Meet the trans actor who gives ‘kind of a middle finger’ to Singapore’s conservative values

With LGBTQ characters effectively barred from free-to-air television, performers like Loo are rare in Singapore’s mass media.

“Within Singaporean spaces, trans people are just [considered as] jokes,” the 20-year-old said.

“I think me being on stage as a trans body, as a trans voice, is a little act of rebellion. It’s like kind of a middle finger to ‘Singaporean values’,” said Loo, who has turned more to theatre performance since she came out in 2021.

Her latest appearance was in January in a small documentary theatre production TRANS: MISSION, featuring different generations of trans people discussing their lives in Singapore in front of a live audience.

Raised in a Catholic family, she began acting aged seven, when she performed in the 2011 short film Cartoons by award-winning Singaporean filmmaker Ken Kwek.

She has since appeared in television shows, films, and stage productions, as well as graduated from a high-school theatre programme.

Her best-known role was in Lion Mums 2, a 2017 mainstream drama series, playing a supporting cast role of a student who dies by suicide, after being caught cheating at a badminton tournament.

“Getting to perform the pain … helped me process my own pain at that point,” she said, calling it “cathartic” as she was struggling with gender dysphoria and mental-health issues.

The appearance of queer characters on-screen is rare in Singapore, where regulations restrict portrayals of LGBTQ people in local media. When they do appear, they are often loaded with stereotypes, campaigners say.

Classification guidelines state that mature-themed films and television shows – including “alternative sexualities” and gender identities – are generally restricted for those aged 16 and above, meaning they cannot