I can’t believe it’s already been my third Pink Dot. Ever since Charlotte revealed herself to the world, she needed to find people like her, and Pink Dot was an obvious choice.
From being a lost sheep to a volunteer contributing what she can, let’s recap each of Charlotte’s Pink Dots!
(author’s note: I’m trying to keep the images to a minimum since substack keeps warning me that my article is too long.)
2022 - The first one
This Pink Dot was full of uncertainty for me. After all, Charlotte had only existed for about 1 month at this point.
I was back at home, with only one blue dress generously donated from a friend. Doubts clouded my mind: what if my makeup wasn’t good enough? What if I got outed as a “man in a dress”? What if the people at Pink Dot aren’t supportive?
So many hypotheticals, but thankfully I worried for nothing.
This wouldn’t have been possible without help from my friend, who currently goes by “sponge”. Reading through our Telegram messages from 2 years ago, it’s very clear how terrified I was of being outed, of not looking how I wanted to look… and she handheld me through so much of it. From guiding me out of Clarke Quay MRT, to doing my makeup, and dancing with me to ABBA’s greatest hits, sponge really made my first Pink Dot a really fun one.
There’s one more memory unique to that Pink Dot. In 2022, National Day Parade was held at the Floating Platform, and the helicopters carrying the Singaporean flag flew past our venue. As the emcees pointed up to the skies, I realised that just 4 years prior I’d seen the same view on the parade square. Back when I was still wearing the grey navy uniform, back when Charlotte had not even existed.
And there I was 4 years after that, as a newly born queer person, realising that even if the view was similar, so much had changed about who I was and who I could be. Even if we still live in Singapore, what this nation means to us has become very different for me.
All in all, a great first time.
2023 - 36 hours outside
When I tell my friends about this journey, they cannot understand how I pulled it off. To this day it’s still one of my favourite stories to tell about Charlotte.
Once again, I started from home, bereft of all my Charlotte items. This time, I had my Yale-NUS College friends to thank; they’d agreed to store a whole box of my dresses and outfits in their room over summer! (My own hostel had unceremoniously yeeted the lot of us out due to renovations.)
Leaving home at noon, I went to their room and changed into my pink dress, before shipping out to Hong Lim Park once more. That year, I joined Transcend’s picnic mat, but ended up talking more with my friend from school. I guess it’s on me that I didn’t reach out to more people (more on that later).
The booths were great, the concert was a bit loud (maybe I shouldn’t have squeezed to the front), and the formation was super hyped because Section 377A had just been repealed. Still, even after all that, Charlotte wasn’t done!
After a quick dinner at Mos Burger (which became my post Pink Dot tradition), I headed to Hard Rock Cafe with another friend from school. The afterparty was a lot of dancing and a drag competition, all the way from 10 pm to 4 am: there, I worked up a sweat and learned that dancing is excellent cardio!
But even after the party ended, I was unwilling to go home immediately, and sat at Coffee Bean Tea Leaf with a new friend I’d made. He was FTM, so we commiserated over gender issues and not being able to be who we wanted to be. I think he’s studying in Canada now; hope it’s better to him there than anything Singapore could provide.
Here’s a life hack if you ever need to shower outside: Singapore Sports Hub has free showers. And that’s where I went after wrapping things up with my new friend: I needed to de-Charlottise just so I didn’t feel so grimy after all that happened the day before. I also tried to get some sleep, but it’s not easy to drift off into dreamland when you’re thinking about whether someone might just swipe your stuff out from under you.
By then, it’d already been 24 hours since I left home. I went out for lunch with my CCA exco, some of whom had never seen Charlotte before. Catching up over Thai food, I was concerned that my dress would get stained, but it didn’t~
After that, I headed to Transcend’s afterparty. I don’t wanna speak ill of other trans people, but I felt a little awkward around them, nonetheless. This was also probably the first time I realised the differences Charlotte had with other trans girls: I don’t do HRT or any other medical transition, so there’s obviously less I can talk about with them. I’ll probably cover this in another blog post.
Still, it was fun to play codenames and hang out with people like me. Particularly, I picked up some makeup tips which I still use to this day, including how to put on my lip liner.
They were still partying at 9 pm, but that was my cue to exit. Rushing back to Yale to get changed, I caught the last train home just in time, and finally touched down at 12 midnight, concluding 36 hours as Charlotte.
I don’t have the energy to do this anymore, but it was still one of the most daring and reckless things I’ve done.
2024 - Volunteering!
Remember I mentioned not being able to make new friends as a participant? That was one of my motivations going in as a volunteer. That, and what I could do as a participant became rather limited.
Immediately, I saw myself committing more time to Pink Dot than before. Starting with the volunteers’ briefing and picnic, I had fun getting to know more queer people from various teams. Then came the preparation: if you lit up a pink torch last night, chances are, I was removing it from its original box, placing the batteries in, and testing it. Also, we shifted so many potted plants away from the Hong Lim Park stage that it became almost a routine for the 6-person team assigned to it.
This Pink Dot was different for me than the previous two, even from the start of the day. This time, I had my Charlotte stuff with me: I compressed my pink shirt and makeup kit into a tote bag, so I could change wherever I wanted. Living incognito like this isn’t great, but getting to a safe space like Pink Dot makes that all worth it.
Since I made an NS comparison above, let me make another one now. Fellas, y’all know the phrase “rush to wait, wait to rush”? I can’t deny there were some points like that. But unlike the folks in green/grey/blue, those of us in pink could really talk with each other and make some new friends while waiting.
I later found out my role was to manage the livestream, so I was free until 5.45 to check out the booths and find my friends. Thank you all for taking photos with Charlotte!
And if you were watching the performances on IG Live that day, hope you enjoyed! And I’m sorry that the livestream ended abruptly between performances, even if we made the disruption as minimal as possible.
We ended the night not at a club, but at a bar. Upgrading from “just one pint” to “hey let’s do a 2 litre tower” was reckless, but I’m still alive and typing this, so it can’t be that bad, right? It is ironic, though. Last year I was not drunk and went to the club, and this year I was drunk enough to go clubbing but didn’t. Maybe next year the circumstances will align…
What about next time?
I think I’ll volunteer for Pink Dot again. As many times as they need me. At first, I was concerned that I wouldn’t have time to free roam, but we did! And I’d encourage all of you reading this to volunteer if you can, because we need all the people we can get. Not just to run the event, but also to meet queer people and understand what we’re going through.
Also, if circumstances permit, I’ll dust off the Barbie outfit and Charlotte will embody the essence of Margot Robbie next year~
tata for now,
Charlotte