Hwa Chong Suspends Staff Member Who Gave Anti-LGBTQ Presentation to Sec 4 Students

Let’s be honest for a second.

Sexual Education in Singapore is an absolute joke, because the only thing it preaches is abstinence, without arming the students with the know-hows of safe sex.

Please, everyone is going to get some sooner or later, at least provide them the knowledge to do it the right and safe way. It would go a long way in preventing unwanted pregnancies or the spread of diseases #justsaying.

Homophobic Rhetoric at a HCI Sex Ed Talk

Anywho, a Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) student counsellor really added the cherry on top of the defunct “sexual” education by throwing in some homophobic rhetoric.

The presentation slides were not vetted by the school beforehand.

Apparently, the presentation was delivered to the Secondary 4 cohort last Wednesday (13 Jul) for their assembly session.

There were two specific slides that portrayed the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community in a negative light.

They contained false and misleading facts like:

• 58% of homosexuals have problems with intestinal worms
• 1 in 15 homosexuals are pedophiles
• Homosexuals represent 2% of the world’s population but they represent 33% of pedophile rapists and 67% of AIDs patients
• Perfect correlation between childhood rape and homosexual behaviour
• 78% of homosexuals have STDs
• 51% of cases of domestic abuse occur in same-sex couples

It also associated homosexuality with problems like alcoholism and sexual assault.

There are no redeeming factors in this.

It’s just blatant misinformation, that’s what it is.

You thought Hwa Chong Institution, one of the top schools in Singapore, would be better than this.  

Seriously, the gall to insinuate that every LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation is defined by traumatic childhood experiences is plainly ridiculous.

And sure, same-sex couples (males specifically) pose a higher risk of contracting STDs or AIDs, but that’s mainly because they didn’t take enough precautionary measures

The icing on the cake is really the video that the presenter showed at the end. It featured a man who struggled with his same-sex attraction and proving his masculinity for 30 odd years, which then caused him to spiral into loneliness and self-loathing.

Just when Shaun, the protagonist of the story, was about to admit to himself that he was “gay”, God gave him a different answer and said he was just a “guy”.

Hate to break it to you, but the two terms are not mutually exclusive.

A Slap On The Wrist

According to an interview done by The Straits Times and the HCI students online, the student counsellor has been “reprimanded and suspended” from holding such talks.

The HCI spokesperson stated that the school is aware of the incident where a staff member had slipped in content that was outside the scope of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Sexuality Education curriculum.

However, the most disturbing revelation that came out of this was that the student counsellor was only allegedly banned from delivering such speeches again, and he wasn’t fired from his position as a student counsellor.

My sincerest condolences to the future cohort of HCI students who may or may not struggle with same-sex attraction, only to be told by the same homophobic counsellor that your troubles are invalid and it’s just a passing phase.

It is truly saddening that the only justification or help you will receive from this counsellor is either “go find God” or “go back into the closet”.

Furthermore, the HCI students noted that the school management didn’t apologise for the transgression. Rather, they only tried to explain that the counsellor’s actions didn’t reflect his character.

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Sadly, this isn’t the first faux pas that the HCI teaching faculty has committed.

Back in 2014, HCI allowed Focus on the Family to run a sexuality education workshop called It’s UNcomplicated, a programme which premised on relationships and entrenched gender stereotypes.

Among other things, it painted girls as “hopelessly dependent beings who are incapable of surviving without guys” and that men are apparently incapable of controlling themselves and are ruled by their hormones.

For instance, the attached booklet taught that “boys can’t not want to look” when a scantily dressed female walks by because “no man with a pulse could have done otherwise”.

In essence, it was a bigoted and engendered workshop that sought to undo all the progress that society has achieved on the gender equality front.

A Word From The HCI Alumnus

The old students from HCI were not surprised by the incident.

Rather, their reactions ranged from “Again?” to “Let me get some popcorn” to “we need to write another letter to the principal”.

The Reddit thread was quite coherent and reasonable with their opinions too, rightly pointing out that the counsellor’s ability to get away with little consequences is just a reflection of the state’s views on LGBTQ.

Even if Health Minister Ong Ye Kung stated that there won’t be any discrimination towards the LGBTQ community in work, housing or education, homophobic sentiments still exist in this fairly conservative country.

Other commenters were of the opinion that the counsellor should be fired, precisely because the presenter is a student counsellor.

Afterall, it is a counsellor’s job to offer constructive advice, not deny the root of a youth’s problem. If he can’t keep his own opinions to himself and present an impartial front, then he shouldn’t be trusted with the mental health of students.

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