Mermaids, Men’s Clothes, and Me

I was fifteen when my family and I visited Copenhagen for the June holiday. We boarded a tour bus from our hotel near Nyhavn, the famous waterfront lined with colourful shophouses. The Danish capital is a blend of old-world elegance and modern Scandinavian design, as pedestrians and cyclists shared the roads with ease. Eventually, the bus rolls up and stops at the Little Mermaid statue.

We disembarked with the other tourists, marvelling at the small, unassuming figure. She sat perched on a rock, her bronze skin gleaming in the summer sun, forever gazing out to sea. She seemed caught between two worlds—neither fully of the water she came from, nor of the land she longed for. As I was too young to grasp her unfulfilled longing, I playfully mimicked her pose, crossing my legs like her tail and letting my arm drape across my lap. However, in that playful moment, and as my parents took pictures, a seed was planted—one whose meaning would only reveal itself in time.

My thoughts shifted from the cold bronze of the statue to the warmth of stage lights. Months earlier, I had joined a community musical theatre club, and our final production was Once On This Island. I played the God of Death, a trickster who forces the protagonist to sacrifice herself for love. Rehearsals were a whirlwind—learning lines, songs, dances, and mastering the slyness of the character. But slipping on his breeches and black dress shirt sparked something inside me. On stage, I relished the power and mystery of the role, feeling a strange thrill. It was liberating, though I couldn’t yet put words to the feeling.

After a week in Sweden, we returned to Copenhagen and visited Tivoli Gardens. The vibrant lights and whimsical atmosphere should have been a welcome distraction, but that same sense of liberation still tugged at me. It wasn’t until I rode ‘The Flying Trunk’, a journey through Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, that something clicked. Sitting in the dark, illuminated scenes from the familiar childhood stories unfurled around me like old friends. But this time, I noticed the deeper themes—unrequited love and painful transformations. The mermaid’s yearning to change, to be someone else for love, only for it to be all in vain and dissolve into sea foam…It struck me that Andersen himself, through these stories, grappled with feeling different, yearning for connection, and hiding his true self. But even then, I couldn’t grasp what his stories had stirred in me. I didn’t have the words—yet.

Returning to conservative Singapore felt like returning to another world—familiar but changed. The memories of the Little Mermaid and Tivoli Gardens lingered, infusing my daily routines with an unshakable undercurrent. In the months that followed, I gravitated toward new interests, starting with a fascination for the ocean. I devoured documentaries about the sea, captivated by the strange creatures that defied norms—like male seahorses who carried and delivered their young, and the clownfish and wrasse who changed sex to adapt and survive. These creatures existed in fluidity, thriving in their own way, outside rigid boundaries.

At the same time, I delved deeper into Andersen’s life and stories. His seemingly simple fairytales now held layers of loneliness and longing I hadn’t seen before. The queer subtext in The Little Mermaid, often speculated to be a love letter to a man Andersen could never have, struck a personal chord. Like the mermaid’s longing to transform for love, I began to see these tales as metaphors for parts of myself I had yet to fully confront.

By the time school rolled around, I felt different, though the mundane days were coloured by the memories of the June holiday. When the community musical theatre club announced our next production—Into the Woods—I was cast as the Wolf, a character both charming and predatory. Rehearsals became another chapter in my journey, allowing me to explore the dualities within myself. Outside of rehearsals, I delved into queer identities, listening to their voices and piecing together the language I needed to describe the fluidity I was feeling. And as the curtain fell on the performance day, I felt the culmination of everything I had experienced in the past year. I felt as if the creatures of the sea, the Little Mermaid, Andersen’s fairytales and playing male characters onstage all spoke to different facets of my identity, finally awakening parts of myself that had long been dormant.

Since I left the club, I started having a recurring dream. In it, I am a maiden living by the sea—outgoing and energetic— who loves running along the shore. But I suddenly stop, for kneeling at the water’s edge is a boy—quiet, timid, and soaked by the waves. His eyes hold both anticipation and a yearning I recognise: the desire to be loved, and to belong. Without hesitation, I take his hand and help him rise, though his legs wobble for he is taking his first steps on land. As I do, something within me shifts, as if I’m seeing not just him, but myself, reflected in his eyes. We begin to dance, slowly at first, as he finds his balance and I guide him across the soft sand. Our movements are fluid and natural, as if we had always known this dance. It seems strange with me leading and him following, but it feels right. But just as we are about to fully become one, the sun outside my window kisses me awake, and the dream ends.

However, the dream had sparked an epiphany about myself: I had been split into pieces—into the maiden and the sea boy, into the feminine and masculine, into all the roles I had played and all the identities I had explored. But rather than being separate, they were parts of me, ebbing and flowing like the tide, moving in rhythm as I charted my course. My identity didn’t need to fit into neat categories—it was dynamic and beautiful in its complexity, even if the conservative Singaporean society didn’t want to see it. The dream never shows the final fusion, but I know it will be beautiful—because it is me. And my own identity will continue to evolve—fluid, interchangeable, and free.