It should have been just another routine process for the Housing Development Board (HDB): yet another newly married couple applying for a flat and waiting for the house to be completed before picking up their keys.
Only it wasn’t quite that routine, and that’s when the system began to break down for one couple who suddenly found their very status as a married couple challenged after the husband transitioned to female after exchanging vows.
In a highly compelling feature by Kirsten Han for Quartz, a Singaporean couple of eight years was left weary and worn out from the institutionalized discrimination they reportedly faced by government agencies, who basically didn’t know how to deal with the situation.
After being together for the better part of a decade, the two decided to tie the knot around October 2015. The husband, being a transgender woman but yet to undergo gender-affirming surgery, decided to do so in June the following year. Official details were updated with government agencies, including changing the sex stated on her identity card.
But it was only after informing the HDB about the change that their troubles began.
According to the HDB’s eligibility criteria, buying new flats are only open to married Singaporeans, which of course they were. But since the couple’s marriage was no longer recognized (retroactively, as they were now a same-sex couple) under Singaporean law, they were no longer entitled to the flat.
As you might imagine, they were livid — they had already been legally married by Singapore’s Registry of Marriages after all.
The HDB then kept delaying the outcome of their decision regarding the flat over a period of months. When it finally came around, the news was devastating. The couple’s marriage was voided as they “did not intend from the start to live as one man and one woman.” As Han aptly put, it was “as if they had never been married at all”.
The couple were still given a flat — but it was half the size of the four-room house they originally sought, and had to be purchased under the Singles Scheme. Meaning it cost them far more than what it would have under other schemes that involve Singapore’s idea of a “family nucleus” — SG$15,000 more, to be exact.
Though they did get a flat in the end, the trials and tribulations the couple faced have left deep scars.
“Every morning I wake up and I ask myself, why should I contribute to this society anymore? You know, if this is how they’re going to treat me, why should I bother?” asked the trans woman in the wake of the ordeal.
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