Christian News — Oregon has become the first state to allow residents to identify as neither male or female on their driver’s license and identification card.
Beginning on July 1, residents can select an “X” for their gender instead of “M” or “F.” The new policy was unanimously agreed upon by the Oregon Transportation Commission.
According to Reuters, the concept was considered after Multnomah County Judge Amy Holmes Hehn last June granted a man’s request to identify on his driver’s license as “non-binary.”
As previously reported, Jamie Shupe (pictured) was born male, served in the military and married a woman. But in 2013, as he found himself struggling with his gender identity, Shupe decided to seek treatments that would make him look and feel feminine.
“I figured I was a transgender woman. My thinking was, well, I’m not a male,” Shupe told reporters. “I was in a deep, dark depression because I had boxed myself into this male identity that I couldn’t stand anymore.”
But after taking hormonal treatments and wearing women’s clothing, Shupe still wasn’t satisfied. It didn’t feel right trying to live as a female.
“Now, I’m suddenly telling my spouse I’m the same thing she is? It didn’t make sense to me,” Shupe told The Guardian. “No amount of hormones is going to make me look like a female.”
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