Pink Dot 2013

Pink Dot 2013 was huge.  Several thousand people more than the year before and several thousand more than the year before that.  I remember when it first started and there was enough space for attendees to perform elaborate dances and blow human-sized bubbles.  The dot was still literally a dot in a field of green.

This time it was packed to the sweaty gills with good-natured pink-wearers who had come to stand against bigtory.

To be honest, it was so uncomfortably hot that it occurred to me that I needn't have gone; I could've stayed at home and continued expressing my support and living my beliefs.  Being there moved me anyway.

Some part of me found new affirmation in humanity.  A beautiful man with a gauze rose on his head offered me snacks when he saw me panting through the throng.  People brought their children, dressed fat babies in fuchsia, started teaching them about acceptance so that they would grow up never using the word "gay" as an insult again.  I ran into Nina and Sson, sang songs and ate cheese with Wai Kit, Edie, Shirin and Jia Min.  Watched people loved and be loved; smiled at couples embracing openly where they couldn't do so elsewhere.  

A different part of me though, felt down.  As the sun set, we all stood up to sing the national anthem.  There was a ripple through the younger people in the crowd, snickers of disdain and eye-rolling.   But I always sing the national anthem with gusto and off we went.  A few bars in, I realised that there was someone singing even more loudly than me.  I turned around and saw a middle-aged woman standing with her partner.  She had her eyes squeezed shut, fingers locked in prayer and was belting the words about togetherness and progress as if her life depended on it.

And I thought: she loves Singapore as much as anyone does.  Maybe even more.  And despite that, she's probably going to be treated like a second class citizen all her life.  She'll never be able to live openly with the person she loves, never be able to have a family and bring them up and show them the city that she clearly adores.  I was overcome with a wave of sadness, and I had to look away. 

Despite the heat and the overwhelming press of people, I'm glad I went.  It was good to spend an afternoon in what felt like an alternate universe where anyone and everyone had the freedom to be in love, if only for a little while.