PM Goh Chok Tong liberalises employment of openly gay individuals in civil service, July 2003

In a Time magazine (Asia) article entitled, "The Lion in Winter" by Simon Elegant published on 7 July 2003, the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was reported to have said that his government would henceforth allow gay employees into its ranks, even in sensitive positions. The change in policy, inspired at least in part by the desire not to exclude talented foreigners who were gay, was being implemented without fanfare to avoid raising the hackles of more conservative Singaporeans.

"So let it evolve, and in time the population will understand that some people are born that way," Goh said. He added the by-now famous quip which predated Laga Gaga's runaway hit and LGBT anthem Born This Way by almost a decade: "We are born this way and they are born that way, but they are like you and me." Goh's announcement was perhaps an attempt at making Singapore less restrictive and more creative to revive the economy in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the SARS outbreak in 2003 which caused a severe recession.

Upon hearing the news, the LGBT community was elated and Goh's pronouncements were celebrated in a huge way during Fridae's Nation party in August that year.

=Scan of article=


 * Main article: Archive of Time magazine article "The Lion in Winter" by Simon Elegant, 7 July 2003

These scans of each page of the article are of a sufficiently high resolution for the text on them to be legible. To read the text at its original resolution, please click on each thumbnail below and then click on the link that says "Full resolution".  

The article further reported Vivian Balakrishnan, the government official in charge of the Remaking Singapore Committee as saying that Singapore would do "whatever it takes" to attract talent. As part of that effort, repressive government policies previously enforced in the name of social stability were being relaxed. The city then boasted seven saunas catering almost exclusively to gay clients, for example, something unthinkable even a few years ago. Foreigners, gay or straight, were critical in carving out niches in which the government hoped Singapore's new economy would thrive.

=Reaction to Goh's statements=

Goh's liberalising policy and his apparent acceptance of the gay community was widely reported in both local and international media. The topic was hotly discussed on LGBT online forums like SiGNeL as well.

The following video is a news clip from the now-defunct television station Channel i:



Some partygoers at Fridae's Nation.02 in August that year wore T-shirts embodying Goh's statements about gays being "born that way". Attendance of the event by regional visitors was even higher than the previous year's bash, drawing close to 500 partygoers, mainly from Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan. 

=See also=
 * Archive of Time magazine article "The Lion in Winter" by Simon Elegant, 7 July 2003
 * PM Lee Hsien Loong allows indoor talks to be held without a police licence, 22 August 2004

=References=

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3044688.stm

http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/2003/07/02/543.ok-to-have-gays-in-civil-service-singapore-pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/05/news/05iht-gay.html

http://www.yawningbread.org/apdx_2003/imp-116.htm

http://www.fridae.asia/gay-news/2003/07/09/1155.how-do-we-celebrate

=Acknowledgements=

This article was written by Roy Tan.