SBS Bus driver to face disciplinary action for calling an Ah Kua, Ah Kua.

[goldenmonkey]

What's next?
Will a pet shop assistant face disciplinary action for calling a female dog a "bitch"?

 

[seesuatah]

Why be an ah kua when you are not proud of it?

Even LBGT has gay pride parades.

 

[me_member]

I'm not anti trans or homophobic...
But it would sure help if Leona would not "encourage" others in sterotyping if she did not come out with names of plays like this?

 

[Extremist]

Leona Lo: An Ah Kua shows and tells
by Sylvia Tan


Leona Lo, possibly Singapore’s best known transsexual, will take to the stage from Aug 6-8 to tell her story in the controversially titled Ah Kua Show.


Having offered to conduct gender diversity workshops for bouncers and staff at a club that had asked her to leave as it did not welcome "lady boys," Leona Lo has not let up in trying to educate the public about transgender issues since the incident two years ago. The Ah Kua Show is Lo’s latest attempt to bring transgender issues to the forefront. And determined to “attract attention” and take-back-the-word, Lo and director Emeric Lau decided to name the play after the most commonly used Hokkien epithet to refer to transsexuals and effeminate gay men.


Leona Lo with director Emeric Lau (right)
The one-woman play is based on her 2007 memoir From Leonard to Leona: A Singapore Transsexual's Journey to Womanhood which was written over a course of 11 years. The book traces the major milestones in the 34-year-old PR consultant’s life from suffering a nervous breakdown while performing compulsory military service, surviving a suicide attempt at 19 to using his tuition money for her sexual reassignment surgery in Bangkok in 1997 whilst she was a first year student at the University of York in the UK.

Emeric and Leona tells more about the Ah Kua Show, Singaporean men and being a transsexual in Singapore where on one hand transsexuals are able to legally marry but on the other, misconceptions and stigma abound.

Limited tickets are available on Thursday, Aug 6 while performances on Aug 7 and 8 are sold out. A matinee at 3pm on Sat, 8 Aug 09 is being considered. To indicate your interest, please email [email protected].

æ: Tell us more about what to expect at the Ah Kua Show.

Emeric: Our production highlights the main features of Leona's growing-up years - there's a lot of pain and hurt, but also joy, laughter and courage. But this is definitely not a mere pathos-laden trip! You'll find out which Singapore schools nurtured Leona, her National Service experience, her blossoming into a ‘real’ woman, and also challenges faced at the start of her career, and her perspective on love and romance. There's also a lot of self-reflecting going on, often with hilarious results. There is a word to sum it all up, but I won't use that word here, because Leona is using it in the play.

æ: Why did you decide to dramatise it?

Emeric: Leona's story is a truly unique one about growing up transsexual in Singapore. It needs to be told so that we have a record for posterity from a representative of an oft-overlooked minority group here. It needs to be told so that others who find themselves in similar situations as she did can be assured that they are not alone. Leona's story works theatrically because it gives her the chance to speak out directly, in the flesh, to both her supporters and those who view her as an object of curiosity, and to those who care to know more about the life of a transsexual. With Leona playing herself, both the story and story-teller is conflated - something we can't achieve outside of theatre.


æ: I know you've probably been asked a thousand times but why the name – given it's an oft-used derogatory word used to refer to transsexuals, transvestites and gay men?

Emeric: Yes, ah kua is about the most common insult hurled at transsexuals. From a marketing point of view, we know the brazen title Ah Kua Show would surely attract attention, which is good! The title was also chosen because it is our way of re-framing a term that has a negative connotation into something positive. Ah Kua Show is a triumph of one woman's determination to go against the odds and live life on her terms - it takes strength and courage (or you can say, ironically, that it takes balls) to be an ah kua!

æ: Having worked as a corporate communications manager at a government agency and currently running your own public relations company, how well or badly informed do you think the Singaporean public of transsexuals and transsexual issues?

Leona: Largely ill informed. Apart from the occasional spurts of news in the media, there's a dearth of information on the subject. There's still such a huge stigma attached to being ah kua, I don't know where to begin. Just recently, two transgender women were allegedly humiliated by the bouncer and lady GRO at Zirca on ladies' night on 15 Jul 09. I'm still investigating the matter. Zirca still hasn't responded to me despite repeated emails. But the transgender ladies who wrote to me have also not replied to my emails for further clarification. So there's nothing much I can do. I can only help those who wish to help themselves.

æ: On one hand it seems pretty progressive that in Singapore transsexuals are recognised as their reassigned sex and are able to legally marry (someone of the opposite sex) but on the other, you say you are still being called ‘bapok’ or ‘ah kua’ by strangers. What misconceptions about transsexuals do you most often hear in Singapore?

Emeric: One common misconception is that transsexuals are all prostitutes who hang out at Orchard Towers and Changi Village, soliciting for customers with certain perverse preferences. It's similar to the thinking that gays all love rave parties where they do drugs, get naked and have sex. Just because one group within a community with certain lifestyle practices happens to be most visible at the time does not mean that their conduct applies or is representative of the whole community. We want to show that transsexuals lead responsible lives and contribute just as much as anyone else to Singapore.

æ: Are Singaporean men generally accepting of transsexuals as romantic partners? What are the biggest challenges that you face with Singaporean men compared with non-Singaporean men (and vice versa)?

Leona: Singporean men? Let's not even go there. The cute ones are mostly gay, the straight and cute ones are too short. Lol. It's neither race nor ethnicity, I believe. It's what's down there - I mean the heart.

æ: Have you found Mr Right?

Leona: No, it's up to Mr Right to find me.

æ: You have corresponded with "US army officers, professors and even corporate high fliers who felt there was no way out of their gender identity crisis." What do you think are the biggest challenges transsexuals face universally (or is there no such thing as individual circumstances differ)?

Leona: There's definitely some universality - they all feel "it's not right," and hope that there's someone out there who can prove them wrong. They are happy to chat with me because I make it seem so... natural, like it's my birth right. Amen!

æ: What do you think is the best thing someone who is questioning his or her gender identity should do?

Leona: Listen to different perspectives. Start with the established websites like lynnconway.com. Read positive stories. Read negative stories. Make an informed opinion based on facts and not what people think is right or wrong for you. You know yourself best.


Ah Kua Show M(16)
Date/time: Aug 6-8, 2009 / 8pm
Venue: The Substation Theatre
Tickets: $25, free seating.
Student Concession: $18, free seating.Please show your student cards when collecting at the door. Concessionary rate applies to online bookings only
Venue tel: 6337 7535

Limited tickets are available on Thursday, Aug 6 while performances on Aug 7 and 8 are sold out. A matinee at 3pm on Sat, 8 Aug 09 is being considered. To indicate your interest, please email [email protected].

 

[Extremist]

 

[Extremist]

Leona is Principal Consultant at Talk Sense Pte Ltd, a public relations company she founded in 2005. She has more than 10 years of experience in corporate communications, healthcare and lifestyle public relations, brand story creation and issues management. She is now an active social media lead on a technology public education campaign.

Her research interests are related to the interplay between mass communication, gender identity and politics.

Her autobiography From Leonard to Leona was published in 2003 by Select Books and she contributed an essay to Gender Outlaws, The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear (published by Seal Press in August 2010).

Her theatre productions include Ah Kua Show staged at the Substation, Singapore in 2009 and Ah Kua Show goes to New York which debuted at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2010. She contributed to the Substation Love Letters project in 2011 and also piloted the “Transforming Lives” mentorship programme to empower transgender women to earn an equitable income in Singapore.

Leona graduated from the University of York, United Kingdom with Honours in English and Related Literature. She was awarded the York Trust Settlement Prize in her final year at university for raising awareness of transgender issues. In 2001, she was given the Prospect Globe Award to pursue a Masters in Qualitative Research Methods at her alma mater.

 

[Extremist]

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'It' was a WP supporter

 

[Leongsam]

Freak shows should be in a circus.

 

[Received_by_Kings]

The bus driver was right to call a spade a spade.

I hate gays and transsexuals most of all.

 

[Received_by_Kings]

Freak shows should be in a circus.

Calling them circus trainwrecks is still a compliment in my book.

 

[Sir_Fcuk]

ah kua ah kua ah kua ha ha ah kua

 

[Cestbon]

Chao Ah Gua!
Dont like been called Ah Kua then dont be Ah Kua/change sex.

 

[Mdm Tang]

That sinkie ass owns SBS? I thought that is a public service?

.


Never ever upset a transgender ; if you do then i worry for you ...

 

[Raiders]

It is not wrong to be a Ah Kua. But to be an Ah Kua without boobs, that is wrong :o

 

[Mdm Tang]

It is not wrong to be a Ah Kua. But to be an Ah Kua without boobs, that is wrong :o

when you repeat what you just said outside the House then i worry for you ...

 

[roadrunner]

..When asked about whether the company provides diversity training for its employees as Lo had offered to give a talk on diversity at no charge, Tan said the company has in place “internal training processes which cover a wide range of topics.”

what is diversity training in this case? how will she train the SBS captains? perhaps use "fruits" as an analogy to describe.. we have many kinds of fruits, this one durian, king of all fruits, outside not look very nice & some people say smells very bad but inside very very sweet!

 

[halsey02]

A rose by any other name does it not smell as sweet and a shit skin by any other name does it not smell as shitty Jah? :p

This one, "plastic rose", but the shit smell is real!!

 

[Raiders]

when you repeat what you just said outside the House then i worry for you ...

Alamak Auntie Tang, why your words always so deep one? Xiao Di only PSLE, dont understand lah

 

[halsey02]

Freak shows should be in a circus.

tar & feathered...

 

[lianbeng]

lianbeng still remembers ahkua kana publicly molested at sentosa foam party.