A gay man took to social media to question if the repeal of Section 377A in Singapore truly benefited those of the LGBTQ society.
In an anonymous post to popular confessions page SGWhispers, the man wrote: “does it really benefit us in any way? The society (sic) perception of us still remains the same. We still can[‘]t legally marry each other under the law and it does not help our close friends or families accept us any better”.
In his post, the man wrote that he realised he was gay when he was 17 years old. Up till that point, he was in a relationship with a girl, “until I found out 1 month later that it was all part of a ‘dare’ that she and her friends had concocted and there was money involved. Call me naïve as you want, but she had to lead me on for 1 full month in order for her to win the bettings on her”.
The man added that initially he had quite a number of close friends and was also close to his family. However, after he opened up to them, he was thrown out of his house and outcasted.
“I wanted someone to understand me but it seems that even those closest around me treated me as a disease. I contemplated suicide but before I acted out on my thoughts, I stumbled upon a group that shared the same sexual orientation and beliefs as me and they supported me”, the man wrote.
In his post, he added that most of his straight male friends outcasted him after they knew he was gay. “They were even uncomfortable if I stood near them for fear that I would ‘molest’ them. My neighbours after finding out I was gay, started to avoid me and told their son not to talk to me. Even though the repeal of a particular law was passed in parliament, we are still being sentenced to death by society”, the man wrote.
“My only plea is for society to understand people like us and get to know us better. We are all human beings as well and like everyone else we have our difficulties too”, he added.
Here’s what netizens who commented on the post said:
