Hwa Chong Institution has made news not long after the Karen incident. Earlier this week on July 13th, 16-year old students at Hwa Chong Institution sat through a lecture on homosexuality by one of their school counsellors. Someone uploaded the presentation slides onto Reddit on Saturday and it has since gone viral.
The slides, titled “Community Health”, contained a lot of dubious claims. Among them, that “58% of homosexuals have problems with intestinal worms” and that “one in 15 homosexuals is a paedophile”. Students were not only presented with the slides, they were also shown videos from True Love Is, a Christian group that openly promotes conversion therapy.
While the sources of his presentation weren’t properly cited, internet sleuths have found the source of the slides. Turns out, it was from a random Twitter page:
The school’s response
According to the school, the contents of the presentation weren’t approved by the school, nor were they aware of the topic being discussed. Apparently, the content was outside the scope of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Sexuality Education curriculum. Hwa Chong also stated that his views do not represent the school’s position.
These unfounded, unscientific claims only spread more hate and stigmatisation of queer individuals in Singapore – one can’t imagine what queer students who had to sit through this felt.
Hwa Chong has since suspended the employee from delivering sexuality education lessons. It remains unclear if the counsellor has/will face any consequences, but as of July 18, the staff is still under the employ of the school.
Conservatism rules
This isn’t the first time a Christian group has made news teaching about controversial content. Back in 2014, a Hwa Chong student made a lengthy Facebook post about a lecture by Focus on the Family. The lecture seemed to be promoting sexist and “traditional gender roles” in society. Views taught include that females are “fragile and need guys’ support” and that males are “guardians who can ultimately do no wrong even when they are evidently doing wrong.”
While we can speculate on the outcomes of the current issue, one Redditor has the inevitable truth:
