Ontario could soon allow gender-neutral birth certificates

Ontario could soon allow gender-neutral birth certificates as the government in the Candian province considers allowing them.

Ontario’s minster of government and consumer services, Tracey MacCharles, told the Canadian Press that the province needs to coordinate with other governments in Canada.

She said this will come before any altered birth certificates are offered.

Canadian filmmaker and activist, Joshua M Ferguson, who is nonbinary, pushed the state to recognise their gender identity.

Ferguson has applied to Ontario authorities to have their birth certificate changed to a gender-neutral option.

They said that not having gender-neutral birth certificates in Ontario in 2018 is “not good enough”.

“I have a right to my birth certificate in the same time period as every other Canadian — within six weeks from my submission of the application,”they told BuzzFeed in an email.

“My gender identity and gender expression are covered under Ontario law. I have a right to receive my non-binary birth certificate now, not next year.”

Canada recently introduced a gender-neutral option on driver’s licenses and is working to introduce the option to passports too.

Ferguson added that if they are successful in the application, it will allow them to “turn this alienation we feel into a realised place in society”.

“I am doing this for myself: once I was scared, hurt and alone and I didn’t have the language or the support to be who I am. But I am also doing this for you, the non-binary reader who has had to fight daily to exist in the face of intolerance,” they concluded.

A Canadian Senator this week apologised for using a racial slur during a debate on trans rights.

Last week, Feminists activists in Canada said they had been “bullied and blackmailed” by a union group over their opposition to a trans rights bill.

A spokesperson for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter has expressed concerns over the transgender rights bill C-16.

Hilla Kerner says the bill, which would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” into protected categories in the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code threatens “female-born” women’s spaces.

Canada’s government earlier today said it will apologise to thousands of citizens affected by an ‘LGBT purge’ of the military and public service.

The country is also about to introduce gender-inclusive passports which will offer a third, unspecified option for those who do not fall into the female or male category.

Canada’s High Commission to the UK in London earlier this year installed a gender-neutral toilet to be more trans-inclusive.

• Dec 31 2024

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