Archive of Our Own

Abstract

This study examines the queer deconstructionist camp in Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, focusing on its critique of the marriage-family system and implications for rethinking pingquan (平權), a concept often understood as either equality or equity. It situates the camp in relation to conservative and progressive-liberal positions, highlighting their discursive strategies and tensions within the queer community. The analysis explores how law, patriarchy, and filial piety shape intimate practices and reproduce structural inequality. Drawing on surveys and case studies, it shows that even after marriage legalization, queer people face pressures of institutional recognition and cultural discipline. Practices of “strategic normativity”, such as stable monogamy, middle-class respectability, and compulsory happiness, help resist stigma but also reinforce heteronormativity, transferring patriarchal and filial burdens into queer families. The findings suggest that marriage equality reduces stigma and extends legal rights but fails to address deeper cultural oppression. Deconstructionist critiques reveal the limits of equating pingquan with formal equality. This study argues for incorporating equity, attentive to difference and structural inequalities. Combining institutional reform with cultural change may create more sustainable recognition and protection for non-marital, non-biological, cross-border, transgender, and diverse intimate relationships.

1. Introduction

Taiwan is the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. The history of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement is essentially a process of promoting and realizing queer marriage equality legislation. It emerged around the lifting of martial law in the late 1980s. In 1986, Chi Chia-wei’s attempt to register a same-sex marriage was denied, representing the first public demand for marriage equality in Taiwan and marking the formal beginning of the LGBTQ movement in the country. From 1995, LGBTQ rights organizations began to publicly advocate for marriage rights and held symbolic same-sex weddings. However, incidents of police and media infringement targeting queer communities during the same period caused marriage equality and family-related issues to be overlooked again. 

In 2006, legislator Hsiao Bi-khim proposed a same-sex marriage bill, which sparked public debate but ultimately failed to enter the Legislative Yuan. The establishment of the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR, 台灣伴侶權益推動聯盟) in 2009 marked a new phase of systematic advocacy. In 2012, the organization proposed a civil code amendment that included same-sex marriage, civil partnerships, and multi-person family arrangements, signaling a shift toward the democratization of intimate relationships in Taiwan (Chien 2012, p. 190195). In 2016, Judicial Interpretation No. 748 declared that same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected under the rights to equality and freedom of marriage. On May 17, 2019, the Legislative Yuan finally passed the Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 (司法院釋字第七四八號解釋施行法), officially legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan.

Throughout the development of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, different approaches and ideas have also emerged. They can be broadly categorized into three camps: conservative, liberal-progressive, and radical (Ning, 2018a; Ning, 2018b). Whether marriage should be reformed to include more types of relationships, or whether the institution itself should be fundamentally questioned, has become a central issue of debate. 

The conservative camp includes both defenders of the traditional “one man, one woman” model and those who support special legislation (rather than civil code amendment) for non-heterosexual couples. These views are largely rooted in religious and cultural conservatism, such as Christianity. The liberal-progressive camp includes the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (TTHA, 台灣同志諮詢熱線協會), which represents activists seeking legal access to marriage. It also includes the Awakening Foundation (AF, 婦女新知基金會) and the TAPCPR which advocate a more flexible and self-defined form of marriage. Their background is rooted in liberalism, combined with elements of feminism (Li, 2017; Ning, 2018a). The tensions between these two strands mainly concern sexual liberation and the idea of diverse family formations. The focus lies on individual autonomy over one’s body and sexual orientation, as well as on expanding the scope of the family to include same-sex partners within the family system. 

The radical camp is represented by the “queer deconstructionists” (酷兒毀廢派), particularly those associated with the Imagining Non-Familiality (想像不家庭陣線, INF), who advocate the slogan “deconstruct family, abolish marriage” (毀家廢婚) (Wang and Chen, 2019, p. 14). In 2013, queer deconstructionists launched the “Imagining Non-Familiality” project on Coolloud (苦勞網), which later led to the publication of Against Family-Marriage Continuum: A Collective Speculative Extrapolation into Familial and Recalcitrant Modes of World-Buildings (《想像不家庭：邁向一個批判的異托邦》). 

This camp fundamentally questions the role of marriage and family as instruments of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and state governance. They seek to raw a third line of debate on same-sex marriage, aiming to “move toward a para-Real path that is neither reformist nor utopian” (Hung, 2019a, p. 11). Their discussions ranged from the classical leftist trajectories of Engels and Marxist feminism to the queer theories of the New Left, and from Western theories abroad to China’s radical antifamily experiments in the late Qing and early Republican periods (Wang and Chen, 2019, p. 14). They envisioned how to create the social, economic, and political conditions for freer and more diverse forms of association, rather than merely reforming marriage and gender roles. At the same time, they also reflected on everyday interpersonal practices and relationships that had been dismissed as “old” or “backward” under the influence of Western knowledge and modernization, while also revisiting many localized achievements of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement.

Although both the liberal-progressive camp and queer deconstructionists are internal factions of the LGBTQ community and share a commitment to supporting LGBTQ equality, they hold fundamentally different attitudes toward the institution of marriage, which leads to strategic differences. As the mainstream, the liberal-progressive camp has sought reform within the framework of marriage, presuming that the institution itself possesses the potential to be repaired and expanded. By contrast, queer deconstructionists, positioned at the margins of the community, has taken a path of institutional deconstruction. 

Existing research on Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement has largely concentratedon the liberal-progressive camp, emphasizing legal change and strategies of marriage-equality discourse, while paying far less attention to the voices of the radical camp, particularly how they construct their discourse and generate dialectics and tensions with other queer factions. The lack of engagement with the radical camp risks reducing the LGBTQ movement to a “marriage equality movement” and neglecting its diversity and conflict. Moreover, deconstructionists perspectives have primarily taken the form of theoretical critique, often limited to denouncing the institution of marriage itself, without developing feasible cases or concrete proposals, hence their arguments are generally less persuasive than those of other more experienced factions.

The core purpose of this study is therefore to reflect on the discourse of the queer deconstructionists and its position within Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement. Specifically, it aims: (1) to examine how the radical camp constructs its critical imagination of marriage and family, and to reveal its dialectical relationship and tensions with other queer factions; (2) to analyze the limitations of the radical camp critiques; and (3) to reconsider, through the inspiration of the queer deconstructionists, whether the core of pingquan (平權) should be understood as equality or equity. In other words, should the movement seek to ensure that everyone receives the same treatment, or should it aim to allocate resources according to individual differences and needs so that all may genuinely enjoy similar opportunities? In this way, this study seeks not only to fill a gap in existing research but also to provide new perspectives for understanding both the diversity of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement and the redefinition of pingquan itself.

In the following part, chapter 2 defines the research questions and methods, explains the sources and analytical steps, and introduces hegemonic heteronormativity as the main theoretical framework. Chapter 3 reconstructs the spectrum of factions within Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, focusing on the emergence, core arguments, and discursive strategies of the deconstructionist camp, and compares them with the progressive-liberal and conservative camps. Chapter 4 is divided into three sections: the first reviews the historical and cultural meanings of the marriage–family system and discusses its role in law and governance; the second draws on quantitative and ethnographic materials to examine the situation of queer people after the legalization of same-sex marriage, highlighting the tensions between institutions and culture; the third synthesizes the preceding analysis to return to the definition of pingquan and the related strategic debates, discussing the possible implications and options of different approaches. Chapter 5 concludes by summarizing the findings, answering the research questions, and outlining the study’s limitations and directions for future research.

2. Theoretical Framework and Methodology

This study adopts the hegemonic heteronormativity model by Allen and Mendez (2018) to examine the insights brought by the queer deconstructionists in Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, especially how their arguments provide new perspectives for the discussion of pingquan. The word pingquan carries a broader meaning, sometimes pointing to formal equal treatment (equality) and sometimes to substantive fairness that addresses historical and structural inequality (equity). This model understands heteronormativity as a hegemonic system, which is not fixed but constantly changes in different social contexts. It maintains the dominance of mainstream gender and family forms by selectively including some groups and excluding others.

The model focuses on three binary axes: gender, sexuality, and family. On each axis, the hegemonic structure allows limited inclusion. For example, preferring cisgender identities while excluding transgender people, accepting monogamous same-sex relationships while rejecting polyamory, or recognizing marriage-based families while ignoring non-marital or chosen forms of intimacy. Beyond these axes, the model also considers contextual factors such as race, class, nation, ability, and religion, which determine who can be seen as “normal” in a given situation. In addition, it highlights the role of time, by considering how heteronormative practices and hegemonic categories evolve with social and political change.

By applying this model, this study can critically reflect on how the queer deconstructionists’ critiques of marriage and family reveal contradictions and limits in mainstream marriage-equality discourse. The queer deconstructionists emphasize exposing the disciplinary and exclusionary functions of marriage, which directly echoes what the model shows: hegemonic systems selectively absorb some marginalized groups while continuing to stigmatize others (Hung, 2019b, pp. 31-32, 43-44). At the same time, the framework also helps to reflect on the queer deconstructionists’ own ideas and their limits. Their call to “deconstruct family, abolish marriage” can fall into another form of deconstructive ideological hegemony, reducing all problems to systemic inequality, while ignoring that some groups still need institutional protection (Ho, 2015, p. 77). Therefore, the hegemonic heteronormativity model helps this study both understand their thought and identify the tension between their ideals and social realities, leading to a more complete understanding of the interactions and conflicts between different factions within Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement.

This study uses qualitative textual analysis as the main method. According to Lacity and Janson’s (1994) framework, textual analysis can be empirical, linguistic, or interpretive. Because the queer deconstructionists, as representatives of Taiwan’s radical LGBTQ faction, have long been marginalized both socially and academically, and because there are few systematic studies that trace and reflect on their ideas beyond their own writings, this study chooses an interpretive approach. This method emphasizes how texts construct meaning in particular cultural and political contexts, and the interaction between authorial intent and reader interpretation. This paper seeks to classify and integrate the discourses of the deconstructionist faction across different issues, in order to develop an independent understanding of this unique faction.

The analysis focuses on three dimensions. First is rhetorical strategies, examining how the queer deconstructionists deconstruct family and marriage as systems of governance and capital. Second is ideological assumptions, analyzing how they connect family with state governance and capitalist reproduction. Here, the study revisits how Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement has long understood the concepts and functions of marriage and family, and how the pingquan debate has centered on fairness and rights. This comparison allows us to assess both the inspiration and the flaws in the deconstructionist position, and to further interpret marriage and family as institutions. Third is socio-political positioning, focusing on the tension between the queer deconstructionists’ ideas and mainstream marriage-equality discourse, in order to reassess the role of the queer deconstructionists in the broader LGBTQ movement.

Through this qualitative textual analysis, the study aims to summarize and critique the queer deconstructionists’ ideas, and to re-examine the ultimate goals of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement. The study first adopts the theoretical framework of identity politics to examine Chen (2017) and Ning (2018a) on the historical trajectory and factional classification of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, thereby constructing a horizontal comparative perspective. By mapping the queer deconstructionists against the conservative camp and the progressive liberal camp in terms of their respective views on heterosexual and same-sex marriage, and comparing their core ideas and differences, this study situates the deconstructionist faction within Taiwan’s local social context and clarifies the role it plays in the queer movement in Taiwan.

Next, the study focuses on the queer deconstructionists themselves, tracing their core ideas. Since Against the Family-Marriage Continuum is the most important text of the queer deconstructionists in Taiwan so far, this study analyzes its key arguments and ideology. These writings are not treated as neutral data, but as ideological interventions: at once critiques of marriage, family, and equality discourses, and attempts to reshape the language of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement. Understanding their claims helps expose gaps in the mainstream movement. The study then considers responses such as Ho (2015), which reflect how society evaluates the queer deconstructionists, and discusses whether their theories have any potential for real transformation.

It should be noted that queer deconstructionists’ writings are mostly ideological manifestos, and there remains a gap between their theories and actual social practice. Therefore, this study does not attempt to test the feasibility of their strategies, but instead focuses on the challenges and limits that their discourse itself produces.

After this, the study moves back to reflect on the definitions of marriage and family, as well as the ultimate goal of pingquan. The study reviews theories of family and marriage in order to assess their validity and limitations, and to clarify the meaning and social functions of them. It also discusses the specific features of marriage and family in the Taiwanese social context. Beyond theoretical discussion, this study also analyzes the findings of fieldwork on queer life in Taiwan, such as Brainer (2019) and Tzeng (2019), to explore the real-life dilemmas faced by Taiwanese queer people. By combining these findings with the broader social context and its implications, the study examines Taiwan’s pursuit of pingquan and the issues that need to be addressed in the future.

3. Queer Deconstructionists in Taiwan’s LGBTQ Movement

This chapter focuses on the queer deconstructionists as the radical camp in Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement. It first places them against the background of other factions to show how their discourse emerges, then examines their main critiques and visions. Finally, it evaluates their limitations and insights, highlighting both the critical value and the challenges of their radical stance.

3.1 Different Factions in Taiwan’s LGBTQ Movement

The progress of gender equality in Taiwan can be seen as a trajectory from gender equality between men and women to equality between heterosexual and homosexual people. It can be divided into three main periods (Chen, 2017, p. 106).

The first period was from the mid-1970s to 1985, marked by debates over civil law reform. During martial law, the women’s movement began to rise, challenging traditional patriarchal structures and pushing for institutional reform and legislation. The establishment of the Awakening Foundation in the 1980s symbolized the organizational formation of women’s groups. They introduced Western feminist thinking, raising awareness of gender equality in Taiwan and focusing on issues such as equality and anti-discrimination (Liang and Ku, 1995). 

The second period was from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, when the movement emphasized personal sexual autonomy and the politics of difference, addressing topics such as sexual liberation, sex work, and surrogacy (Yang, 2011). Finally, as LGBTQ issues became integrated into the gender equality movement and more LGBTQ organizations emerged, in recent years, Taiwan has entered a new stage of heated debates on the marriage-family system, involving legal identity and other legal considerations (Chen, 2017, p. 107).

In this process, the construction of identity politics is involved. Both the early women’s movement and the later LGBTQ movement became effective political forces by establishing a public collective identity, forming a kind of “quasi-ethnicity” as a social foundation, and mobilizing communities through clear identity categories to gain political resources and social recognition (Gamson, 1995, p. 391). The drawing of such identity boundaries effectively distinguishes between “us” and “them.” On the one hand, it consolidates community solidarity and produces a clear subject position within the socio-political field; on the other hand, it clarifies the key sites of contradiction and oppression, enabling the movement to clearly identify the structures and primary targets it opposes (Bernstein, 2005, p. 50; Gamson, 1995, p. 393). In other words, identity politics not only sustains collective action by reinforcing internal identification but also exposes systemic inequalities through the demarcation of the “other,” thereby providing the movement with clear direction and strategic positioning.

According to their different purposes, claims, and attitudes toward existing power structures, various forms of identity construction have also emerged within Taiwan’s gender equality and LGBTQ movements. They can generally be divided into three major camps: the conservative camp (often called the pro-family camp), the progressive liberal camp (or marriage-equality camp), and the radical camp (or the queer deconstructionists) (Li, 2017; Ning, 2018a; Ning, 2018b).

First, the core stance of the conservative camp is to preserve the traditional system of “heterosexual, monogamous marriage,” emphasizing family ethics, social order, and religious values. During the 1990s and early 2000s, conservatives were present in Taiwan’s public discourse but did not form large-scale mobilization. With the LGBTQ movement growing stronger, in 2013 the Family Guardian Coalition (FGC, 台灣宗教團體愛護家庭大聯盟) was established by the Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation (CHNG, 下一代幸福聯盟) together with over ten religious groups. Later, in 2015, the Faith and Hope League (FHL, 信心希望聯盟) was founded, mainly composed of Christian members. Between 2013 and 2016, these organizations united with Christian groups and moral conservatives to launch multiple pro-family campaigns (Lin, 2019, pp. 219-220; Wei, 2023, pp. 267, 273). 

In addition to the pro-family faction, some conservatives, represented by Tseng Hsien-chang, can be further divided into the special law faction, which advocates for a separate law to protect same-sex partnerships in areas like medical decision-making and property management, without altering the definition of marriage (Chen, 2017, p. 106; Wei, 2023, p. 268). However, this was not aimed at gender equality, but at maintaining the orthodoxy of heterosexual marriage.

The progressive-liberal camp has long represented the mainstream of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, with its core goal being the direct amendment of the Civil Code to recognize same-sex marriage. Its development can be traced back to the women’s movement and human rights advocacy of the 1990s, gradually bringing same-sex marriage into the agenda of institutional equality. Since the 2000s, LGBTQ movements increasingly appeared independently on Taiwan’s social movement stage, with organizations such as the TTHA and the Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy (TFLRA, 台灣同志家庭權益促進會), representing the LGBTQ activist faction. They sought independent, normalized access to the marriage system and became the main driving force behind the Constitutional Court’s ruling and the passage of the Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 in 2019. Meanwhile, organizations such as the AF and the TAPCPR went further in advocating for freedom and flexibility in redefining marital relations, representing the marriage-rights faction within the progressive-liberal camp (He, 2016; Li, 2017). However, this faction has also been criticized for narrowing its focus to marriage legalization and reform, leading to the marginalization of issues outside of marriage and family.

Up to now, the progressive-liberal camp, which still represents the mainstream of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, has put forward three main issues for the future. First is transnational same-sex marriage between Taiwan and China, which remains restricted by Chinese policies. Second is the revision of the “same-sex partner adoption without blood relation” law, passed in May 2023 but still requiring improvement. Third is the amendment of the Assisted Reproduction Act (《人工生殖法》), concerning whether same-sex families in Taiwan can use assisted reproductive technologies to have children (Taiwan Equality Campaign, no date). In addition, there are related concerns about improving gender equality education and addressing the treatment of LGBTQ people across different ages and professions. However, all of these demands remain largely rooted in the existing marriage-family system.

Finally, the queer deconstructionists represent the most radical current of thought. Unlike the progressive-liberal camp, which treats marriage as a tool for equality, queer deconstructionists argue that marriage and family institutions are mechanisms of state governance and capitalist reproduction, disciplining sexual and gender practices through “assimilation” and “exclusion.” In the mid-2010s, as the marriage-equality movement reached its legislative climax, their voices began to emerge. Yet, the influence of this camp remains limited in Taiwanese society, and their discourse has often been ignored by mainstream LGBTQ movements for being too radical and idealistic.

Based on the historical development of gender ideologies and the context of social movements, Table 3.1.1 summarizes the three major camps.

Based on different camps’ attitudes and positions toward the institution of marriage, Table 3.1.2 can be organized.

Kao Ying-Chao has described this dynamic through a “horseshoe” structural relationship (Figure 3.1.1; as reported in Li, 2017), in which factions are arranged from conservative to radical along a continuum. Both the general LGBTQ activist faction and marriage equality faction often deploy the extreme arguments of the conservative pro-family faction to attack the special law faction, while the special law faction in turn uses the extreme discourse of the queer deconstructionists to critique both the general LGBTQ activist faction and marriage equality faction. 

The relationships among the three major camps were not simply binary oppositions, but rather complex and multi-directional configuration of conflict. Under the available political and legal structures and mobilization resources, different factions engaged in tit-for-tat strategic contests, forming and breaking alliances (Wei, 2023, p. 279). In other words, identity construction can indeed function as a tool of mobilization and legitimacy, helping movements to clearly identify the structures and primary targets they oppose. However, at the same time, over-reliance on identity politics risks producing exclusionary agendas and constraining the scope of movement goals.

3.2 Ideas of the Queer Deconstructionists

The viewpoints of the queer deconstructionists mainly include three directions: a critique of the social institutional framework of “marriage-family-state,” a reflection on the current situation and achievements of gender equality in Taiwan, and their vision of pingquan.

First, the queer deconstructionists see the modern system of marriage and family as tools of capitalism and state governance, exposing and challenging the structural oppression that comes with marriage. They argue that the separation of the public and private spheres is a historical and artificial construct under the development of capitalism, which makes the family a place for the reproduction of labor power and social relations. Unpaid domestic labor inside the family, including both physical and emotional labor, becomes a necessary condition for the reproduction of labor outside the production line, supporting the continuation and circulation of capitalism (Kuo, 2019a, p. 68; Wang, 2019, pp. 20-21). This function beautifies the family as a haven of care and comfort, a warm space where workers are replenished after being exploited in production relations, thereby covering up the exploitative nature of the family and its dialectical relation with capitalism (Kao, 2019b, pp. 49-50; Wang, 2019, pp. 21-22). 

At the same time, the system of marriage and family serves as a mediator of state governance, being closely tied to taxation, property inheritance, medical visitation rights, and other forms of protection (Kuo, 2019a, p. 68; Ting and Wang, 2019, p. 76). In this context, the logic of governance based on the household as a unit excludes diverse life forms such as being single, not wanting to form a family, or being unable to do so, leaving these groups without the same rights.

The critique of the queer deconstructionists reflects their opposition to heteronormativity. The theory of heteronormativity emphasizes how heterosexuality is normalized and naturalized, rooted in social structures, and linked to core social institutions such as family and marriage. In contemporary society, laws, procedures, and legal doctrines are among the most important mechanisms for ensuring heterosexual privilege and its dominance in social life (Herz and Johansson, 2015, p. 1009; Johnson, 2011, p. 350). With the development of global LGBTQ movements, heteronormativity has further evolved into homonormativity, meaning that lesbians and gay men integrate into the heterosexual mainstream through monogamous, marriage-like family lives and consumer practices (Allen and Mendez, 2018, p. 76; Love, 2007). In other words, same-sex marriage can be seen as a form of assimilation that risks absorbing and neutralizing the social and political critical power of queers.

In Taiwan today, marriage is still almost the only entry to legal family recognition. The state continues to treat marriage and blood ties as the basis for rights, linking joint adoption, inheritance, medical decision-making, immigration, and residency to marriage. As a result, queer people must first enter marriage in order to access these economic and social rights (Friedman and Chen, 2023, pp. 672). For example, Taiwan’s Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 requires same-sex couples to register their marriage before they can obtain joint adoption rights or legal parental status. It shows that while same-sex marriage grants recognition and rights, it also monopolizes the legitimacy of family and intimacy, keeping other family forms constrained within the framework of monogamy. 

Heteronormativity is also expressed through everyday life and the interaction patterns of intimate relationships. For example, while most Western same-sex couples do not have clearly divided roles, in Taiwan, lesbian couples often show the division between po (婆) and T (踢). Po refers to biological women whose gender expression matches the culturally “feminine” definition, while T refers to biological women whose gender expression matches the culturally “masculine” definition (Brainer, 2019, p. 14). This suggests that same-sex relationships have not completely broken free from the heterosexual structure, but instead may reproduce the binary gender framework in another form.

Second, while examining the exclusiveness of marriage equality and the way marriage constructs normalcy, the queer deconstructionists also pay attention to the ideological consequences of gender equality achievements. They argue that although the gender equality movement has brought institutional progress and strengthened public awareness of gender equality, it may also reproduce the state’s and patriarchy’s regulation of gender and sexuality. For example, after the government began promoting “gender mainstreaming” in 2005, the visibility of sexual minorities increased, but diverse genders were also simplified into another oppressed minority, which in turn reproduced the discourse of weakness and victimhood (Kao, 2019a). 

Hung (2019a) used the case of Yeh Yung-chih (葉永鋕) to criticize how mainstream feminism and education policy framed Yeh, who died from campus violence, as a gentle and fragile “Womxnly” (or Rose Boy). While the pop song Womxnly (《玫瑰少年》) based on this incident did help generate large-scale public attention and eventually promoted the amendment of gender equality laws, it also reduced one complex queer life experience into a flat victim symbol, covering the broader realities of queer lives.

Furthermore, the queer deconstructionists also discuss the disciplining effect of moralization. Kuo (2019b) and Chen (2019) took the case of Liu Chiao-an as an entry point: Liu, who once played an important role in the Sunflower Movement, was reported negotiating the price of transactional sex with a man. They criticized mainstream feminism for discussing transactional sex only within the framework of “sexual autonomy,” seeing all sex work as the product of patriarchy oppressing women, and thus assuming all sex workers are passive victims. In response, they proposed the concept of “sex labor rights,” arguing that women also have the right to autonomously choose sex work, and calling for the de-stigmatization of sex workers. This view questions the repressive effects of moralization and shifts the focus to class and labor rights.

In addition to new types of regulation of LGBTQ images in society as a whole, they also highlight new marginalizations inside the LGBTQ community. For example, Hung (2019b, pp. 39-41) criticized the mainstream marriage equality movement initiated by the progressive liberal faction by referring to the “slippery slope fallacy.” The slippery slope fallacy describes a seemingly reasonable social reform as a dangerous beginning that will inevitably lead to extreme or unacceptable outcomes (Klesse, 2018, p. 35). In practice, it works as a rhetoric of exclusion: progressiveliberal queers in Taiwan distance themselves from marginalized subgroups such as incest, polyamory, and bestiality, framing them as “monstrous sex/gender new others,” in order to present a morally “good and normal” queer image to win marriage legalization. This self-justification in fact relies on further stigmatization and exclusion of others.

The purpose of such discussions by the queer deconstructionists is to resist stereotypes. Stereotypes work by simplifying marginalized groups into single functional roles, in contrast to the diverse expressions of the “normal” group, thereby reinforcing the boundary between normal and abnormal (Wang, 2018, pp. 102-103). The problem of stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete, leading to overly simplistic understandings of particular groups. For LGBTQ communities, the formation of stereotypes reflects the limited inclusion described in the heteronormativity model, and also reveals their dilemma: on the one hand, they want to break away from the negative representations imposed by heterosexual hegemony; on the other hand, they are forced to present themselves with recognizable identity symbols within the narrow framework of social acceptance.

Third, the queer deconstructionists attempt to imagine alternative intimate practices and non-institutionalized forms of family-making, which reflects their ultimate vision of pingquan. In the article Not Marrying but Still Protected: That Is True Equality!, Imagining Non-Familiality (2019) directly pointed out that by 2016 the marriage equality movement in Taiwan had become narrower and narrower, since most queer groups only focused on marriage legalization and related issues. Instead, they argue that true pingquan includes two key meanings: first, that all people, regardless of whether they marry or not, can receive equal care and treatment; second, that every marginalized person can enjoy sexual pleasure without fear, coercion, or surveillance. In other words, while most queers pursue the same treatment through equal access to existing institutions, the ultimate goal of the queer deconstructionists is to provide differentiated support based on different situations, thereby achieving equality in substance. 

The queer deconstructionists go beyond the surface-level debates on marriage equality. Drawing on feminism, theories of state governance, and queer theory, they trace the historical role of marriage and the family within capitalism, patriarchy, and state governance, exposing the underlying power relations and mechanisms of exploitation. Their critique of marriage-centrism and gender mainstreaming policies points out that even progressive institutional achievements may produce new stereotypes of queer identities. By emphasizing non-marital protections and differentiated support, they respond to the needs of the most marginalized groups and redefine true equality as a condition that can encompass diverse situations and desires. Their arguments expand the Taiwanese LGBTQ community’s imagination of pingquan, helping the movement to continue asking “what lies beyond marriage” and preventing activism from stagnating.

3.3 Limitations and Insights of the Queer Deconstructionists

In the past, both the conservative camp and the progressive-liberal camp have constructed identities of “family guardians” and “equal citizens” respectively in order to legitimize their claims, while simultaneously reinforcing the opposition between heterosexuals and LGBTQ communities. Among them, the identity construction of the progressive-liberal camp has enabled all LGBTQ individuals who have historically suffered from heterosexual discrimination and institutional repression to consolidate effectively and negotiate with the formerly dominant heterosexual majority. This has proven highly effective in securing institutional recognition. 

At the same time, however, such a clear identity demarcation has also resulted in a persistent parallel relationship, or in other words, LGBTQ groups continually striving to maintain a parallel stance relative to the binary-gendered, heterosexual framework in order to claim equal rights. The discourse of “LGBTQ should enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals in a binary gender system” remains deeply rooted in heteronormativity, constituting a compromise in which LGBTQ rights are framed in parallel to existing institutions rather than truly dismantling the structural and institutional inequalities.

Today, the radical abolitionist camp seeks to define its identity as “queers excluded from multiple sides,” positioning itself in opposition both to conservatives and to the progressive liberals who dominate the LGBTQ community. The advantage of this stance is that they not only critique the oppression of the LGBTQ community by binary gender and heterosexuality, but also highlight how compromise measures within the LGBTQ movement neglect marginalized groups inside the community. In the debates over “marriage rights,” they expand the arena of contestation beyond the existing framework of marriage and combine demands for diverse queer family formations with a non-marriage orientation. Their discourse broadens the imagination of equality within Taiwan’s LGBTQ community, helping it to continue reflecting, after the legalization of same-sex marriage, on what marriage can bring and what exists beyond marriage. In this way the movement avoids coming to a standstill.

However, the queer deconstructionist’ discourse also contains many gaps. First, their critique of the “marriage-family-state” framework is overly theoretical and macro in scope, lacking concrete case evidence. This single-minded reliance on theory overlooks the fact that many queer people in practice still rely on marriage to secure legal rights and obligations in daily life, such as purchasing property, filing taxes jointly, or reducing children’s tuition fees (Ho, 2015, p. 73). Moreover, much of their theoretical foundation is drawn from queer theory rooted in foreign contexts, without sufficient discussion of its applicability to Taiwan’s specific social conditions (Ning, 2011, pp. 325-326). This neglects the content of Taiwanese local culture, social structures, and processes, including traditions of familial dependence and conflict avoidance, which make certain anti-familial queer ideas difficult to naturally take root in Taiwan.

In terms of claims and methodology, the queer deconstructionists lack constructive alternatives. Merely abolishing family and marriage institutions would not resolve class inequality and gendered divisions of labor, and would also deprive all social groups of the protections that current institutions provide. By equating “entering the system” with “being co-opted by the state,” they overlook the political value of institutional reforms and the cultural specificity of local contexts. For instance, Taiwan’s constitutional interpretations and equality-related legislation show that law can also be mobilized as a resource to challenge inequality, rather than being viewed solely as oppression.

At the same time, the queer deconstructionists exhibit weak political mobilizability. Their focus on difference and change makes it harder to mobilize. By positioning themselves against both heterosexual norms and mainstream LGBTQ groups, they can challenge multiple forms of oppression. However, this independence also undermines their political strength (Gamson, 1995, p. 391). Furthermore, since most deconstructionist members come from universities and research institutions, their intellectual background enables radical theoretical exploration but also renders their discourse overly academic, limiting accessibility for grassroots queer communities.

The queer deconstructionists also have a very limited form of activism. In contrast to progressive-liberal groups who organize through different associations and use both online and offline activities, the queer deconstructionists focus mainly on research, writing, and publishing commentaries. They rarely take part in large-scale social movements. Their debates also remain mostly on online platforms, especially Coolloud, without turning into concrete activist practices. This reliance on a single channel, together with the radical style of their theory, has made it hard for them to build a social base or to start broader public discussions.

In addition, some of the issues they raise still face strong moral challenges. For example, beyond transgender topics, they also discuss controversial practices such as incest, polyamory, and bestiality (Hung, 2019b, p. 41). In Taiwanese society, these practices remain taboo and immoral, and they are also difficult to accept within the progressive-liberal camp. For most queer people, drawing clear boundaries from these “unaccepted practices” is a strategy to resist mainstream social rejection. By touching on these extreme margins, the queer deconstructionists face exclusion both from society and from inside the LGBTQ movement. 

Therefore, while the queer deconstructionists reveal the exclusionary nature of mainstream marriage equality activism and social regulation, their radical discourse also widens the gap between them and the broader community. This weakens their ability to mobilize politically. This tension highlights a key question for the postlegalization era: how can the LGBTQ community balance critical perspectives with practical strategies? How can it avoid being fully absorbed by heteronormative rules, while also not falling into theoretical isolation? In other words, the limits and insights of the queer deconstructionists point to one central issue: we need to place the marriage-family system back into Taiwan’s social context in order to reconsider what pingquan can or should mean.

4. Rethinking pingquan in Taiwan

This chapter discusses three main issues. First, it reviews the historical and cultural meanings of the marriage and family system, and how in Taiwan it has shaped intimate relationships through law, patriarchy, and filial ethics. Second, it examines the situation of Taiwanese queer people after the legalization of same-sex marriage, showing how they still face the pressures of coming out and proving themselves while seeking recognition. Finally, it turns to the present and future of pingquan, considering the limits of strategic normativity and reflecting on how Taiwan can deal with the relationship between equality and equity.

4.1 Marriage-Family as a Disciplinary and Cultural System

In early traditional definitions, marriage was often seen as the custom of a man and a woman (or several women) living together, having sexual relations, and raising children. As a socially recognized group, the family, was centered on marriage and reproduction (Royal Anthropological Institute, 1951, p. 71; Westermarck, 1921, pp. 27-28). Such definitions limited marriage and family to a single, heterosexual, and reproduction-centered framework, which was criticized by early women’s movements and LGBTQ movements.

In recent years, scholars have sought broader and more useful understandings. They stress that no single definition can cover all cultural forms of marriage. Marriage is seen as a social contract and a system of exchange of resources and obligations. It regulates sexual behavior, establishes legal parenthood, defines inheritance, arranges divisions of labor, and strengthens political alliances. At the same time, families built on marriage remain the basic unit of state governance (Keesing, 1998, pp. 217-225; Little, 2023, p. 836). As a basic unit of society, the marriage-family system is a key channel for individuals to gain rights and for the state to manage society.

The marriage-family system also becomes a tool for the state to discipline individuals, by linking it to welfare. People enter marriage in order to gain certain benefits. Within the “marriage-family-state” continuum, the family is the mechanism through which the state outsources care and supervision. The care and emotional labor done within families supports the functioning of capitalism (Kuo, 2019a, pp. 68-69; Wang, 2019, pp. 20-22). This phenomenon is widely seen across social and cultural contexts, giving families the function of population reproduction and maintaining social order, and making them a key node of state governance and capital accumulation.

Meanwhile, marriage is defined and supported by law, and the law itself serves as a key framework that can restrict or empower marginalized groups (Bernstein, 2018, p. 2). The dual logic of recognition and exclusion means that when law recognizes some groups, it also implicitly leaves others unrecognized by mainstream society. For example, LGBTQ groups, represented by same-sex couples, have long fought for marriage rights. They sought not only practical benefits, such as legal and economic rights, but also cultural legitimacy for their relationships and families through legal recognition. Yet after same-sex marriage was legalized, many nonmarried couples and non-mainstream forms of families remain excluded.

The limitations of the marriage-family system have long been a central concern for feminism, progressive-liberal queers, and deconstructionist queers. While the first two tend to focus on improving the system on its existing basis, the deconstructionist camp calls for abolishing it altogether. Yet the original purpose of the system was to maintain social stability and provide protection. Therefore, when deconstructionist voices raise sharp critiques against it, to some extent, they negate the system’s potential to maintain order, offer a social safety net, and protect different groups.

In addition to the institutional oppression expressed through law, it is also necessary to consider cultural factors in understanding the meaning of marriage and family. For example, among all perspectives on equality, one of the main criticisms of marriage and family is that they reproduce gender inequality. In patriarchal contexts, even in heterosexual marriage, which is often seen as hegemonic by LGBTQ groups, inequality remains common. Husbands have more legal control over wives’ bodies, property, and actions, while wives are expected to enter their husband’s kinship system through marriage, losing autonomy. Women are also expected to be the main caregivers and providers of emotional labor (Bell, 1997, p. 240; Post, 1997, pp. 286287). This phenomenon is in fact the result of social and cultural constructions and is further legitimized and reinforced through the legal system.

In Taiwan’s multicultural and intersecting historical context, this kind of cultural discipline has been passed down as traditional family law gradually shifted into social consciousness. As early as the Qing dynasty, traditional family law emphasized Confucian family values, which stressed patriarchy and clan structure. (Chen and Huang, 2019, p. 161). Bloodline and surname are key factors that highlight the legitimacy of the paternal line. For example, before 1998, Article 1000 of the Civil Code included a so-called “formal equality” design that required a wife to adopt her husband’s surname, while a uxorilocal husband had to adopt his wife’s surname. On the surface, this rule was presented as gender-neutral and modern, but in fact it placed the uxorilocal husband in a “wifely position,” which still presumed the wife and women in general to be subordinate (Chen, 2018, pp. 13-14). Based on this, the marriage framework built traditional gender roles and divisions into its structure.

As shown in Figure 4.1.1 and Table 4.1.1, in 2023 the population in Taiwan that adopted a spouse’s surname was only about 3.9% of the total population. This shows that, once the law no longer forced surname adoption and allowed people to cancel it, more married people chose to keep their own surnames. However, among those who did adopt a spouse’s surname, more than 99.8% were women (Ministry of the Interior, Department of Household Registration, 2023). Even if this number includes some cases of lesbian couples after the legalization of same-sex marriage, the data still shows that in practice surname adoption almost only applies to women. In addition, in some situations married women are still addressed by their husband’s surname as “Mrs. [Husband’s Name].” Gender inequality is now presented as “voluntary” and “free choice,” but sometimes the patriarchal culture and power behind it remain the same.

Similarly, although Taiwan has gone through urbanization, rising female labor force participation, and family law reforms after the war, many patriarchal norms still remain in the everyday practices of family life. Women still take on most unpaid housework and care work, such as cleaning, shopping, cooking, and caring for children and elders, while men still hold more power in property and decisionmaking. Married women are expected to prioritize their husband’s family over their own natal family (Brainer, 2019, p. 5). For example, in the early stage of marriage, couples in Taiwan are still more likely to live with the husband’s parents rather than the wife’s parents (Yi, 2019, p. 233). These practices show that even under democratization and gender equality movements, patrilineal culture continues to shape residence patterns and kinship responsibilities in the form of customary law. Yi (2019, pp. 244, 247) calls this the “modified patrilineal family.”

As the core ethical foundation of patrilineal norms, hsiao (孝道, filial piety) continues to shape people’s decisions in dealing with marriage and family issues and serves as a major source of intergenerational pressure within the marriage-family system. In the West, patria potestas referred to the father’s power, while in the Confucian family context of Taiwan, hsiao emphasizes the duty of children, including caring for parents and continuing the family line. It was further extended into a general principle of obedience, forming a universal order of domination from family to state (Hamilton, 1990, pp. 93-94). Within the marriage-family framework, children are expected to fulfill the duty of filial piety. In this way, filial piety works together with other disciplinary functions of the system, further limiting the possibility of individuals challenging their assigned roles.

As a cultural extension of the marriage-family system, patrilineal norms represented by filial piety both deepen systemic oppression and put individuals in a more complex social situation. Within the abstract structure of moral language and kinship obligations, individuals face shame and relational punishment when they cannot decide between obedience and resistance. This ethical order ties the evaluation of “good son” and “good daughter” closely to intimate choices, reproduction, and daily interactions, forming a continuum that cannot be reduced to a simple binary of joining or rejecting the system. Therefore, after the theoretical critique of institutional frameworks, it remains necessary to further examine the dilemmas queer people face within cultural ideas; otherwise, the imagination of pingquan cannot adequately address the needs of real individuals.

4.2 Queer Dilemmas in Taiwan

Huang and Liang (2022) conducted a prospective study that followed sexual minority men in Taiwan to assess changes in their mental health and disclosure after the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2019. The main measures included depressive symptoms, distal minority stress, internalized homophobia, and the degree of coming out. Internalized homophobia refers to when sexual minorities take in society’s negative attitudes, prejudices, and stigma toward homosexuality, leading to shame, self-denial, or non-acceptance of their own sexual orientation. The study found that gay men showed significant decreases in depressive symptoms, reduced external pressures (distal minority stress), and higher rates of coming out. Gay men also showed a downward trend in internalized homophobia, but it was not significant. 

These results reflect that structural reform can bring immediate positive effects. Same-sex marriage legalization not only reduced structural stigma but also directly improved mental health and encouraged more men to come out. The study also showed that these effects did not differ much between single men and those with partners, suggesting that the legalization benefited gay men as a group (Huang and Liang, 2022). However, the limited decrease in internalized homophobia shows that deep cultural norms are more lasting than legal reforms. In other words, legal changes can reduce external pressures, such as open discrimination and social rejection, but cannot quickly remove the feelings of self-denial formed through years of family, education, and cultural influence.

In terms of cultural ideas, the most influential factors remain filial piety and patriarchy. For example, Brainer (2019, pp. 24-26) introduced the case of a gay man named Hong. From his childhood, Hong’s widowed mother urged him to marry and have children in order to carry on the family line. To reassure his mother, in the 1970s, he married a heterosexual woman and had four children, while also maintaining a male partner, and his wife also had her own boyfriend. Hong’s experience reflects the multiple pressures faced by early gay men in Taiwan. Marriage here was not a free choice of intimacy but a way to answer filial ethics and social order. This also shows that cultural discipline shaped queer decision-making in deeper ways, making it difficult to think only in terms of “whether to be included in institutions,” and instead forcing them to consider “how to be included” within the existing framework.

Even in a more open social environment, concerns about carrying on the family line and caring for parents remain core factors of internalized homophobia that affect queer lives. In another case Brainer (2019, pp. 35-36) described a woman named Leila who had a long-term same-sex partner. As a daughter, she felt that she could not pass on the family name as sons could, so she had to take more responsibility for caring for her parents. This mind shows how filial piety and patriarchy are, to some extent, complementary, both reproducing the traditional heterosexual framework of a male-female couple. When queer people cannot meet both sets of expectations, they face heavier family pressures than heterosexuals. In particular, queer women are burdened with expectations to care for parents and maintain family bonds, placing them in a deeper structural dilemma shaped by both queer and female identities.

At the same time, with the legalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan, a new stage of difficulties has emerged against the backdrop of partial equality. The law and social environment still contain gaps and exclusions. Discrimination against queer people continues, while marriage itself carrying the risk of official coming out. For example, Act for Implementation of J.Y. Interpretation No. 748 requires same-sex couples to register their marriage in order to gain joint adoption or legal parental status. This means that household registration and ID cards show the sex of the spouse, which also reveals one’s sexual orientation, and may draw extra attention or even discrimination in the workplace or other places (Friedman and Chen, 2023, pp. 672-673).

To avoid potential stigma and rejection, many queer families work hard to prove they are “good parents.” Through ethnographic research on six lesbian families in Taiwan, Tzeng (2019) found that queer families often try to live up to social expectations and demonstrate they are “qualified.” For example, Mu and En, a lesbian couple, had twins through assisted reproduction in Canada and held a public wedding. They used marriage rituals and blood ties to establish legitimacy and social recognition. When asked by their children about the absence of a “father,” they answered by invoking their religious belief in “Heavenly Father” (Tzeng, 2019, p. 343) This is because that if queer families fail, society might blame their queer identity, so they must perform parental duties and daily care while defending against potential social disappointment.

In these cases, queer people showed intensive parenting and self-censorship, which Brainer (2019) called “strategic normativity.” It shows the resilience and creativity of queer people, that they do not truly accept the power structure of gender discipline or the blood-based family model, but they consciously use existing norms to gain empowerment, which brings more acceptance and understanding from parents and society. As Guo Mama, founder of Loving Parents of LGBT Taiwan (同志父母愛心協會), said, “Let mom and dad know you’re the OK kind of gay” (Brainer, 2019, p. 89). In other words, queer people are expected to first show a stable life, happiness, and health to reduce their parents’ anxiety, and then move toward broader conversations.

However, as a strategy for claiming rights, strategic normativity is not complete, because it still relies on mainstream heterosexual norms: stable monogamous relationships, marriage, being a “good citizen”, “good child” or “good parent,” and following a middle-class lifestyle of buying a house, raising children, having a good job (Duggan, 2002). Achievements like same-sex marriage legalization, gained through strategic normativity, are mostly about formal equality. Homosexuals are treated the same as heterosexuals under the same legal framework and enjoy more and more of the same rights. But when deep inequalities already exist in society, this “equal treatment” alone cannot remove the gap and may even strengthen it. In this context, the pressures of filial piety and patriarchy in heterosexual marriage have also been transferred into same-sex marriage, creating multiple layers of internalized homophobia.

On a broader social level, strategic normativity also shapes queer images into “compulsory happiness” (Brainer, 2019, p. 85; Love, 2007). Queer people are pushed to perform happiness and optimism to resist ongoing stigma, while those who are depressed or negative are pushed further outside the new mainstream framework formed after alliances between heterosexuals and homosexuals. For example, in the radical queer critique of the case of Yeh Yung-chih, the “Rose Boy” became a popular symbol of queer people, but this also produced new stereotypes.

The situation of queer people in Taiwan shows a spiral of recurring oppression. Same-sex marriage provides new access to rights but still monopolizes the possibility of legitimate happiness. At the same time, filial piety and patriarchy continue to shape moral discipline and affect family and intergenerational relations. These institutional and cultural demands eventually become a compulsion for self-proving, forcing queer families to show themselves as “qualified” within limited equality. Thus, in the Taiwanese queer context, the marriage-family system and its practical operation represent a spiral oppression created by the intersection of institutions with cultural norms and individual practices, which are often overlooked in theoretical debates, and this leaves queer people moving back and forth between security and risk, recognition and exclusion.

4.3 Current Situation and Future of Pingquan in Taiwan

While Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement has benefited from strategic normativity and the country is celebrated as the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, it is important to remain cautious about the trap of the “glorification of marriage.” (Chen, 2022, pp. 6-7). The realization of marriage equality is certainly a historic achievement, but like all the other gains of the LGBTQ movement, it should not be seen as the endpoint of pingquan. At this stage, as Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement focuses on advancing issues such as assisted reproduction, adoption, and cross-border same-sex marriage within the context of marriage legalization, it should also, like the abolitionist camp, re-examine the problems of the system itself. If the main function of the system is to distribute social resources, then the key question for the movement is how such distribution should be carried out.

For this issue, an illustration (Figure 4.3.1) by Maguire (2016) offers useful insight. Under equality, everyone receives the same resources (the same size box), but because individuals have different conditions (such as height), the outcome is not truly fair and some still cannot see the game. Under equity, however, resources are distributed according to individual needs (taller people do not need a box, shorter people get more), so that everyone can see the game equally. In the legal context, “equality” (equal protection) is the central language, while “equity” appears more often in education, public policy, and social movements to address the structural problems that equality alone cannot resolve (Minow, 1987).

In Taiwan’s LGBTQ community, most achievements to date reflect equality. Yet equal distribution of resources alone is not enough to enable people from different backgrounds and with different needs to reach the same level. Although the deconstructionist camp calls for broader recognition, dismantling the system is unrealistic. The shared “wall” that stands before all groups is the deep-rooted social pressures rooted in filial piety and patriarchal culture. A purely symbolic stance of “abolishing family and marriage” could even result in the loss of rights already gained.

Therefore, Taiwan’s queer movement should neither be satisfied with the temporary achievements brought by marriage equality, nor should it move toward a singular deconstructive path. A truly transformative direction lies not in glorifying marriage, nor in abandoning institutions altogether, but in taking equality as the baseline guarantee and equity as the corrective mechanism, thereby opening rights pathways both inside and outside marriage. This would allow non-marital, nonbiological, cross-border, transgender, and diverse intimate relationships to gain sustainable legal and social recognition.

Furthermore, while discussing the distribution of resources, feminist, LGBTQ, and other equality movements should also reflect on whether the “walls” outside of institutions can continue to be weakened. Only by combining attention to legal institutions with the cultural dimensions of patriarchy and related norms, and by understanding the ethical and value systems that sustain both institutional and non-institutional forms of oppression, can the cycle of oppression be more effectively dismantled.                                                 

5. Conclusion

This study takes as its core objects of analysis the queer deconstructionists in Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement, those who advocate “deconstruct family, abolish marriage,” together with Taiwan’s marriage-family regime.

First, beginning with the queer deconstructionists, it shows that their significance lies in exposing the monopoly of legitimacy created by marriage and family as the primary entry to recognition, together with the patriarchal and heteronormative norms and state-governance logics. They seek to open a “third path” that is neither reformist nor utopian, shifting the lens from “whether to be included” to “how inclusion is organized and who is excluded.” Yet the sharp boundaries of their agenda and their radical style limit broader mobilization and create tensions with wider communities, which leads this study to return the question to Taiwan’s local context and to reconsider what pingquan ought to mean.

Second, the study shows that the marriage-family system in Taiwan is not only a mechanism for distributing rights and welfare. It also links benefits to family status, which shifts care work into the household, turns intimacy into a matter of governance, and makes the family a key site for disciplining individuals. Legal recognition also operates through a dual logic of inclusion and exclusion: while some mainstreamfriendly forms are admitted, non-marital and non-normative households remain outside. This intersection of institutions and culture sets the problem frame for the analysis that follows.

Third, drawing on quantitative and ethnographic materials, the study depicts queer life after the legalization of same-sex marriage. At the institutional level, there has been a reduction in stigma and some improvements, but patriarchal and filial piety norms remain deeply influential. These norms drive “strategic normativity” in everyday life, where monogamy, marriage, stable employment, and middle-class respectability are presented as acceptable images in exchange for understanding and acceptance. This strategy shows resilience, but it also reinforces heteronormative standards and a performance of “compulsory happiness,” shifting the filial and patriarchal pressures of heterosexual marriage into same-sex marriage and making “how to be included” the more urgent practical question.

Finally, the study returns to the redefinition of pingquan. While Taiwan is praised as the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, it is necessary to resist the glorification of marriage and the illusion that formal equality is sufficient. The thesis argues that pingquan should not be understood as equality (equal treatment) alone. It must also include equity (contextual remedies to structural inequality). Only when institutional and cultural dimensions are addressed together can sustainable recognition and protection be created for non-marital, non-biological, cross-border, transgender, and diverse intimate relationships.

The contributions of this research lie in three main areas. First, it responds to a gap in existing scholarship. Previous studies have focused primarily on the progressive-liberal camp, while paying little attention to the radical critique of the deconstructionists. By systematically analyzing their discourse, this study fills that gap and restores a more diverse picture of Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement. Second, the research highlights the theoretical insights of the deconstructionists, who shifted the focus from whether queer people should be included in institutions to how they are included and who remains excluded. Finally, the study highlights the dual dimension of pingquan. Equality refers to formal equal treatment, while equity emphasizes the need to respond to differences and long-standing injustices. The research suggests that only by combining the two can society move beyond the glorification of marriage and begin to confront deeper structural inequalities.

Nevertheless, this study has certain limitations. First, the research relied primarily on textual analysis and existing ethnographic studies. While this allowed for deep discussion of theoretical contexts, it did not directly capture the diverse experiences of grassroots queer communities. Second, since the deconstructionists in Taiwan lack broad mobilization and their influence remains largely within intellectual and academic spaces, the evaluation of their social impact is necessarily limited. Finally, the concepts and meanings of marriage and family themselves shift across time and cultural contexts. Although this study focused on Taiwan as its main site of analysis, it cannot fully account for cross-temporal or cross-cultural differences, which limits the generalizability of its theoretical claims.

Future research can build on this study in several ways. First, more empirical studies are needed, especially focusing on queer groups across different generations, classes, and regions, to understand how they confront cultural discipline from family and society. Second, comparative studies could place Taiwan within broader regional and global contexts, examining how deconstructionist critiques interact with diverse family systems and practices of intimacy. Third, interdisciplinary approaches would further enrich the study of pingquan. By combining law, sociology, and cultural studies, future research can explore how equality and equity might be implemented at the policy level. In these ways, future scholarship can move beyond existing frameworks and respond to the common challenges faced by queer movements in both Taiwan and the wider world.

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