Demonstrators gather at Kaohsiung City Hall on Wednesday to call for the creation of a gender equality committee under the city government. CNA photo May 19, 2023
Taipei, May 19 (CNA) An annual government survey featuring questions on gender equality indicates that over 60 percent of Taiwan's public support same-sex marriage, according to a statement released by the Cabinet on Friday, a week ahead of the fourth anniversary of the country's legalization of same-sex marriage.
Respondents who believed that same-sex couples should have marriage rights accounted for 62.6 percent, representing an increase of 1.7 percentage points from 2022 and a rise of 25.2 percentage points since 2018 when gay couples were still unable to marry in Taiwan, the Cabinet's Department of Gender Equality stated.
In addition, the survey found 74.1 percent of respondents support the adoption rights of same-sex spouses, a 3.1 percentage point increase on 2022 and a 20.3 percentage point rise since 2018, the department added.
These numbers not only reflect a shift in the attitude of Taiwanese society on the issue, the department said, but also echo a move by the Legislature on Tuesday when it passed legal amendments to allow same-sex married couples to jointly adopt children to which neither partner is related.
The Legislative Yuan passed the amendments to the Act for Implementation of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748, the law that officially legalized same-sex marriage in Taiwan on May 19, 2019.
In terms of issues related to transsexuals, the department said 77.3 percent of respondents agreed that transsexuals should be able to wear the clothes they feel most comfortable in when they are at school and work, with 91.4 percent saying they would have no problem working with a transsexual.
Despite a high degree of correlation in opinions on the need to respect transsexuals, the survey, conducted in late April, found public attitude more conservative when it comes to related policies.
For example, only 54.8 percent of respondents agreed that transsexuals and bisexuals should have a third gender option on their national identity card, up 5.9 percentage points from 2022.
In the 2023 survey, only 46.5 percent supported transsexuals being able to change the gender on their ID cards without having to undergo gender reassignment surgery, though that still represented a 17.2 percent increase from 2022.
Meanwhile, the survey also identified some movement on traditional concepts related to gender roles and stereotypes, including the idea that women are better suited to looking after babies and less suited to working in the fields of science and engineering, which were opposed by 42.6 percent and 94.3 percent of respondents, respectively.
The survey also asked respondents their opinion on male parental leave and the inheritance rights of married daughters for the first time, with 84 percent and 95.2 percent of respondents voicing support, respectively, the survey showed.
The survey was conducted between April 27-29 among people aged 20 or older via a computer-assisted telephone interview system. It collected 1,076 valid samples and has a confidence value of 95 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99 percentage points.
In contrast, a poll by the Taiwan Equality Campaign also released on Friday found that despite increases in the country's overall friendliness toward same-sex relationships in the three years following the legalization of same-sex marriage, support declined slightly over the past year across a range of categories.
The only category in which the poll showed support increased was for same-sex couples that include a Taiwan and foreign national.
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