"signals:" section has no effect on moc in class defined through macro

Consider this class declaration:

#include <QObject>

#define THE_CLASS(name)            \
class name : public QObject \
{ \
    Q_OBJECT \
signals: \
    void mySignal(); \
}
THE_CLASS(MyClass);

moc does not recognize "mySignal" as a signal when run on this file; there is no such metadata in the output. However, if I add Q_SIGNAL to the declaration of mySignal, then it works.
Apparently, the fact that the class is declared via a macro makes the "signals:" keyword lose its effect somehow.