The COVID-19 global pandemic necessitated nationwide lockdowns in many countries and Singapore was no different, announcing an eight-week 'circuit-breaker' in the beginning of April 2020. When it ended, the Singaporean government announced that restrictions on physical interactions would be eased in three phases. In Phase 1, all physical interactions between households continued to be disallowed with exceptions made for visits to parents and grandparents so that families could provide mutual support to one another. This article argues the permissibility of certain interactions hierarchised social ties according to a heteronormative logic where heteronormative kinship structures were elevated above othersthus excluding multiple constituencies that either did not have access to these kinship structures or for whom they did not provide support. Reading this instantiation as part of a larger reification of the heterosexual nuclear family unit in Singapore, this article posits that the demonstrable inability of heteronormative kinship to fulfil everyone's support needs signals the urgency of rethinking extant heteronormative foundations of kinship in Singapore. Queering kinship in this way extends the existing body of queer studies scholarship in Singapore which has largely focussed on the effects of heteronormativity on LGBT lives by demonstrating how heteronormativity shapes non-LGBT lives as well.

King's College LondonV irtual Activism is the result of Robert Phillips' fieldwork in Singapore between 2004 and 2007. It aims to understand how LGBT activists in Singapore "took advantage of new and emerging technologies to empower, and create better lives for, themselves" (6). He is interested in demonstrating how activists mobilized the Internet-and the attendant new possibilities of organizing and activism that it opened up-to make gains in a country that criminalizes homosexuality and is decidedly heteronormative. Through a sensitive and wide-ranging ethnographic analysis that spans interactions on online LGBT discussion forums and chatrooms, blogs, commentaries, newspapers, as well as face-to-face interviews, Phillips assembles an account of how the LGBT movement in Singapore has developed over 15 years from 1993 to 2008. Of particular value is how he situates his findings within Singapore's political context and expressly takes care to interpret them through this particular context.

Pink Dot is an annual rally in support of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people in Singapore. In a country where many prefer to avoid overt displays of dissent, Pink Dot has gained significant popular support. In this article, I explore how it has done so. Through a close multimodal analysis focusing on the use of colour, layout, and typography in a Pink Dot 2017 flyer, I demonstrate how these features work together in the Singaporean context to realize meanings of positivity, warmth, and inclusivity whilst simultaneously de-emphasizing notions of claiming rights. I argue Pink Dot discursively attenuates the potentially discordant elements of its message and marshals this apparent neutrality to gather support for its ostensibly depoliticized message – a process that I term disarming. It is an assimilationist strategy deliberately made for Singapore’s particular sociopolitical context and it has proven effective in securing mass popular support amongst Singaporeans.

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This article focuses on historicising Singaporean English/Singlish and tracing its genealogy as a demotic language to understand the changing relationship between Singlish and the Singaporean state. It takes as an entry point a recent infomercial-style music video featuring the well-known fictive Singlish-speaking character Phua Chu Kang that was released by the Singaporean government in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It encouraged residents to get vaccinated for their own protection and was widely circulated across mainstream news media as well as other platforms. Mining the character of Phua Chu Kang, previously fiercely criticised by the government for speaking Singlish, the article historicises Singlish and its shifting place in Singapore’s cultural politics and language policy. It demonstrates how the language has shifted from a previous position as a state antagonist to a demotic language now actively mobilised by the state. In so doing, it updates extant understandings of Singlish in relation to language policy and culture in Singapore where antagonism has given way to a relationship of ambivalence with the state. More broadly, it also highlights the instrumental value of mobilising a demotic language for its persuasive potential within speech communities that have an affinity for it.