Some day, you might not have to put a gender marker on your baby’s ID card — and if that’s your preference, you’d have this Canadian baby and advocates to thank.
Kori Doty, who had her baby Searyl Alti in November, has tried to stop the baby’s gender from appearing in British Columbia government records. Though officials have yet to grant the baby a genderless birth certificate, they did authorize the baby an official health card, reports BuzzFeed News. The card features a “U” — possibly meaning “unassigned” or “undetermined” — in lieu of a gender.
British Columbia seems to be the first in the world to offer this official genderless card, and Canadian provinces Ontario and Alberta are mulling nonbinary (where gender identity doesn’t fall into the traditional definition) options for government documents.
“We’re not actually asking to have anyone’s ID changed against their will. We’re just asking to change the structure of how identification, particularly the birth certificate, starts out,” Kori Doty told CKNW, a Canadian media outlet. Doty identifies as a nonbinary transgender person.
Doty is working with human rights lawyer barbara findlay (she doesn’t use capital letters in the spelling of her name), who touted the health card as an important milestone.
“It is recognizing that the state has no business certifying a child’s sex at birth,” findlay told BuzzFeed News. “It is something that is private and that might change.”
But their fight isn’t over yet — findlay and Doty are battling the Vital Statistics Agency for not granting Searyl a genderless birth certificate.
“We would prefer they take ‘sex’ off these documents entirely,” findlay added. “A baby’s gender identity develops over time, not when a doctor examines its genitals right after birth.”
In the U.S., Oregon just started granting its first gender-neutral driver’s licenses and state ID cards — the first state to do so. It follows in Washington, D.C.’s recent footsteps.
The transgender community continues to face discrimination across the world. In the U.S. alone, 41 percent of transgender people attempt suicide.
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This Baby Could Be the First Ever Without a Gender on Their ID Card originally appeared on usnews.com
