West Hollywood Council Votes 5-0 to Let Three or More Partners Register Their Relationship With the City
The City Council of West Hollywood, a city in Los Angeles County, California, voted 5-0 on November 2 to adopt an ordinance allowing relationships of three or more partners to register with the city as a "multi-partner domestic relationship," with specific protections covering hospital visitation, jail visitation and rental housing. The ordinance takes effect 30 days after adoption.
Under the ordinance, registration is handled by the City Clerk. Each participant must file a statement of the relationship with the city. To qualify, all participants must be 18 or older and competent to enter into a contract, must not be related by blood in a way that would bar marriage in California, must share the common necessities of life, must consent to the registration and accept responsibility for one another's welfare, must agree to notify the city if the status of the relationship changes, and must not be registered in another multi-partner domestic relationship at the same time. Statements are generally filed in person with valid identification from every member, or by mail if all signatures are notarized. Registration is not limited to West Hollywood residents.
Once registered, partners are entitled to visitation at health care facilities in the city, unless the facility allows no visitors at all, and at city-operated jails. Rental protections were also extended to these relationships: a landlord may not terminate a tenancy or refuse to renew a lease solely because a registered partner continues to live in the property. The ordinance also makes clear that the city registration does not create a marriage and is not equivalent to a state-registered domestic partnership, and that registered partners do not receive the full legal rights and benefits of married couples or state-registered domestic partners.
The ordinance was introduced by Mayor John Heilman. Attorney Christina Fialho, founder of the advocacy group Rewrite the BiLine, first proposed protections for polyamorous relationships to Councilmember Chelsea Lee Byers in early 2025; Byers called the protections "long overdue." In March of this year the council adopted an ordinance barring discrimination based on family or relationship structure, set up a working group to design the registry, and voted unanimously to advance the registration plan. West Hollywood created one of the nation's first same-sex domestic partnership registries in 1985, and the Massachusetts cities of Somerville and Cambridge have previously recognized domestic partnerships of three or more people.
(Source: West Hollywood City Council)
Source: West Hollywood City Council
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 West Hollywood 的太平洋设计中心（Pacific Design Center）蓝色玻璃大楼，为该市地标建筑。Blervis 摄，CC0 授权，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The blue-glass Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, a landmark of the city. Photo by Blervis, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
