diff --git a/lib/gollum/markup.rb b/lib/gollum/markup.rb
index 7b3d60b0..3550b5fc 100644
--- a/lib/gollum/markup.rb
+++ b/lib/gollum/markup.rb
@@ -126,7 +126,11 @@ module Gollum
         node.add_child(%Q{<a href="##{h_name}">#{h.content}</a>})
         tail.add_child(node)
       end
-      toc = toc.to_xml(@to_xml) if toc != nil
+      if toc != nil
+        # convert to HTML first before XHTML
+        toc = Nokogiri::HTML::fragment toc.to_s
+        toc = toc.to_xhtml(:encoding => 'UTF-8')
+      end
       [doc, toc]
     end