#nonbinary news

fuck it I'm Anthony now

This is amazing news, not just for the person in question, but for a whole slew of third gender, no gender, and other non-conforming Oregonians who are comfortable with “non-binary” as an identifier, but in the US broadly as this was the first time a US court has made this kind of declaration. This might go beyond that narrow range, too, as this case was completely unprecedented - the implications appear to be that nonbinary is a valid “gender category” for transition in Oregon, but the truth seems to depend on future court cases. Maybe we will see other gender umbrellas or specific identities in future cases - maybe this will be a breaking down of prescribed categories Oregonians will have to select, and an opening up of legally recognized genders in the state (and beyond)?

Although those implications are big, that is about as far as I am comfortable speculating right now (and honestly I may have gone further than I should have, but I am pretty excited still).

There are definitely clear limitations to this case that are worth noting:

Although this sets precedent for other folks having their gender marker changed to non-binary in Oregon, it does not necessarily give us a clear legal path to follow. The person in the article blazed a trail, but at the end of the case that person had to rely on the decision of the court and the rest of us are the same way. Some common elements of that are: 

A letter from a therapist

A letter from a doctor

Hormonal therapy

Surgery

“Other treatment,” which sort of boils down to “court’s discretion”

Even if you jump through all of those hoops, Oregon can only change Oregon documentation...so for people like me who were born in other states we would not be able to change or birth certificates based on this. Additionally, if we move to another state, our gender as recognized by Oregon might not be recognized by our new state (or, as of right now, definitely would not be).

Additionally, the US federal government does not recognize nonbinary as a gender category, so presumably we would not be able to have our passports changed to match, either.

As a final point, as a long-term goal it might not really be desirable to have government recognition of gender identities since there will always be limitations to how it’s done, and legal implications surrounding how government forces define those gender categories. It is also extremely unclear why government documentation needs to record gender or sex as a category at all, especially given the confusion and red-tape it often provides for gender non-conforming, transgender, nonbinary, intersex, two-spirit, and other individuals in our day-to-day lives.

I mean, trans people (in particular trans women and trans femmes) have been having enormous difficulties and invasion of privacy thanks to the TSA, which requires genders “match” between flight reservation and government ID (ick), though in reality kind of does whatever they want (double ick). Considering the sheer lack of human decency the TSA has already been showing trans folk, I cannot imagine agents will respond well to licenses with a gender they are unfamiliar with/do not understand that also potentially mismatches boarding passes (cause airlines still only offer those two options, right?).