Throuples, foursomes & polycules oh my! This state has big news for queer partners

Woke 2.0 has arrived, and it’s wasting no time making itself felt in these United States. What else does it mean when polycules start becoming the law of the land?

West Hollywood passed a historic measure this Tuesday that gives non-traditional families legal rights. “The measure allows people in relationships involving multiple partners to officially register with the city,” the New York Post reported yesterday, “granting them certain rights, including hospital visitation and additional tenant protections.” Even more than that, the law will help multi-partnered parents with chores like school pickup and other family-only tasks.

“This law is just the beginning,” a bisexual activist instrumental in bringing the ordinance forward last year told the LA Times. “I think it makes it possible for people to dream about a future they once thought was out of reach.”

West Hollywood isn’t the first state to fight for polyamorous protections: it joins several Pacfiic Northwest cities in creating a new legal standard for families with more than two partners.  “It’s about the law catching up to where we are culturally,” one trans woman living in a transfemme polycule told the New York Times last year, when several Oregon communities passed the protections into law.

Politics, but make it gay!

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But the real gag is that Tr*mp 2.0 was the reason polyamorous activists decided to get the ball rolling. “Adding protections for ‘nontraditional’ households is a response to efforts to roll back rights for groups that already enjoy legal protections,” the Times reported. In Olympia, Washington specifically, the measure was part of an effort to double down on the city’s sanctuary city standing.

To be fair, the decision to allow partnerships of up to four people to have legal domestic partnership rights was probably a long time in the making, and West Hollywood has always been one of the queerest cities in the nation regardless of who’s in office. But we have to say, the timing of the official announcement couldn’t have been better.

“Welcome to Woke 3.0,” wrote trans activist Ari Drennen.

“Damn,” another commenter said, “they couldn’t even wait a week?!”

No they couldn’t! You’ve heard of transgender for everyone? Welcome to polyamory for everyone.

The news is exciting for many, but it’s also a promise of some deep mess to come. Because once you start being able to essentially marry the people in your polycule, you can also, you know, divorce the people in your polycule, and if recent seasons of Couples’ Therapy have taught us anything, it’s that relationships of any stripe and size are complicated. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it—and we’ll certainly be watching that reality show when it shows up on streaming.

For now, people are taking this as a sign to celebrate Woke 2.0, Woke 3.0, and any and all future iterations of Woke that the blue tsunami just made possible.

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