Background There are documented cases of same-sex unions in Ancient China. During the
Song era, there are tales of two men,
Pan Zhang and Wang Zhongxian, who fell in love and lived together in a relationship described as "affectionate as husband and wife, sharing the same coverlet and pillow with unbounded intimacy for one another". In modern times, the earliest known advocate for same-sex unions was the 19th to 20th century utopian reformer
Kang Youwei, who advocated temporary marriage contracts lasting up for a year. These contracts would have been open to both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. However, he did not believe that China was ready for such a historic step, and deferred this policy until the future
Great Unity.
Chinese Buddhism considers marriage to be a secular issue or a social contract, and therefore not a religious matter. There is no religious marriage service and marriage customs are often adopted from local cultural traditions. Writing for the
Journal of Religious Studies in 2022, Andi Fian, an alumnus from the
Gadjah Mada University, argued that prohibitions against same-sex marriage in
Confucianism may have influenced Chinese Buddhism. On 13 January 2010, the
China Daily published a front-page splash photo of a Chinese couple, Zeng Anquan, a divorced
architect aged 45, and Pan Wenjie, a demobilized
People's Liberation Army soldier aged 27, being married in a
gay bar in
Chengdu. The marriage is understood as having no legal basis in the country, and the families of both men reacted negatively to the news of their marriage. In September 2014,
Brian Davidson, the British Consul-General of Shanghai, married his male partner, Scott Chang, in a ceremony officiated by Ambassador
Sebastian Wood at his residence in Beijing. The marriage was performed under British law and lacks legal recognition in China, though the ceremony provoked mixed reactions in China. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, the
U.S. state of
Utah established an online civil marriage service for couples wishing to marry. The marriage is officiated by
Zoom and for an additional fee the couple can obtain an
apostille validation stamp for the marriage license provided by Utah state authorities. By October 2022, around 200 same-sex couples in China had married via this online service, though the marriages have no legal status in China. The move has also become particularly popular in
Israel where
same-sex marriages performed abroad are legally recognised. According to certain estimates from 2010, about 80% to 90% of Chinese gay men were married to women, who are known in
Chinese as
tongqi (,
pinyin: ). These marriages, often called "sham marriages", are attributed to the fact that there is significant social pressure from family to marry and to found a family with a partner of the opposite sex. In most of these cases, the women are unaware of their husbands'
sexual orientation. In 2012, a professor at
Sichuan University committed
suicide after her husband came out as gay. In some cases, lesbians and gay men deliberately choose to marry each other. Research has shown that the social well-being of gay men and lesbians is significantly deteriorated by these "sham marriages", resulting in estrangement from family and suicide.
Court cases On 5 January 2016, a court in
Changsha, agreed to hear a lawsuit filed in December 2015 against the Bureau of Civil Affairs of
Furong District. The lawsuit was filed by 26-year-old Sun Wenlin, who in June 2015 had been refused permission to marry his 36-year-old partner, Hu Mingliang. On 13 April 2016, with hundreds of same-sex marriage supporters outside, the court ruled against Sun, who said he would
appeal. On May 17, 2016, Sun and Hu were married in a private ceremony in Changsha, expressing their intention to organize another 99 same-sex weddings across the country in order to normalize same-sex marriage in China. On 12 April 2021, the Shenyang Intermediate People's Court ruled that same-sex couples were not entitled to the same property rights as married spouses. In this case, a woman in
Shenyang had sued her former partner of 50 years for having sold the house the couple had lived in together. While the house was registered only in the partner's name, the woman claimed they had bought it together, and had each verbally agreed to a 50% stake in the property. The partner also countersued, alleging that the woman had stolen ¥294,000 from her bank account. The court dismissed both petitions. Ouyang Jintong, a lawyer at
Beijing Yingke Law Firm, said the court should have considered the length of the couple's relationship and cohabitation while arriving at its verdict, stating, "The couple lived together, shared wealth, comforted each other, and relied on each other in their twilight years, but their union could not be recognized as marriage because they were of the same sex, even though their lives were consistent with the essence of marriage."
Legal proposals The ''Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China
(, pinyin: , ) defined marriage as the union of "a man and a woman", but this law was repealed in 2021. Li Yinhe, a sexology scholar well known in the Chinese LGBT community, proposed the Chinese Same-Sex Marriage Bill'' (, ) as an amendment to the marriage law at the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008. All four proposals failed because she was unable to find enough cosponsors for a placement on the agenda. Li pledged to "continue proposing the bill until it is passed". In 2008, supporters of LGBT rights launched a signature campaign calling for the recognition of same-sex marriage. In 2012, Li launched a new campaign to raise support for same-sex marriage legislation. There were unsuccessful attempts to include provisions legalising same-sex marriage in the new
Civil Code in 2020. In August 2019, a parliament spokesman said that "limiting marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman will remain China's legal position". In December 2019, LGBT activists announced they had gathered over 200,000 signatures in support of same-sex marriage. Later that month, Yue Zhongming, a spokesman for the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, said that the
National People's Congress would review the possibility of opening marriage to same-sex couples in March 2020 and opened the topic to public comments. Several government-related
Sina Weibo accounts launched online opinion polls to gauge public support for same-sex marriage, with results as of 22 December 2019 being a ratio of 6 to 4 in favor. Results of an online
Phoenix Network survey, which had garnered close to 10 million votes, showed a 67% majority in favor of same-sex marriage. In May 2020, an official from the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress claimed that the signatures and comments in support of same-sex marriage the committee had received were "copied and pasted" and said that the ban on same-sex marriage would not be repealed. Article 1046 of the code states: "A man and a woman shall enter into marriage freely and voluntarily. Neither party may compel the other party to enter into marriage against his will, and no organization or individual may interfere with the freedom of marriage."
Government attitude Despite the
Chinese Society of Psychiatry having removed homosexuality from its list of
mental illnesses in 2001, such change is yet to be reflected by the regulations of the
National Health and Family Planning Commission. A government spokesperson, when asked about Li Yinhe's proposal, said that same-sex marriage was still too "ahead of time" for China. He argued that same-sex marriage was not recognized even in many
Western countries, which are considered much more liberal on social issues than China. This statement is understood as an implication that the government may consider recognition of same-sex marriage in the long run, but not in the near future. In addition, the Chinese Government requires parents
adopting children from China to be in heterosexual marriages. The Chinese Government did invite the
Prime Minister of Iceland,
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, and her wife,
Jónína Leósdóttir, on an official state visit in April 2013. Leósdóttir was largely absent from official media coverage of the visit but she was fully recognized as Sigurðardóttir's wife and was received as such at official functions, official residences and a reception at
Beijing Foreign Studies University. After the
Taiwanese Constitutional Court ruled in May 2017 that banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional under the
Constitution of the Republic of China, attitudes were largely positive on the social media platform Sina Weibo. Li Yinhe claimed that a majority of Chinese people under the age of 35 supported same-sex marriage. Pointing out that the average age of members of the National People's Congress was 49, she concluded that same-sex marriage was "only 14 years away". Days after the
same-sex marriage law came into effect in
Taiwan in May 2019, the ''
People's Daily'' posted a celebratory
tweet, "local lawmakers in
Taiwan, China, have legalized same-sex marriage in a first for Asia." The tweet, which included a rainbow-colored GIF that read "love is love" angered the
Foreign Minister of Taiwan,
Joseph Wu, who retaliated, "The bill was passed by our national parliament [and] will be signed by the president soon." Nonetheless, Chinese authorities signaled that they would not follow Taiwan's lead on same-sex marriage. An Fengshan, a spokesman for China's
Taiwan Affairs Office, said that the government "noted reports on the island" about same-sex marriage and that "the mainland has a marriage system of one man, one woman". At the time, some Chinese LGBT activists estimated that China was "at least a decade away" from legalising same-sex marriages, with priorities on introducing anti-discrimination laws, allowing LGBT groups to raise awareness without fear and censorship, and banning
conversion therapy. ==Public opinion==