As Hong Kong Free Press states, “Same-sex marriage remains illegal, although a 2023 survey showed that 60 per cent of Hongkongers support it.” Even though government infrastructure is not in place and, as stated by the Hong Kong Government, will not be designed within the next few years, we saw an opportunity to empower the community to demonstrate inclusion for LGBTQ+ couples. From Hong Kong Marriage Equality’s research, “rather than redefine marriage, same-sex couples want to participate in the tradition.”

In Hong Kong, same-sex couples are denied the freedom to marry the person they love. They are not looking to redefine marriage. They just want to participate in tradition. For over 700 years, the most important ritual in a traditional Chinese wedding has been for parents to give their acceptance by gifting the ‘Phoenix-Dragon Bangles’ (the Phoenix represents female energy and the dragon represents masculine energy). So how do we let same-sex couples be themselves while being included in 700 years of tradition? We created ‘The Proud Pair’: the first ever ‘Phoenix-Phoenix’ and ‘Dragon-Dragon’ bangles. The Proud Pair is now available for purchase. We first started with a limited run of 50 pairs of bangles. 10% of the sales go to Hong Kong Marriage Equality to continue their fight for legalising same-sex marriage in Hong Kong. The Proud Pair is available online and made to order. Because the bangles are hand-crafted, they can also be further customised for same-sex couples (couples have options of customisations, from designing their last names onto the bangles to how they want the dragons or phoenixes to be designed).