In the first place, there were no online communities for queer folks, because the internet simply didn’t exist. To understand how the “anti-gay” police operations were conducted, we need to first understand cruising in the 80s to 90s.īack then, it was a lot more difficult for queer folks to meet and know other queer people. Then suddenly, “anti-gay” operations seemed to stop happening.Īnd more importantly: is there anything preventing them from starting it all over again? Cruising in the 80s–90s In an appeal by one of the arrested men, then-Chief Justice (CJ) Yong Pung How even expressed his concern over the way the charges were handled. This punishment was so unusually harsh that it caused an uproar within the queer community.
Instead of a fine, the arrested men were sentenced for the first time to jail and 3 strokes of the cane. This operation, later called the “ Fort Road incident ”, was just one of many “anti-gay” stings conducted by the police since the late 1980s.
Once that happened, the undercover cops had the men arrested and charged. Undercover policemen pretended to be queer at a cruising spot at Ford Road beach, and baited men to make sexual advancements on them. In September 1993, police in Singapore arrested 12 men in an “anti-gay” entrapment operation.
