The struggle for marriage equality and intimate citizenship: a field occupied by multiple hegemonic discourses

On 24 May 2017, the ROC Constitutional Court issued the J.Y. Interpretation No. 748, declaring part of Taiwan’s Civil Code, which prohibits same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. Suddenly, it seems that the marriage equality campaign has won and the decades-long tongzhi social movement is close to a conclusion: from demedicalisation, normalisation, anti-discrimination, to constitutional recognition of homosexual intimate citizenship. Starting with the Same-Sex Marriage case in question, this article considers what have made the equalisation of same-sex partnership possible and/or impossible in Taiwan, by critically analysing the contexts and contents of the Court’s decision, which potentially reinforced heterosexism. Thus, I propose to understand the process and outcome of Pro-Family Referendums from an agonistic perspective, arguing that, in this light, any attempt to ‘essentialise’ marriage/family and Taiwaneseness would harm Taiwan’s democracy. Through representing a pluralistic picture of ‘marriage equality’, this article also demonstrates that the struggle for intimate citizenship is located in a field in which multiple hegemonic discourses (e.g. legal, medical, political, cultural) coexist and compete with each other for authority. In this respect, our agency and reflexivity, as right advocates as well as tongzhi members, is an ethical question in that struggle.