I woke up to some amazing news this morning! Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriage. They are now the first country in Asia to do so. I’m hoping that Japan will follow in the near future—and SK of course, but Japan seems to have made greater strides especially in the courts.

What makes this really worth celebrating is that the most progressive of the same-sex marriage bills was the one that passed. It should be noted that there were three (3) bills being considered. One was the the government’s which was labeled the most progressive and the other two being considered were by conservative and anti-gay groups. The latter is like a group of men making laws on the reproductive rights of women. You can find more details of those proposed bills via the link below:

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201905130005.aspx

It should be noted that this marriage bill does not allow for adoptions outside of a partner’s biological children and does not recognize trans-national unions where a spouse is from a country where same-sex marriage is not legal. The fight continues. But for now, we take the wins where we can!

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    🎉🎉🎉 I am so so so proud of my country, @hades!! 🎉🎉🎉
    The fight absolutely continues, but what a huge first step especially for an Asian country.

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      This is big news. My international news feed is filled American states banning & criminalising abortions, so it’s great to see good news from another part of the world. *cheers for Taiwan*

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        I was just going to say this. We’re going back to the stone age, so it is good to see such progression being made elsewhere. I loved the campaign men did of wearing skirts in order to challenge gender stereotypes: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48254477
        Yay for marriage equality!!

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          Thanks for sharing that, @umbrellaman!! Haha the sky blue shirt and navy blue skirt WERE my uniform in middle school!! 🤣

          So happy that so many supporters came out to fight for the cause!!

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          Men wear pants. Women wear anything they want–pretty much 🙃. We are told from a very young age what colors, clothing, mannerisms, responsibilities etc. are acceptable for the respective genders. Even I get shocked seeing a man in a shirt. I think that’s because it’s not what I know to be the norm–I don’t see it often, nor do I wear skirts myself. Thankfully, a lot of this is beginning to change. The more it’s put out there and the more we do away with gender stereotypes, the more these things will be acceptable.

          To be honest, I never thought there would come a day when not only would it be ok, but it would be a generally socially acceptable trend for men to wear pink or skinny jeans for example and not be considered gay. Even men’s skin care has become a multibillion dollar industry. None of these trends picked up over night. But, once we get over the shock of seeing men in skirts and allow greater freedom of expression in that regard, it will be just like men wearing skinny jeans.

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        @greenfields, yes, I woke up reading the US headline about how the anti-abortion law Alabama passed is more restrictive than the Pre-Roe era, and about how House Democrats are so ineffectual even armed with Mueller’s report. This indeed is such welcoming news!

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          What annoys me about the anti-abortion law in Alabama is that:
          [1] They seem to have purposely made it so asinine and dangerous so as to try to get it to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe vs Wade.
          [2] Very few if any women had a hand in writing that bill. It was all a bunch of men writing a bill for women and many of them not only had no proper scientific or biological understanding of issues associated with abortion and a woman’s body, but were using highly contestable science they framed/reframed for their own ends.

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    Yes this is good news. I only realised today that the Constitutional Court ruling wasn’t legalising same-sex marriage but simply stating that legislation was needed to bring the law in line with the constitution.

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      Indeed. Funny enough, I only learned about this via the drama HIStory2: Right or Wrong–and doing my own digging after.

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    While we’re on the subject of same-sex relationships and Taiwan – have you seen History 3 Trapped yet? And if so, where did you watch it (subbed)?

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