for the right to love to be returned to be but for the right for me
to love to be reinstated back in the law, for the law to not make me a lesser
human being. Whether people accept me or not, I will lead my life proudly
because I am assured of myself. But I hope that they do because as a whole, we
can make this world a better place. Truly, we can.
I am writing this because I care for the people around
me and I want them to lead happier, fulfilling lives.
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