Singapore Twitter is having a niche fight. Queer people are mocking straight people for being basic MFers when they get married and get public housing (you have to be straight married to get public housing). Straight people feel very oppressed about this.
* because some person is going to come and say this is factually incorrect: you may also qualify to buy some types of public housing as a queer Singaporean but only after age 35, with fewer subsidies, and you can only buy the less nice housing in some areas not all
The public housing thing is religion, and a way of life in Singapore. You cannot mock that institution or its attached ‘nuclear family’ requirements. People get very salty and angry. https://t.co/3UEpNBD63H
California urbanist Twitter and their inevitable (well at least there’s housing)… please stay out of this lol
Reality of housing for the rest of us https://t.co/yH7fgAyZes
In Singapore, queer people can neither get married at all nor get public housing easily (the primary source of asset ownership for the middle class, and heterosexuality is a requirement). Getting married abroad means your marriage isn’t recognized at home. Like mine
Literally my first lucid thought after the panic from realizing I was really, really queer died down was: then how? Cannot buy HDB.
The crux of all of this is that queer Singaporeans also want to be basic MFers decorating our apartments with the love of our lives. Or by ourselves. Because this institution permeates our souls even when we can’t have it.
Even after you’ve left, the utter straightness of Singapore policies still impact you in many ways that can potentially impact your life elsewhere. https://t.co/p87fgEkMZZ
More HDB nonsense https://t.co/GXtEWeHMn9
I feel like there is an unsaid expectation that to be tolerated as a queer person there, you shouldn’t be too vocal about being queer, you should be happy with table scraps. ‘You’re literally not being beaten to death, be happy about that’ is the state of our queer rights atm.
One last thought on this. Housing, heterosexuality, class and queerness are wrapped up in a giant ball of tension we can’t seem to talk about. How many times have you heard: we don’t need to help gay Singaporeans, they’re rich, they live in Bukit Timah / in condos?!?
Less privileged queer Singaporeans and Singapore residents exist. They deserve housing too.
Since there are a lot of eyeballs on here: one part of a couple had gender affirming surgery, and had their marriage (and therefore housing) voided.
https://t.co/GCT4NRMx5G
Let’s also talk about, at some point, how because queer people cannot marry in Singapore or have their marriages recognized, it’s incredibly hard to have a family (only the very privileged can do it)..
they disproportionately become the default caregivers for family in a state that assumes children *will* be main caregivers. With none of the tax or social benefits that accrue to married straight people who are also caregivers. “You don’t have a family, and I’m busy so”
Basically, you can’t win as a queer person in Singapore. “You’re rich, you can buy your own condo.” “You don’t have children, veh good hor double income no kids can go and holiday everywhere anytime one.” “You don’t have kids, take care of everybody.” “Don’t straight shame meee!”
I wrote this in 2013 when I went home and contemplated my queer twenty-something year old life
https://t.co/PoWMQyCSxy
I then wrote this 7 years later: as a married queer elder, in a place where I had more of the social and legal rights I could’ve ever imagined. What would I have wanted to tell myself, fearful and fretful at 18?
https://t.co/2L0iCylTQr
In 2008, the national broadcaster was fined $15 000 for showing a gay couple and their baby on TV in one of those tv home decoration shows. Basically, you cannot show queer people positively. They must be dying or repenting. https://t.co/91Qw39GZXG
So not only are you not able to have help with housing as a queer person in Singapore, you can’t even see people like you getting a free home decoration on TV.
Perhaps I’m just salty at the original tweet, now locked, which said queer people should not complain and just go somewhere else where they can marry and have a home. I am indeed a queer person who had to go abroad for no other reason than that I’m queer.
The feeling of having to leave your home, just to have the same shot at life, and then being told not to complain about it, will never stop breaking my heart.