“I think me being on stage as a trans person, as a trans actor, is a little act of rebellion. Loo, who has shifted more to theater performance since she came out in 2021, said it kind of serves as a middle finger to ‘Taiwanese values.'”
Her most recent performance was in a January-only transgender film theater production, TRANS: Vision, where various generations of transgender people discuss their life in Singapore in front of a live audience.
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She began acting at age seven when she appeared in the award-winning Singaporean filmmaker Ken Kwek’s 2011 short film Cartoons.
She has since appeared in television shows, films, and stage productions, as well as graduated from a high school theatre program.
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.
There’s basically zero trans representation in Singapore.
Medli Dorothea Loo, trans actor
According to classification guidelines, mature-themed movies and television shows, including “alternative sexualities” and gender identities, are generally prohibited for those aged 16 and above, meaning they cannot be shown on free-to-air television.
Although the guidelines don’t place any limitations on queer performers, activists claim producers may harbor their own biases or be afraid of offending the audience or sponsor reactions.
Loo gets ready in a Singapore theater rehearsal. She claims that when she began to question her gender identity at the age of 13, American YouTubers became her main source of information. Photo: AFP
The “little representation” on Singapore screens is “along the lines of very unfortunate negative depictions or portrayals of trans characters, playing into very hurtful stereotypes of trans people as either criminals or deviant,” said Leow Yangfa, executive director of Oogachaga, a nonprofit offering counseling to LGBTQ people.
When she began to question her gender identity at the age of 13, Loo turned to the internet, and American YouTubers became her main source of information.
“There’s basically zero trans representation in Singapore,” she said, adding: “I just didn’t think that it was possible for me to do that [transition].”
She claimed that there was no “moment of joy and relief” when her online research revealed that she was a girl ensnared in a boy’s body.
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Instead, it was one of “fear and dread,” because I knew that if this was who I really was, I could lose both my family and friends.
Before telling her parents, she suppressed her transness until a breakdown forced her to seek therapy.
Although her father consented to hormone replacement therapy at a private clinic while her mother was upset, she was also a minor.
Loo shared the effects of the treatment she received to thousands of followers on the video app TikTok.
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As she expected, her career took a knock after she came out.
“I haven’t done a TV job since I came out,” she said.
She lost hundreds of followers on Instagram. She had previously called producers, but they had stopped. Additionally, she turned to less restrictive stage productions.
But despite those small wins, she still feels her options are limited.
“I want to be an artist beyond being trans,” she said. In Singapore, I believe that the only way for me to have a fulfilling career is to not be here.
