THE CONVERSATION - July 3 - On May 24, Taiwan's constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, becoming the first place to do so in Asia. For the 70M LGBTQ people in neighbouring China, the news was bittersweet. Homosexuality has been legal in China since 1997, but the proposal to legalise same-sex marriage failed to pass on three occasions. The country's most iconic lesbian social media platform Rela was shut down on May 26 without any official explanation. The shutdown led to widespread outrage among LGBTQ communities in China. Rela has ~1.5M monthly active users, with 10% from overseas. Despite the shutdown of Rela, both academics and activists take an optimistic view of the development of China's LGBTQ rights. A key catalyst for the same-sex marriage discussion is tongqi (同妻) phenomenon, a Chinese term used to describe women who marry gay men. There are ~16M tongqi in China, and they are now an emerging force pushing for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the country.
by Meg Jing Zheng
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team
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