A few months after Americans approved gay marriage at the ballot box for the first time, a Chinese court has stirred controversy by recommending China making it easier for women to escape marriages to gay men.

The First Intermediate Court of Beijing recently submitted a report calling for legislation that would allow people who discover their spouses are gay to avoid the messiness of divorce by filing for an annulment instead, according to state media.

After winning an annulment, the person who filed the request would be legally listed as single instead of divorced, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Although the court's proposed regulation could technically apply to anyone, it appears to be aimed primarily at tongqi ( ), or straight women married to gay men.

There are no official estimates of the population of tongqi in China, but Zhang Beichuan, an HIV/AIDS researcher and sexologist at Qingdao University, puts the number at around 10 million. When bisexual and transgender men are taken into account, the number increases to 16 million, says Mr. Zhang, who arrived at that estimate by applying marriage rates to demographic studies of gay populations.

'Around 80% of gay men get married because they feel they have the responsibility to pass on their family names