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The growing national conversation on gender identity is a divisive and controversial policy issue. Much of the debate up to this point, including over proposed “bathroom bills” in North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and elsewhere, has centered on individuals who fall within society’s existing gender structure -- transgender men and transgender women. Redefining that structure altogether to include nonbinary identities may be a more ambitious battle.
When it comes to issuing IDs, states should prioritize biological accuracy over personal gender preference, say opponents of the efforts to expand gender definition. “Eye color, hair color, height, weight and sex: These are all listed on a driver’s license because these physical characteristics can be independently verified by physical evidence, even if a person is unconscious,” Greg Burt testified to the California Senate in 2017. Burt, who works for the California Family Council, was arguing against a proposed bill to allow for nonbinary government identification. The bill, he said, “advances a falsehood; that being male or female, or no gender at all, is a choice each person must make, not a fact to celebrate and accept.” That bill went on to become the Gender Recognition Act, which was passed and signed into law later that year, making California one of the easiest states in which to change gender on a birth certificate or a driver’s license.
For California and the other states and cities that have opted to allow nonbinary designations, adding an “X” to these documents is only the beginning. Legally recognizing gender as a spectrum sets up a cascade of tough policy questions. Schools, sports, prisons, courts, health care and human services benefits are all gendered systems. Some states, including California and Oregon, are beginning to address those needs; however, they still face challenges.
“Folks are going to start to see people with these IDs, whether it’s someone traveling through [a jurisdiction] or someone who has moved there from another state,” says Shawn Meerkamper, staff attorney with the Transgender Law Center. “There are just so many systems that are currently designed to only have two options for gender markers. More data systems need to catch up.”
