AWARE founder member Margaret Thomas wants the new executive committee of Aware to make up their minds.

President Josie Lau, she pointed out, had said in a TV interview that the old Aware had diversified too much and needed to consolidate.

'Now suddenly it's been too focused on one issue? So what is it?' she asked yesterday.

On Thursday, the new team said Aware had become too focused on just one issue - promoting lesbianism and homosexuality.

The charge upset many past leaders.

'It's really out of turn,' said Ms Zaibun Siraj, a founding member.

Fellow founding member Kanwaljit Soin agreed. 'Aware's founding principle has been inclusiveness and because it has been inclusive we cannot condemn, deny or exclude any woman because of her sexual orientation or because she's been abused by her husband or because she's a single mother.

Dr Soin said Aware did not have a 'lesbian desk', accepted people for what they are and abided by the principle of 'women's lives, women's choices.'

She added: 'Aware has tackled many issues: violence against women, migrant workers and single mothers. It has not deviated and, if it had, it would have been incumbent upon me as a founder member to remind them gently of their guiding principles.'

Another founding member, multiculturalism researcher Lai Ah Eng, said that one of the first campaigns the group spearheaded was protesting against priority primary school registration for children of graduate women.

She said: 'If not for that, I think perhaps that policy might not have been withdrawn and I think Singapore would be very much more unequal because of that policy. And from then on, we've always had the spirit of wanting to improve women's conditions, their family's conditions.'

Another founder member and former president Lena Lim, 71, said Dr Thio Su Mien - the 'feminist mentor' who encouraged the new faces to take over Aware - arrived at her conclusions about Aware 'going only on circumstantial evidence'.

'If she has been following Aware for the last 10 years, why didn't she come up and ask us? We would have been more than happy to clarify her misconceptions,' said Mrs Lim.

'If she was so concerned about the comprehensive sexuality programme, why didn't she sign up and find out for herself? I did and it's nothing of the kind she described,' said the grandmother of four.

Dr Thio claimed on Thursday that Aware had been founded by her friends and she was distressed that the society had lost its way.

Dr Soin said: 'I don't know her and I would like to know the members she claims to know. We started the group in 1985 and I'm one of the founder members, along with people like Lena Lim, Hedwig Anuar and Vivien Wee.'

She said if Aware held activities that involved lesbians, it was because lesbians were already present in society. It did not go out and turn girls and women into lesbians.

She added: 'It's alarming how some people seem to think their truth is the only truth. Aware, as an organisation, has always been accepting of other truths and diversity of opinions.'

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This article was first published in The Straits Times.