In January, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) teased a potential candidate for the upcoming general election (GE): Deryne Sim, a media and entertainment lawyer who also happens to be a key figure in Singapore’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement. Before serving as the executive director of Same But Different, a community group providing legal information to the LGBTQ community, she was a member of the organising committee for Pink Dot SG, which organises the eponymous annual pride parade.

Sim may be the first openly queer political aspirant in Singapore. The last known queer political candidate is Vincent Wijeysingha, formerly with the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). Wijeysingha was outed by his PAP opponents, led by Vivian Balakrishnan, now minister for foreign affairs, less than a fortnight before Polling Day in the 2011 GE. Over the past 14 years, then, the PAP has gone from ostensibly exploiting its opponent’s sexual orientation for perceived political gain to now possibly fielding its own queer candidate. 

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