Death of Jacques Picoux

Jacques Camille Picoux (9 November 1948 – 16 October 2016) was a lecturer on French language and literature at National Taiwan University. He had lived in Taiwan since 1979 and was a prominent member of the country's LGBT community. Picoux held a solo artist's exhibition in 2012 and was known for playing the character Kong Kong in the 2015 Hou Hsiao-hsien film *The Assassin*. He died by suicide on 16 October 2016, at age 68.

According to friends of Picoux, he decided to end his life because he had no legal rights to make medical decisions on behalf of his cancer-stricken partner, Tseng Ching-chao, and no legal rights to the home the two had shared for nearly 40 years. Tseng was the global agent of Chinese actress Gong Li. Same-sex couples in Taiwan at the time lacked legal recognition of marriage, which friends said left Picoux without standing to act on his partner's behalf during his illness.

Picoux's death generated a wave of public sympathy for the LGBT community in Taiwan and was reported to have catalyzed the Legislative Yuan to advance proposals for the legalization of same-sex marriage. His death also drew criticism toward then-President Tsai Ing-wen, who had campaigned on promises to legalize same-sex marriage but had not yet done so. Public opinion polls around this period indicated that nearly three-quarters of people in Taiwan supported same-sex marriage.

In the aftermath, LGBT rights advocates pointed to increased support for marriage equality among Legislative Yuan members. Taiwanese activist Cindy Su was reported stating that approximately 66 legislators — a majority — were likely to support marriage equality legislation. Former Grand Justice Hsu Tzong-li suggested that if homosexuality could be shown to be a natural minority status historically misunderstood as abnormal, existing marriage laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman could be found unconstitutional. Democratic Progressive Party member Yu Mei-nu drafted new legislation on the subject.

In December 2016, Taiwan's health authority announced plans to ban conversion therapy, effective March 2017. Same-sex marriage became legal in Taiwan on 24 May 2019, making it the first nation in Asia to legally recognize same-sex marriage. Public remembrances for Picoux were held at the time of legalization, and LGBT rights groups in Taiwan have since invoked his case when advocating against similar future tragedies.