After the storm, comes a calm? The compromised ‘Asia’s first’ same-sex marriage

This article outlines the socio-legal development of marriage equality movement in Taiwan. On 17 May 2019, also an International Day Against Homophobia, members of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (Parliament) debated on and eventually passed the Enforcement Act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748. The new law grants same-sex couples almost the same set of partnership and family rights that are available to heterosexual married couples under the Civil Code, with certain exceptions. To contextualise such a landmark achievement, this article first challenges the tearing-the-society-apart discourse at the heart of the debate, and critically reconsiders the medically-based judgement that links sexual minority members’ ‘normality’ and their citizenship rights-holding status – adopted and endorsed in the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748. That is, without recognising the agonistic nature of democratic politics and the danger of overreliance on medical discourse, the Asia’s first badge for Taiwan’s same-sex marriage institution is compromised and can be problematic in the future.