LGBT Advocacy and Transnational Funding in Singapore and Malaysia

LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor types that now include private corporations, national governments, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations and public-private partnerships. This article discusses LGBT advocacy as involving an expanded range of issues that go beyond a traditional focus on HIV/AIDS prevention. The geographical focus is on Singapore and Malaysia, two Southeast Asian countries where homosexuality is officially illegal. Alongside the global politics of LGBT rights, previous critiques about external funding and North/South asymmetries in transnational aid raise questions about its effectiveness for transformative socio-political change, and its political and theoretical implications. Three case studies are examined: Pink Dot Singapore, and the PT Foundation and Kuala Lumpur activist workshops in Malaysia. The data demonstrate the capacity for transnational support to contribute to grassroots activism and coalitional politics. However, significant observable outcomes are currently limited, partly because most of the grants are modest, and Singapore and Malaysia's high- and middle-income status excludes them from various funding bodies. Furthermore, domestic resistance to transnational funding has emerged, constituting more widespread discourses in which anti-LGBT sentiment is framed in terms of opposing Western encroachments and the dominance of the global North.