The legalization of same-sex marriage is among the most popular requests for revisions to China’s civil code, a top official said Friday.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislative body, will convene next week to review draft sections of the revised civil code. At a press conference Friday, Yue Zhongming, a spokesman for the NPC’s legislative affairs commission, said that legalizing same-sex marriage, improving the mechanism for “revoking” marriages, and joint debt shared between spouses were among the most popular topics submitted by members of the public during an open feedback period that ended last month.

The news is an encouraging sign for China’s LGBT community and its supporters, many of whom celebrated the small but hard-fought victory online. Since the beginning of the public comment period, LGBT rights groups have been promoting a letter-writing campaign, asking allies to lobby their legislators to recognize same-sex marriage. Nearly 190,000 people participated in the campaign, according to Guangzhou-based LGBT Rights Advocacy China, one of several groups behind the campaign.

China’s first lawsuit involving same-sex marriage was in 2015, when a man surnamed Sun from the central Hunan province sued his local civil affairs bureau for the right to marry his partner. The lawsuit ended with the court’s refusal to acknowledge the couple as wedded. In August, a different NPC spokesman said same-sex marriage would not be legally recognized on the Chinese mainland, citing the country’s conservative views on marriage. However, China’s LGBT community has taken some satisfaction in the increasing number of cities recognizing mutual guardianship between two people of the same sex. (Image: VCG)