Change you can believe in?

Some religious leaders preach it, but psychologists deny it. The word is change, and the subject is homosexuality. While some individuals in the LGBT community seek to change their sexual orientation, are they in fact chasing an illusion?

In this four-part series, the writer explores the idea of conversion therapy and the notion that Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgendered (LGBT) people can change, if they choose to do so.

Mr Leslie Lung claims that he has changed.

But while the 45-year-old Christian believes he is different from who he once was, he still calls himself a “transsexual”.

“No, I do not reject my identity. In fact, I’m proud of it,” he says. These words would surprise many, especially when the notion of whether Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people can change has been subjected to heated debate.

Mr Lung, who is also a founder of Liberty League, a secular organisation that facilitates discussion groups for individuals dealing with family and sexuality issues, shared with The Online Citizen about his past life of cross-dressing and involvement in the scene, which he was a part of since 14 years old.

Speaking in a sprightly, somewhat feminine voice, he recalled how as a teenager, he would be constantly teased and ridiculed for his mannerisms.

“I felt depressed, to be honest, because of the social expectations of how guys should behave. Also, I had difficulty dealing with my sexuality and the Christian view of it,” he confesses.

But with help from friends, counselors, and church ministers, he soon got over his depression, even though it was a long process. He even dropped the notion of going for a sex-change operation. The key, he says, lies in accepting himself, but living a chaste life as demanded by the Bible.

“If God has made me this way, then it doesn’t make sense to reject my gender identity. Yet at the same time it is quite clear what the Bible says. It’s quite clear what’s right and what’s wrong,” he adds...

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Staff sent out email asking members to vote at Aware EOGM

26 APRIL, 2009 – CHURCH of our Saviour (COOS) staff sent out email calling for church members to vote at AWARE's upcoming EOGM, a spokesman has confirmed yesterday.

For a while, it had been unclear whether the leaked email messages, readable in various forums, were authentic.

Speaking on the sidelines after Sunday's 10.30am service, the church spokesman verified that only Shawn Tay and Linda Seah's email messages are genuine. Both are staff of the church.

Mr Tay sent out an email on 17th April calling for church members to join AWARE and support the new Executive Committee members. He is from Choices Ministry, a department specialising in homosexual counseling.

In the email, Mr Tay called for “all responsible females to sign up for membership with AWARE immediately, and also to attend this all-important EGM so as to vote against changing the Constitution.”

As for Ms Seah, who is a zone pastor, she sent Senior Pastor Derek Hong an email on 16th April stating that “the number of members registered on Tuesday night is 13 out of 40 who turned up.” As of the time of this piece’s publication, the church has not been able to clarify what this means.

Both email messages were sent only after news of Aware's takeover broke on The Straits Times.

It is also unclear if the rest of the leaked email are authentic...

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David Widjaja’s autopsy report released, results not disclosed

THE file on David Widjaja’s case remains wide open.

While the autopsy report on his death has finally been released, the details of the alleged stabbing incident remains sketchy.

The family received the autopsy report on 4th April (Saturday) from Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

The report has been sent to a team of doctors in Jakarta for analysis, says William Widjaja — who is David’s brother – in a TOC interview on 6th April.

They did so because they could not understand the medical terms used in the document, he claimed. William also declined a request to send a copy of the report to TOC, saying “it’s better to leave it to the professionals.”

Nevertheless, a press conference will be held once the results are known. This was deemed necessary by the family as many Indonesians are clamouring to know what has happened...

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Stabbing incident in NTU — is it really an “attack”?

STREAMS OF protests have arisen on the Internet over the perceived biased coverage by the mainstream media on David Widjaja’s death, and not without good reason.

For the past week, the mainstream media has portrayed – intentionally or not — David as a reclusive loner hell-bent on murder. The motivation? His grades had slipped, and his scholarship was revoked. He became a deranged math genius who lost all sense of rationality. That seemed like a pretty neat explanation.

However, things may not be what they seem.

It has been assumed in many news reports carried by the mainstream media that David was the aggressor. The story goes that the professor was stabbed when his back was facing David. After the alleged assault, David then slashed his wrists, walked out the office, and climbed onto a linkway between two buildings before falling to his death.

But where did the source of this story come from? Apparantly, it originated from Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk’s colleagues.The Straits Times’ report by journalist Sujin Thomas on 3 March 2009, which happened to be one of the earliest reports on the incident, recounted the stabbing incident in vivid detail...

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Fleshing out the NTU stabbing incident

A FINAL year NTU student allegedly stabbed a professor before falling off to his death from the linkway between two blocks on Monday morning.

It is believed that David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, from the Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) school, stabbed Associate Professor(A/P) Chan Kap Luk, 45, from the same faculty. The incident happened at Block S1A at about 10.35am in the morning.

David Widjaja was pronounced dead on the spot while Prof Chan is receiving medical attention at the National University Hospital and is said to be recovering well.

According to a Singapore Police Force press release, investigations are still ongoing. It is not known who is the aggressor. A spokesman for the SPF declined to reveal any more information about the alleged assault, at least not until investigations are complete...

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Ex-ISA detainees speak out

28th FEBRUARY, 2009 — THE SCENE seemed surreal — though it was a book launch, the event was more like a reunion of the who’s who in the Singapore activism scene of both past and present.

From grey hair to bright faces, all were there to attest to a rarely-spoken fact of Singapore history — the looming spectre of detention without trial, and of the human rights violations — beatings, torture, and psychological manipulation – that happened behind closed doors.

Kicking off the event at 3.20pm, Ethos Books publisher Fang Hoe Fang apologised for the cramped venue in which the book launch was held.

Originally scheduled to be held at the Geylang East Community Library after an initial agreement, they were later told that the application to use the library had been rejected. No reasons, however, were given for the change, he said.

The alternative location — Muse House — sits in a quiet street next to Katong Shopping Centre, by no means an accessible location. Nevertheless, the usually sparse and quiet art gallery saw quite a sensational buzz as about 130 people crammed into the small space...

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Big ambitions for anti-cyberbullying website

HE NEVER thought that a six-month trip to Australia with his family last year could turn out to be the catalyst that led to the founding of Dontcyberbully.com.

While he was there to settle his wife and daughter down into the new environment, Gilbert Goh, 47, was alarmed when he read news of how a girl committed suicide because of cyber bullying.
That was when his thoughts turned towards Singapore.

While anti-cyber bullying websites are common in Australia, he was shocked to find out that no Singapore equivalent exists, despite cyber bullying being on an uptrend.

“In the past, we would get bullied in school, but we had a home to run to; it is our safe haven. But nowadays, even the home is not safe for the child anymore. As long as you switch on the computer, you open yourself up for harassment,” said the English teacher, who also writes for TOC.

According to a survey conducted in 2006, 25 per cent of 3,488 students surveyed have experienced online harassment before. On a per-capita basis, this is the most compared to all other countries except the United States, said a Channel News Asia article.

Deciding to take action, Mr Goh then started the website...

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Litter at the Istana — on Chinese New Year

27 JANUARY — NO PRIZE for guessing where this is — nope, this is not your typical hawker centre or HDB block, but THE Istana.

Imagine: people littering indiscriminately at the White House. I wonder what would the White House staffers say to that?

It seems like the presidential palace has attracted more than just people during its open house on the second day of Chinese New Year.

For the foreigners out there, the Istana is where the President lives and works in Singapore. And no, the president here mainly serves a ceremonial role with very limited executive powers, quite unlike the American president.

Anyway, I didn’t manage to take a picture of the whole stretch as the queue entering the Istana was moving quite quickly. Trust me, the scene was much worse than it looks...

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Religious harmony in Singapore – a façade?

THE WORLD watched intently when Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America.

But being a Singaporean, it came to me as a surprise that God was invoked so many times during the ceremony. And I understood that this was cause for controversy among some critics who took issue with how the presidential oath would end with a “so help me God.”

Such a phrase will never be uttered by a Singaporean politician, in any ceremony or tradition.

You often hear a minister talk about religion and religious harmony, but never about his own religious experiences. While Obama spoke of the “grace of God” and “may God bless America” in his inauguration speech, Singapore political rhetoric is too often infused with hard facts and GDP figures.

Frankly speaking, when was the last time you heard a Singaporean minister speak about his religious journey? It remains something hidden behind closed doors...

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“Don’t save face, go to C-class wards,” says Tan Kin Lian

13th DECEMBER — HEALTHCARE in Singapore is affordable as long as one is willing to accept the B2 and C-class wards without fear of losing face, said Mr Tan Kin Lian at a forum on economic rights.

He asked the audience: “Why complain about the bill when you go the the A-class ward?”

According to him, B2 and C-class wards are highly subsidised and of good quality, and a “cap on bill” exists to ensure medical fees in these wards do not escalate too much.

Held at the URA Centre on Saturday by the Society of Financial Service Professionals in conjunction with U60, the forum also saw financial consultants Leong Sze Hian and Lyndon Chew speak on different topics.

Singapore’s healthcare system enjoys a high world ranking, said Mr Tan, and this is due to the fact that responsibility for healthcare is placed on the individual. The state does not pay for everything, preventing overconsumption and keeping costs down.He also advised that Singaporeans stick with Medishield as it is adequate enough to cover medical costs in subsidised wards...

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PAP makes no apologies for defamation suits, says Vivian Balakrishnan

Even though Singapore is set to become a more open society in the future, the government is making no apologies when it comes to suing politicians for defamatory remarks, said Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports.

Speaking to the The Online Citizen (TOC) after the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum held yesterday at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Dr Balakrishnan added that the government takes attacks on accuracy and integrity very seriously, because “establishing a high trust environment” is an advantage that gives Singapore an edge in a competitive global economy.

He said: “We don’t mind political openness, but we don’t want too much of the excitement. To the outsider, when they look at Singapore, they know that politics here is serious, it’s accurate, it’s real and accountable. It’s not a situation you get in other countries. We’re an outlier, but we are outlying because we want to keep our politics honest.”

The minister also said that both sides must play the same game, even for the PAP. “If I say something unethical or unfair against any of my opposition colleagues, they can sue as well,” he added...

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NTU students protest at Speakers’ Corner

IT STARTED as a Facebook group protesting the censorship of campus media.

But feeling that more could be done, three Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students and an alumnus of the school went one step further — they brought the protest to the Speaker’s Corner.

About 80 people attended the “Stand Up for Media Freedom” protest held yesterday, which consisted mainly of students.

According to a press release for the event, the protest served as an “outreach” that aimed to raise awareness on media freedom for both the public and university population. A petition addressed to NTU president Su Guaning was also announced – calling for the original article about Dr Chee Soon Juan to be uncensored.

An earlier TOC report last month chronicled how some students were indignant because of NTU’s decision to censor the campus media coverage of Dr Chee’s visit to the university...

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NTU censors campus news coverage of Chee Soon Juan visit

Dr Chee Soon Juan created a whirlwind when he paid a surprise visit to NTU, but left behind only a whimper as the university censored all campus news coverage of his arrival.

The latest issue of NTU’s campus newspaper, The Nanyang Chronicle , was published on Monday (15th September), and was slated to feature an article about Dr Chee’s visit. In the end, it featured only a visit of a different sort – that of the former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who is a stranger among Singaporean students.

On 26th August, the controversial opposition figure, together with several other Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leaders, visited NTU to distribute flyers and interact with the students. The NTU visit was part of a tour by the SDP to “raise political awareness,” and it included NIE, SMU and NUS as well. The NUS visit, which happened on 11th September, was covered by the university’s student-run online newspaper, The Campus Observer.

Student journalists from the Chronicle and NTU’s student-run news magazine programme, Nanyang Spectrum , were quick to converge on Dr Chee and the SDP members to conduct interviews...

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The war between bloggers and journalists rages on

It all started with an apparent misquote - Ms Agnes Lin, a 20-year-old undergraduate, accused ST journalist Nur Dianah Suhaimi of twisting her words and portraying her as a money-sucking daughter of middle income parents.

But the clincher was this: Ms Lin thought it “silly” that her friend would not ask her parents for money. Ms Lin, of course, vehemently denied this in her blog, saying that she told the journalist no such thing.

When bloggers heard about this incident, most of them were outraged. They poured scorn on the state-owned paper, and some criticised its links with the PAP despite the incident merely being an issue of journalistic ethics.

One common grouse that many netizens have against ST is this: the Agnes Lin incident has not been the first, and it seems that neither will it be the last. But even as bloggers “group hug” and share horror stories over their own experiences with misquotes, journalists themselves are not having it easy...

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It's not just about Chee, but media lunacy

Almost every student I spoke to agreed with me: censorship is outdated. In fact, when I wrote the article entitled "NTU censors campus news coverage of Chee Soon Juan visit", I had difficulty finding students who agreed with NTU’s actions.

But if there is anything this whole fracas has demonstrated, it would be the idea that censorship is an antiquated notion, belonging to a past era. In the age of the Internet, supression of information is difficult, if not impossible. Even before the said article was written, one of the editors at the Chronicle had already posted her displeasure about the whole issue online.

Some will argue that students have nothing better to do, and that we are just making use of the Internet to voice senseless grouses. While it is true that the blogosphere is sometimes a cauldron for complaint, it can also be a platform to voice genuine concerns. In this case, students felt that a great injustice was wrought, and something must be done about it.

In fact, this is the first time in the history of the Nanyang Chronicle that such a censorship has occured...

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Liberalising the Films Act? Teach Media Literacy too

Can a film - or a blog post - spark a revolution?

That must be the question on the minds of some PAP politicians, even as Aims released its recommendations for the Government on how to manage the new media’s influence on Singapore politics.

Four broad recommendations have been put forth: that the Government should be more active in engaging netizens; that Section 33 should be liberalised; that children should be better protected against cyber dangers; and that content hosts should be spared from defamation suits.

While Aims has rightly emphasised that education rather than censorship should be the long-term solution when it comes to consuming new media, this notion currently applies only to protecting children against the likes of pornography or cyber-bullying.

One crucial element has been left out: the implementation of media education in schools and in public. Part of the requirements of a functioning democracy is a well-educated populace that is media literate and well-equipped to discern between balanced and fallacious content.

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Does Singapore deserve its press freedom ranking?

IN A 2008 survey by Freedom House, Singapore has shown no improvement in its freedom of the press, despite the maturing of online media as a medium to air alternative views.

The latest results reveal nothing new: much has already been said about the deplorable state of press freedom in Singapore, ranked a lowly 153rd out of 195 countries, sharing the same ranking as Iraq. The idea that Singapore is first-world in economic competitiveness but third-world in press freedom and civil liberties has already become an over-sung tune.

A check with Freedom House’s past survey results revealed that Singapore has not only been stagnating, but has in fact deteriorated in terms of press freedom, increasing from a score of 60 (the lower the score, the freer the press) in 1994 to 69 in 2008...

Click here to read the full article on TOC.