LA-area city known for LGBT advocacy to recognize polyamorous relationships

A Southern California city known for its LGBT advocacy has approved an ordinance that allows people in polyamorous relationships involving three or more adults to register with the city.

The West Hollywood ordinance introduced by Mayor John Heilman and unanimously approved by the city council on Nov. 2 defines what constitutes multi-partner domestic relationships, establishes a registration process for such relationships, and amends the city code to include protections for “persons in multi-partner domestic relationships.” As with the city’s original domestic partnership registry, people who live outside West Hollywood can also register.

According to the ordinance, a multi-partner domestic relationship “shall exist between three or more persons if” such a relationship meets specific criteria, including that they are not related by blood “closer than would bar marriage or domestic partnership” in California; “share the common necessities of life”; are 18 years or older; and are competent to enter a contract.

The ordinance also provides hospital and jail visitation rights within the city, along with certain tenant protections, for “throuples” and other polyamorous relationships.

While the registry, which is set to take effect on Dec. 2, does not alter state marriage or domestic partnership laws, it does establish an official recognition of relationships involving multiple adults. Several Massachusetts cities, including Somerville and Cambridge, already recognize multi-partner domestic partnerships.

In a letter supporting the ordinance, Christina Fialho, the founder and president of bisexual advocacy group "Rewrite the BiLine," praised West Hollywood’s history-making role in recognizing non-traditional relationships, starting with a domestic partnership registry for same-sex couples in 1985, the first of its kind in the United States. Heilman, then a city councilman, introduced that ordinance as well.

Prior to its passage, Fialho urged the city to amend its definition of a multi-partner domestic relationship to include people in concurrent two-person relationships.

“Restricting eligibility solely to groups of ‘three or more' excludes a significant segment of the polyamorous community who practice non-monogamy through concurrent dyadic (two-person) relationships,” she wrote. “Adjusting the threshold to ‘two or more’ allows polyamorous individuals in separate concurrent relationships to register each relationship legitimately, aligning the policy with the lived realities of the population it is designed to protect.”

Greg Burt of the California Family Council warned that while the ordinance states that it “does not create a marriage or registered domestic partnership,” it still serves as a “permission slip designed to change expectations everywhere.”

Citing the 2024 passage of Proposition 3, which removed language from the state constitution defining marriage as “between a man and a woman,” Burt said West Hollywood’s ordinance will likely pave the way for more changes to traditional marriage.

“Two years ago we warned California’s vague new marriage language no longer limited the institution to two people. We were called alarmists,” Burt said in a press release. “Now a California city will register throuples, foursomes, even groups of ten, with no limit on the number. And the activists behind it say the state is next.”

The ordinance comes after West Hollywood officials approved another measure in March that prohibits discrimination based on family or relationship structure. 

“People in non-traditional interpersonal relationships that involve romantic, physical, and/or emotional intimacy face discrimination in some aspects of public life due to prejudicial misunderstandings related to the validity and moral fitness of such relationships,” the ordinance states. “Individuals should not face discrimination on the basis of whom they share their homes, their hearts, and their lives.”