As an informal group of LGBT alumni from The Chinese High School, Hwa Chong Junior College and Hwa Chong Institution (HCI), we are writing in response to recent online news about an assembly talk called “What are LGBTQ folks so proud of?”
In short, the infographic that was presented seems to be full of misinformation that perpetuates unhelpful stereotypes about the LGBT community through questionable statistics from unverifiable sources.
We also understand that during the talk, a video from a Singaporean group called truelove.is was screened. Although they describe themselves as helping LGBT people to “come out and come home”, they are in fact a Christian organisation that believes they can stop LGBT people from having “same sex attraction”, seeing it as something shameful that needs to be curbed or corrected.
Their approach has been linked to a defunct American organisation called Exodus International, which shut down in 2013 after issuing an apology to the LGBT community for "years of undue judgement by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole".
We are especially concerned that as a secular, independent school, HCI has decided to allow this, especially since there is no evidence to show that such “conversion” practices are effective. In fact, there is evidence to show that these approaches often cause harm and could even be considered professionally unethical.
To LGBTQ students & youths:
As adults, we are also proud members of Singapore’s LGBT community. We would like to say to you, if you’re a student who is questioning your sexuality and/ or gender identity, or you already know that you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or nonbinary:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We stand with you.
A lot more at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2022/07/an-open-letter-addressed-to-hwa-chong.html
In short, the infographic that was presented seems to be full of misinformation that perpetuates unhelpful stereotypes about the LGBT community through questionable statistics from unverifiable sources.
We also understand that during the talk, a video from a Singaporean group called truelove.is was screened. Although they describe themselves as helping LGBT people to “come out and come home”, they are in fact a Christian organisation that believes they can stop LGBT people from having “same sex attraction”, seeing it as something shameful that needs to be curbed or corrected.
Their approach has been linked to a defunct American organisation called Exodus International, which shut down in 2013 after issuing an apology to the LGBT community for "years of undue judgement by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole".
We are especially concerned that as a secular, independent school, HCI has decided to allow this, especially since there is no evidence to show that such “conversion” practices are effective. In fact, there is evidence to show that these approaches often cause harm and could even be considered professionally unethical.
To LGBTQ students & youths:
As adults, we are also proud members of Singapore’s LGBT community. We would like to say to you, if you’re a student who is questioning your sexuality and/ or gender identity, or you already know that you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or nonbinary:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We stand with you.
A lot more at https://www.domainofexperts.com/2022/07/an-open-letter-addressed-to-hwa-chong.html
