THE TEMASEK REVIEW

Agape Xue:

Agape Xue on Wed, 29th Apr 2009 4:24 pm

Gender confused kids? Who’s confused?
An Article posted in Aware on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

I read with concern The New Paper’s front-page article on MOE’s ongoing efforts to train teachers to counsel gender-confused kids (TNP. 11 Sep 08). My question is – do the counselling sessions aim to help the child find his/her true gender identity or influence transgender youth to conform to social norms?

It has long been established internationally that one’s gender identity is distinct from one’s sex at birth. When the two do not match, the individual experiences the medical condition known as “transsexualism”.

While I recognise that a sex change operation is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all transsexuals, it is certainly a “natural” and valid recourse for the majority of transsexuals, contrary to the sentiments expressed by Professor Tsoi. And contrary to what Ms Sarah S, a counsellor from NuLife Care and Counselling Services says, male to female transgender children do not necessarily behave the way they do because they lack a masculine father figure in their lives. Has she done a nationwide survey to substantiate her claims? Or is she commenting based on two to three individuals she has counselled? A more important question in light of MOE’s initiative – is she one of their trained counsellors?

I myself was a victim of the lack of support in my childhood years. There were lots of well-intentioned but misguided individuals – including a prominent leader of the religious group mentioned in your article – who tried to convince me that being transsexual was “wrong”.

This compounded my loneliness and sense of alienation, leading to a suicide attempt in my late teens. It was only when I fled to the United Kingdom for my studies in a more tolerant and welcoming environment that I flourished academically and socially.

I have remained in Singapore because I feel I still have lots to contribute to this beautiful society of ours – a society founded on secular, meritocratic principles and love and respect for racial and religious diversity. I hope MOE will adopt the same open-minded, enlightened approach when conducting its training sessions – and when selecting the service providers.

Yours Sincerely
Leona Lo

Author, From Leonard to Leona, A Singapore Transsexual’s Journey to Womanhood

http://www.wo-manly.blogspot.com/
Agape Xue on Your comment is awaiting moderation. Wed, 29th Apr 2009 4:46 pm

Can you not give them a chance?

http://www.wo-manly.blogspot.com/
Author, From Leonard to Leona, A Singapore Transsexual’s Journey to Womanhood

I read Leona’s blog – Wednesday, December 3, 2008, Love, Give Us A Chance. She made me cry…

How can i not see the beauty in one’s inner mind, spirit and soul which is pepetual but have to insist that whatever is so beautiful in that inner self be matched with what we visually see in the outside body form????

Why and how can i be sure that what i see in TSM, Shawn Tay, Jose Lau, and now Derrick Yong and others,,,, they may have a pleasant body to showcase to other,,, are they not ugly in the inside ?

Why must i accept the extremists’ view to close the doors to the minor group and exteminate the less bestowed??

I cant imagine how the extremists can be so cold blooded….

Agape Xue.

focus on the issues:

i don’t know why is wayang party framing the issue as gay/straight. is that the case?

are you paid by fundies to do it?

or are you pretending to uphold both sides/ neutrality so you are doing this?

this is so not gay vs conservatives.

this is fundie christian vs secular society.

this is how they are so intolerant.

gambit:

-applause- wow pastor. i’m glad you take such a concerted effort to wipe out the gay peeps in our nation. what a threat they must be to national security, with their gay bomb threats, gay terrorism and omg, crime! rampant crime far worse than i don’t know, loan-shark harrassment, drug-trafficking, violence and murder. definitely should be above all these. oh and war. how can we stop all the bloodshed with these gay people trying to get married. what an effing travesty!

you are seriously going to go down as a national hero, dude, what would we do without such warriors as yourself, saving the nation from rainbow riots?

Alwin Loi:

gambit, i don’t think your mindset is so much different from taleban and al-qaeda terrorists

leon:

I am a neutral party who think that the issue of gay, lesbian and homosexuality should not be legalised in this tiny island. We should not blindly follow western countries of democracy or abusing freedom. We are still chinese with our culture and traditional roots that make us more disciplined and what we are today.

Singapore government is not aware that because of grow in economic factor, we are heading a down slope without a true leader that can foresee the consequences.

This issue should put into the parliament for debate and allow all the MP and NMP to vote on it, the Penal code Amendment will only pass with majority vote.

However, I see it quite futile as I remember 3 years ago when PM discuss to open a casino in Singapore, there was a heated debate and a split decision in the cabinet, unfortunately those who against would still nob their head as the PM already decided. So this time round it would be the same that vote is not needed because government will pass any penal code to please certain group of people who contribured to economy.

Personally I am quite concern about our third generation leader who apart from focusing on economy grow, they are basically no foresight for the well being of the people.

Just pray that the worst of our society will not come too soon.

reader:

To Alwin Loi (9:27pm):

Chill Alwin, re-read what gambit (6:50pm) wrote. He is simply being sarcastic. Unless of course, your reply was meant to be sarcastic too.

To Leon (10:05pm):

Hi, you don’t have to worry about the Penal Code Amendment. The letter was actually from 2 years ago, and the amendment has already been rejected in Parliament.

However, I need to object to your idea that gay rights / gay tolerance are western concepts that degrade the moral fabric of society.

Firstly, homosexuals have existed for hundreds to thousands of years, in all societies, INCLUDING conservative asian ones. You may want to read the article on homosexuality in China on the China section of this site.

Secondly, if we remove the religious or arbitrary “moral” component, we will realize gays do no harm to others. They are just normal people trying to live normal lives and contribute to society. The presence of gays do not hurt us in any way.

Thirdly, people seem to fear that if gay rights are legalized, we will see a flood of homosexuals around us. The truth is, homosexuals are only a small minority in society and remain so even in “liberal” societies like the US. Legalizing gay rights will not cause heterosexuals to turn gay.

On the other hand, the current discrimination and prejudice towards gays is not fair to them. Simply read the account of Leona Lo in one of the comments above to know the psychological damage that such prejudice can cause.

Even if gay people are different from us and we disapprove of their actions, they are still not hurting or harming us in anyway. Thus we should just allow them to live their normal lives instead of hurting them by demonizing or ostracizing them.

This statement is especially true for Christians. Remember that Jesus’ love is unconditional. He will never want anyone to be hurt, no matter whether they are gay or straight.

Curious:

I am just curious . All these talk about anti gays.
I have spoken with open and closet gays occasionally.I have tons of straigt friends as well. I like to think I am open minded.
From what I have observed , gay behaviors apart from sexual ones, are little different from ours. I have little to fear from them. What they do in the bedroom frankly isnt’ any of our business neither is what we do in our bedroom any of anybody’s.
So why all these illogical and irrational hatred of them? If I am not wrong, it’s all based from religion. It’s more acceptable to criticize gays, not that I agree with this position, within the confines of their own respective religious spheres.If christianity condemns it, then do so within your own religious spheres.
What I find alarming if when religious values become disguised as secular values and exerted on us. I have nothing against the gays but I have alot against murderers, rapists, molesters, loansharks etc..and all mainly committed by non gays. So why the hatred?? Why? If it’s purely religious, then I suggest analyzing and searching your own sense of right and wrong. We are living in the 21st century. The world is not flat, we have sent space telescopes beyond the solar system,we have so many improvement in modern science. Use your own head to ask questions.

ThinkingSoul:

We have to be Aware of these Christian Rights Groups, which may have been influenced by those American Evangelist Churches.

The American Evangelist Movements in recent years has managed to politicized the Gay-Marriage and Abortion issues in the US, to the extent that the entire US population is deeply divided politically during those Bush years. As we all know, the US economy is in dire state and they have much more pressing ssues than this kinda divisive issue.

To be fair, many Christians are Decent and Moderate People.

But they too, have to be careful, not to buy in to these radical ideas of some of the Right-Leaning churches, with are affiliated with those American Evangelist Churches.

During the 2004 American Election, Bush garnered the majority votes, by stirring up the issues of Gay-Marriage and Abortion. He uses his Christian background and Neo-Conservative Republican influence, to garnered these votes, especially amongst the Southern States in US, they called those geographical areas “the Bible Belt”.

The strategy was devised by his political strategist, Karl Rove. It is very effective because he beat John Kerry, from the State of Massachussets, which legalised Gay-Marriage.

After winning the election, Bush and his Republican cronies find it appropriate, as Christian Rights, to launch an attack, on Iraq, which flimsy excuses such as “Weapons of Mass Destructions”.

We should be very very careful of the those American Evangelical Movements, because they are influencing many many churches worldwide. And they are extremist who will not hesitate to bulldoze their way to get rid of all elements not consistent with their beliefs, weather its gays, abortions or muslims, etc.

Prejudices and hatred will only bring more trouble and extremism to the world, with the proliferation of more terrorist group.

We should all strive to be Moderate, Balanced and Free of Prejudices, regardless of whichever religion we have.