World

Taiwan to recognise same-sex marriages between Chinese and Taiwanese nationals

Sep 20
Written by Sophie Perry

Taiwan has announced Taiwanese-Chinese couples will be able to register their marriages (Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)

Taiwan has announced that it will recognise same-sex marriages between Taiwanese and Chinese nationals, giving couples the right to register their unions under the same regulations as heterosexuals.

The couples will be able to register their marriages in Taiwan after tying the knot outside the island nation or China, after providing relevant documentation and passing an interview, a press release published on the Ministry of the Interior website said.

“The Ministry of the Interior pointed out that cross-strait couples marrying each other in a third place will follow the practice of heterosexual marriages in terms of document verification, interview mechanisms and marriage procedures,” the statement read.

“For people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait who are not married in a third place (regardless of heterosexual or same-sex marriages), they should still follow the Regulations on the Relationship between the People of Taiwan and the Mainland and the relevant provisions of the current practice.”

The move is expected to benefit hundreds of couples in Taiwan.

Supporters of same-sex marriage celebrate outside the parliament in Taipei on May 17, 2019. - Taiwan's parliament legalised same-sex marriage on May 17, 2019, in a landmark first for Asia as the government survived a last-minute attempt by conservatives to pass watered-down legislation. — The news is another landmark moment for LGBTQ+ people in Taiwan. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty)

In a joint statement, LGBTQ+ groups in Taiwan said they welcomed the change, describing it as a “a long-awaited, difficult but navigable path home” but noted that, because same-sex couples must get married in a third place, they “still have higher economic and class barriers to marriage”.

LGBTQ+ legislator Huang Jie, a member of the left-leaning Democratic Progressive Party and first out queer person to be elected, welcomed the announcement and said she had received many requests for help from cross-strait same-sex couples since equal marriage was legalised.

Taiwan legalised same-sex marriage in 2019, becoming the first Asian nation to do so, in a landmark moment for LGBTQ+ rights in the region. The move followed the country’s top court ruling that defining marriage as being between only a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

Last year, the nation of 23 million people – which China claims as its own and which it seeks to bring under its control – granted full adoption rights to same-sex couples.

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