Career
He served as the party"s Treasurer and stood as a parliamentary candidate for the party 2011 general election. He was Singapore"s first openly gay politician. Doctor Wijeysingha has served as the Executive Director of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a non-government organisation advocating the rights of low-waged migrant workers.
He also publishes scholarly papers on social work and has worked as a lecturer in social work at SIM University.
Doctor Wijeysingha has stated that he joined the Social Democratic Party because he realised he had a responsibility as a Singaporean to work for change, saying that: "I cannot look the other way as more and more people experience the adverse effects of current PAP policies." Doctor Wijeysingha represented the Social Democratic Party in the discussion. Just days before Nomination Day on 27 April 2011, the PAP team in the Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency (GRC) led by Doctor Vivian Balakrishnan, told the press that the Social Democratic Party was "suppressing" a video which would "raise some awkward questions" about the party"s agenda.
Doctor Wijeysingha"s response was that he was unsure about which video Doctor Balakrishnan was referring to and that the Social Democratic Party was "an open party". The issue of the video was clarified on 25 April 2011, two days before Nomination Day, with both the PAP and the Social Democratic Party issuing statements about the issue.
The New Paper, ran a cover story on 26 April 2011, just a day before Nomination Day, with the heading "Is Singapore ready for a gay Member of Parliament?" (in reference to Doctor Wijeysingha and comments he had made on the video, which was recorded at a forum discussing gay rights in Singapore).
At the general election, the Social Democratic Party team led by Doctor Vincent Wijeysingha polled 39.92% of the valid votes cast in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, losing to the PAP team which polled 60.08%. In June 2013, Wijeysingha became the first Singaporean politician to openly declare that he was gay in a public forum when he made a post on Facebook ahead of the annual Pink Dot SG event in which he stated "yes, I am gay", and "no, I don"t have a gay agenda". In August 2013, Wijeysingha announced that he was resigning from the Social Democratic Party, stating that he wished to focus his efforts on pursuing his work in civil society.
Doctor Wijeysingha studied at Victoria School in Singapore, before heading to the United Kingdom where he studied at the University of Lincoln and earned a doctorate in Social Policy at the University of Sheffield.
He lived in England for almost 16 years before moving back to Singapore.
