Section 377A (Singapore)

Section 377A was a law in Singapore that criminalised sex between consenting adult males. It was introduced under British colonial rule in 1938 when it was added to the Penal Code by the colonial government. It remained a part of the Singapore body of law after the Penal Code review of 2007 which removed most of the other provisions in Section 377. It was subsequently repealed in its entirety in 2023.

Prior to the repeal, Section 377A, while retained de jure in the Penal Code, had been for many years de facto unenforced – there had been no convictions for sex between consenting male adults in decades. While a small number of people were convicted under the law for private consensual acts between adults from 1988 until 2007, enforcement effectively ceased outright following the Penal Code review, despite the law being formally retained until 2022.

On 28 February 2022, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Singapore reaffirmed that 377A could not be used to prosecute men for having gay sex. That same year, an Ipsos survey found that 44% of Singapore residents supported retaining the law, with 20% opposing it and the remaining 36% being ambivalent. On 21 August 2022, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced during the annual National Day Rally that the government intended to repeal Section 377A, ending criminalisation de jure. On 29 November 2022, the Parliament of Singapore passed a bill to repeal Section 377A. The law was formally repealed after the bill was assented by President Halimah Yacob on 27 December 2022 and gazetted on 3 January 2023.