Canadian authorities have denied issuing a birth certificate without any gender designation to a baby after the baby's parent argued that they do not want to assign any sex to the child.
Argument of the baby's parent Kori Doty
Kori Doty, who is the parent of Searyl Atli, has appealed for a judicial review of the case. According to Canadian media, if the authorities do issue a health card without any gender then it will be the first one of its kind in the world. Doty who is a non-binary transgender, wants the baby to discover their gender by themselves.
As for the "sex" section of the baby's health card, the authorities have put a "U" which can either be for "undetermined" or "unassigned".
Doty wants all of Atli's documents to be gender-free
Doty wants to remove the baby's gender not only from their birth certificate but also from all other official records. Searyl Atli was born in November at Doty's friend's house in British Columbia. Doty also prefers to be referred by the pronoun "they" instead of he/she or her/him. They are arguing that gender can not be assigned to a baby just by a physical or visual examination at the time of birth.
What did Kori Doty tell the media
Kori Doty is a community educator and is a part of the "Gender-Free ID Coalition." Doty is raising a point that a person who does not comply with the gender which is assigned to them at birth faces difficulty later on in life when they feel like making changes in their official documents.
According to CBC, Doty said: "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." Doty further added that they are going to give Atli all the possible affection that's required to become a "whole person" so that they can do things outside of the boundaries of just a girl or a boy.
Doty also related their own story with Atli's by saying that when they were born, the medical staff visually examined them and decided who they would be and that those "assignments" later on followed them throughout their life. Kori Doty further added that the "assumptions" which the doctors made regarding their gender proved to be incorrect and they had to make "a lot of adjustments".
What does the lawyer of Kori Doty say?
Doty's lawyer, barbara findlay (who actually uses small letters to spell her name) told Global News that instead of assigning the baby a gender just by looking at their genitals, we want them to discover their true gender identity once they grow up.
