Please click the following links to learn more about each session/presentation.

What is a Safe Place? Meanings of Home and Housing for Queer Singaporeans

The private place of the home is meant to be a “safe space”, a concept especially important for queer people who may have to hide their sexuality from various audiences. However, Singapore’s public housing policies are heavily heteronormative, and 80% of the residents live in public housing, meaning that the home is not necessarily a “safe space”. This situation of unsafe homes allows us to rethink our understanding of the meanings of public and private spaces and their relation to safety.

Pamela Devan (she/her) - Pamela is currently a Research Fellow at ASE NTU. Her interests are in place, space, and home.

Towards a Politics of Becoming: Queer Placemaking Strategies in Singapore’s Nightlife

This presentation explores queer placemaking strategies employed by lesbian-queers in Singapore, focusing on how nightlife emerges as a a critical site for identity formation and community building. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2023-2024, I argue that nightlife emerges as a thriving site in rendering the possibilities of queer becoming. Queer placemaking practices infuse queer aesthetics to queer environments, facilitating a transformative politics of care, pleasure, and community through embodied dance, practice, and performance.

Denyse Tan (she/they) - Denyse's research interests focus on the intersections of gender, sexuality, space, and performance, exploring how these dynamics shape the urban fabric of cities. Denyse holds a BA (Hons) in Urban Studies and Anthropology from Yale-NUS College. In her free time, you can find her spinning some beats at your local coffee shop.

Home, truly: renting, resistance, and social reproduction in queer Singapore

The social consequences of private property and financialization are well explored, however, their relationship with queer sexualities are under-examined and under-theorised. Globally, housing has undergone processes of financialization alongside the rise of an asset-based welfare regime. Even in Singapore, public housing has transcended its role as dwellings and have become a vehicle for the accumulation of surplus value. Whereas research on public housing has remained dominant in Singapore, this paper looks at the private rental sector, which has become a site where young queer Singaporeans turn to because of heteronormative housing eligibility criteria and unsafe home environments. Using ethnography and participatory photography, renting emerges as a site for profound queer embodiment and expression while subsuming queer bodies into processes of social reproduction. Thus, queerness is enmeshed and entangled with private property, shedding light on how queer sexualities respond to, and are shaped by, financial capitalism.

Gao Ding 高鼎 (any pronouns) - Gao Ding is currently a research masters student at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore. Ding’s research interests lay at the intersection of queer studies and political economy. 

Indonesian Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youths: Exploring Lived Experience Through Photovoice

TGNC (Transgender & Gender Nonconforming) youths are at high risk for poor medical and psychosocial outcomes, including an increased risk for depression, suicide, and self-harming behaviors, as well as being more vulnerable to distressing situations involving other people. This study aims to explore the value TGNC youths hold in their identity and their lived experience in Indonesia. A phenomenological approach was used in this study, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Five participants, aged 19-24, who identify as gender non-conforming and transgender, were interviewed in this study. Semi-structured interviews and photovoice were used as part of the data collection method. Three themes were found in this study: the development and value of gender identity, transgenderism within Indonesia, support and discrimination.

M. Minharul Albi (he/him) - Muhammad Minharul Albi, is a psychology graduate from Gadjah Mada University with a keen interest in gender and queer studies.

Being, Learning, and Creating: Connecting the Dots from Queer Theory to Praxis

My presentation explores three interconnected themes surrounding queer pedagogy – being in queer educational spaces when I was a student, my recent master’s research on examining the characteristics of queer-inclusive pedagogical spaces and their transformative impacts on LGBTQ+ students, and my current work where I teach and facilitate classes on gender and sexuality. I outline some of my key findings from my past research, and how they undergird my present teaching philosophy, as well as my current experiences, followed by discussing some of the challenges of researching versus creating queer-inclusive and safe spaces.

LH Alex (she/they) - I am a teaching assistant and completed my Bachelor and Master of Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore.

“Take my Revolution” – The Creation of a New Lesbian Subjectivity in the Yuri Genre from Revolutionary Girl Utena to The Witch from Mercury

For the past century, the lesbian subject has often been neglected in media representation, existence shunned for her threat towards patriarchy. This project examines how the marginalised, othered lesbian subject comes to exist in the yuri anime genre, specifically looking at the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2022). It will examine how the provision of fantasy spaces in these anime allow for a new type of girlhood to develop, one that is eventually able to reject patriarchal norms entirely to offer the possibility of a radically different set of gendered relations with other girls. The project then proceeds to argue how once this subject is thus emancipated, she then becomes free to form greater bonds of solidarity with other marginalised groups in understanding how patriarchy and capitalism connect to dehumanise and control bodies. The rejection and dismantling of patriarchal and capitalistic structures of oppression thus create the possibility of liberation and a better world for all.

Charlotte Chong (she/her) - Literature Graduate from Yale-NUS College, trans lesbian, and enjoyer of anime and manga.

Chemsex as lines of flight? Critical Deleuzean perspectives on chemical intimacies

This presentation employs a queer deleuzean framing to illustrate how chemical-sexual encounters among men can offer deterritorialising flights of fantasy and freedom from a heteronormative social structure. Even though it is committed to a critical-political discussion on chemical-sexual intimacies, it has not shied away from incorporating heartfelt anecdotes that perpetuate medico-moral, public health perspectives. Overall, this presentation contends that chemsex lines of flight are dynamic, in that deterritorialising flights of freedom/fantasy can devolve into paralysing lines of fright or non-flight. These lines of fright typically catalyse reterritorialising propensities to rehabilitate the drug-taking self.

Tan Qian Hui (she/they) - Tan Qian Hui is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asian Migration Cluster at Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (NUS). Her PhD dissertation investigated the ways in which single individuals in Singapore queer or problematise intimate relationalities and temporal scripts.

A Scholar, a Glow-Glow Dancer and a Gentleman: Transformative Body-Oriented Leadership for the Obliteration of Trauma in Contemporary Singapore

This presentation is a critical autoethnographic examination of the Tigrisoneru or Dreamtiger indigenous Kristang archetype, and its role in the socioecological milleu of contemporary Singapore through a consideration of its most visible manifestations still ongoing today: multimodal performance art in the form of publicly accessible, visible, radically subversive and provocative poetry posted on social media paired with mirror selfies where I appear shirtless, in just underwear and/or completely naked. I also explore how this archetype challenges and pushes back against sustained abuse related to me being the first openly gay, non-binary and polyamorous ethnic and/or racial community leader in Singapore.

Kevin Martens Wong (he/him) - Kevin Martens Wong is the gay, non-binary, atheist, polyamorous and neurodivergent Kabesa or leader of the Kristang people of Singapore.

The effectiveness of a 10-session theme-based Emotionally Focused Therapy intervention with 8 nonaccepting parents of LGB adults in Malaysia and Singapore

Parents often care for their child through “protecting them from LGB”, but their LGB (lesbian, gay, or bisexual) child experiences these behaviours as parental rejection. We developed a 10-session theme-based Emotionally Focused Therapy intervention to improve parents’ emotion regulation and the parent-child relationship. Eight nonaccepting parents (aged between 52-64) were sampled from Malaysia (n=6) and Singapore (n=2), covering the main ethnicities and religions. Clinically significant improvement was observed in their parental acceptance (50% at post-test, 25% sustained at 3-months post-test), clinically significantly reduced parental rejection (75% at post-test, 50% sustained at 3-months post-test), and clinically significantly reduced emotion dysregulation (25% at post-test and sustained through 3-months post-test). This research was done in conjunction with Dr Huang Yu-Te.

Liow Jun Wei (he/him) - PhD candidate at The University of Hong Kong and a registered counsellor in HK, MY, and SG (Provisional).

Exploring the potential of art and art-making in managing emotional health of artist and non-artist queer activists

Emotions play a huge role in activism, highlighting the need to look into the management of emotional health in activists. The use of art in activism is not uncommon, and art movements in the activist space are starting to harness the therapeutic potential of art as a way to prevent burnout. This presentation consolidates findings pertaining to the relationship between art and activism, and wonders how art and art-making can also be a way to support queer activists in Singapore.

Yap Rae Yi (she/her) - Rae Yi is a queer art therapist committed to enhancing the mental well-being of the queer community in Singapore.

Queer Sports: Comparative Analysis of Queer Sports Scenes in Mexico and Southeast Asia

Globally, queer sports scenes are proliferating. Events like the Gay Games attract over 10,000 participants every 4 years, countries undergoing socio-political transformations like Mexico are home to over 50 different queer sports groups, and regions like Southeast Asia develop deep transnational networks through yearly multi-sport competitions. What accounts for the global emergence of queer sports groups, how do these differ across contexts, and what do they do for the people who participate? Based on 2 years of ethnographic research with a queer football team in Mexico, 1 year of participation with Singapore Frontrunners, and lived experiences in the Gay Games and Asia Pride Games, this presentation explores the scope of queer sports scenes in Mexico and Southeast Asia and analyzes key overlaps and differences.

Max D. López Toledano (they/she) - Max is a Mexican transgender anthropologist and athlete doing public health research and has lived in Singapore for 5 years.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Role of Singaporean Theatre in Queer Civil Society

The present study seeks to understand the ways, if any, in which Singaporean theatre supports queer civil society. A total of 10 interviews were conducted in order to understand how theatre practitioners who engage with queer themes view the role of their work in relation to queer civil society itself, particularly with regards to the state’s stance on queer issues and Singaporeans’ perceptions of the queer community. The study found that while theatre is able to provide a safe, physical space to engage in queer civil society discourse and create positive representation, theatre has a high barrier of entry which excludes many and can often end up becoming an echo chamber where no new insights of value are offered.

Felicia Tan (they/them) - Final year Sociology undergraduate from NTU, theatre kid, and introvert who’s somehow also fascinated by people and society.

Between clouds and colours: where theatre creates a climate for queer conversations

This presentation shares 2 theatre works, When cloud catches colours and Our Queer Utopia, by theatre artist Chng Yi Kai. When cloud catches colours is a verbatim theatre that transposes real accounts from the queer community onto stage and unpacks the journey of “queer ageing,” while Our Queer Utopia is a work-in-progress developed from field research in Tokyo and Singapore, where it makes sense of queer experiences, major events, and legalities through the lens of “queer temporalities.” Employing deep fieldwork prior to its creation, both works attempt to create a climate where meaningful and genuine conversations surrounding queer discourse can germinate and grow. 

Chng Yi Kai (he/him) - A theatre artist who aspires to create socially-conscious theatre works that extend our capacities as humans and communities.

Exploration of Queer Identity through a Fine Arts Lens

Performance Art holds an important role of contextualizing contemporary Singaporean Queer History. Performance artists have been challenging the state media’s censorship since the 90’s, through bold and subtle actions, gestures and rituals. Despite its decade long ban that ended in 2003, performance art in Singapore is still active to this day. Engaging in themes such as public policies, gender and sexuality, endurance art, the human body, etc., its ephemeral nature is perfect for indirect political protest. In my presentation I will explain my thought processes on why I think performance art is a uniquely Singaporean queer medium and how I express myself through this art form and share various performance art works I’ve done in the course of 4 years during my study at NAFA. 

Nicholas Chee (he/they) - Nicholas is a performance artist and a history enthusiast, he also runs a 3D printing business.