Being gay is a process of life. You grow, you learn and you make your decisions. It ultimately means I am who I am and nothing in the world is ever going to change that.

When I was young I was always teased for being different. It came to a point where I started doubting myself and even concluded that I was an abomination. But over time when you get to meet people from various walks of life and of course upon coming out, I realized what a fool I have been. All those self-inflicting mental torture was not necessary.

I am also a nurse. I take pride in that now and look forward to assisting people as much as I can. I think one of my biggest achievements would be volunteering with The Purple Alliance in their health sectors. It’s because of such voluntary work that I have come to love what I do even more.

I believe I had to come out multiple times in my life. The first was when I was in polytechnic during my final year in nursing school. I used to get questions of whether I was dating a girl etc. I get very nervous when I lied but I still played along with my group of friends, until I realized whom am I kidding. So one day whilst waiting for the train ride back with my group of close friends I just blurted “I am gay”. What shocked me was their non-reaction. They were totally cool with it. We actually started being even closer after that.

My second time coming out was to some of my family. I just told the mom one day as she was asking if I had any girlfriends yet again. She started crying, but eventually she reassured me that she loves me no matter what. Well I guess that was what I was looking forward from her. As for the rest of my family I told and some took it well, some didn’t. But well! YOLO!

The gay community in Singapore is vibrant. You really get to meet many different kinds of people here. There may be some hate within the minority groups itself, but I believe with a little bit of love any form of boundary can be broken. There are many forms of stereotypes formed by the supposed main stream society in Singapore but I thing as a community we are breaking these stereotypes one by one. Who would have thought years ago that we would have our very own gay parade of sorts called Pink Dot. I think as a community, we allow each generation to grow thus making life a little bit welcoming and happier for the next generation.