Stratified Queer Mobility: Cross‐Strait Same‐Sex Marriage and the Administrative Pathway to Equality Amid Geopolitical Tensions

ABSTRACT

Taiwan’s legalization of same‐sex marriage in 2019 marked a milestone for LGBTQ+ rights in Asia, yet excluded most transnational couples, with partners from China facing the most formidable barriers due to the distinct legal regime governing Cross‐Strait relations, under which Chinese citizens are classified as neither foreigners nor nationals, amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Following years of litigation and advocacy, a conditional administrative pathway for Taiwan‐China Cross‐Strait same‐sex marriage was established in 2024, requiring couples to marry in a third country before registering in Taiwan. This article proposes the concept of “stratified queer mobility” to analyze how possibilities for queer cross‐border movement are differentiated by the intersection of class, nationality, and sexual orientation, as well as geopolitical tensions. Drawing on document and discourse analysis from 2019 to 2025, this study employs an affective approach to examine how fear, pride, love, and ambivalence are mobilized to legitimize, contest, and live with this stratification. The article first conceptualizes “stratified queer mobility” to capture how the administrative pathway transforms marriage rights into a consumptive act requiring economic capital. Second, it brings geopolitics into dialog with queer mobility analysis, demonstrating that intimate citizenship boundaries are shaped by inter‐state tensions and sovereignty anxieties. Third, it challenges the implicit “mobility as liberation” assumption in queer migration scholarship by shifting focus from “exit” to “entry”, revealing that the question for Cross‐Strait couples is whether one can legally bring their partner in. The administrative pathway, forged through the co‐constitution of state institutions, civil society, NGOs, and individual couples, represents both queer agency and neoliberal governance logic that enables marriage equality while exacerbating class‐based stratification within the queer community.