LGBTQ RIGHTS/Nearly 70% of Taiwanese back same-sex marriage: Cabinet data

Taipei, May 10 (CNA) Almost 70 percent of people in Taiwan expressed their support for same-sex marriage in a recent telephone survey conducted by the Cabinet, with the approval rate nearly double the level in 2018, the year before it became legal in Taiwan.

The results of the survey, released by the Cabinet's Department of Gender Equality on Friday, found that 69.1 percent of respondents favored same-sex marriage, up 6.5 percentage points from the 2023 survey.

This was the fifth year that more than half of the respondents expressed support for same-sex marriage, after receiving 37.4 percent support in 2018, one year before Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalize the practice.

Data for 2019 is unavailable because the Cabinet did not conduct the survey that year. The survey is aimed at investigating public attitudes on issues regarding gender equality.

According to this year's survey, 76.9 percent of respondents supported the idea of same-sex spouses being able to adopt children unrelated to either spouse.

That view came nearly one year after Taiwan's Legislature amended the Act for Implementation of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748, which officially made it legal for same-sex couples to adopt children.

The number represented an increase of 2.8 percentage points year-over-year and a 23.1 percentage-point hike from 2018 when the survey was first conducted by the department.

Meanwhile, the survey included a question for the first time on whether women without partners and female spouses should be able to give birth using donated sperm. Some 59.2 percent of the respondents voiced their support, while 39.9 percent were opposed.

On a separate subject, 91.4 percent of respondents said they were willing to work with transgender individuals, the same as last year and slightly up from 88.1 percent in 2020.

In 2018, 81.6 percent of respondents said they would be willing to work with transgender individuals.

Furthermore, 57.4 percent of respondents agreed that transgender and bisexual individuals should be allowed to have a different gender option, other than male and female, on their ID cards.

Some 52.6 percent of respondents felt, however, that those wanting to change their gender should have to undergo some form of gender affirmation surgery to do so.

Meanwhile, 89.1 percent of people thought government revisions to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act, Gender Equality in Employment Act, and Gender Equity Education Act in 2023 would effectively prevent sexual harassment.

The three Acts were revised in mid-August after the months-long #metoo movement that began in late May and saw dozens, if not hundreds of celebrities accused of having committed or attempted to commit sexual harassment or assault.

The survey was conducted between April 19-23 among people aged 20 or older via a computer-assisted telephone interview system. A total of 1,076 valid samples were collected with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99 percentage points, according to the department.

(By Lai Yu-chen and Chao Yen-hsiang) End item/kb