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Baby Becomes World's First To Have Gender Marked 'Unknown'

Baby Becomes World's First To Have Gender Marked 'Unknown'

The parent wants the baby to be able to decide their own gender when they're older.

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

An eight-month-old Canadian baby has become the first ever to be issued a genderless health card.

Kori Doty gave birth to Searyl Atli in November last year and is campaigning to keep the baby's sex off all official records, arguing that a 'visual inspection' of a baby is not capable of determining what gender a person will identify as when they grow up.

The parent, who is a non-binary person, identifying as neither female nor male, wants Searyl to be able to 'discover their own gender', the BBC reports.

Credit: Instagram

Kori told CBC: "I'm raising Searyl in in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I'm recognising them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box."

Kori is part of the Gender-Free ID Coalition, and believes that those who later identify with a different gender than the one assigning to them at birth can face lots of problems further down the line.

They continued: "When I was born, doctors looked at my genitals and made assumptions about who I would be, and those assignments followed me and followed my identification throughout my life.

Searyl's health-card has a 'U' under sex. Credit: Gender-Free ID Coalition

"Those assumptions were incorrect, and I ended up having to do a lot of adjustments since then."

The parent has claimed that local authorities have refused to issue a birth certificate without a gender printed on it, so they have applied for a review of the case and brought in a lawyer. According to CBC there are seven other complainants also wanting to change their birth certificates.

Credit: Instagram

The case of the gender-free health cards has been reported as a world first by Canadian media.

In the UK, campaigners have called for a third gender option on British passports, for people who who don't identify as either male or female.

Sources: BBC; CBC

Featured Image Credit: Facebook/Instagram

Topics: Babies, transgender