Oklahoma’s governor has signed into a law a bill prohibiting gender markers other than male and female on state documents
Oklahoma is now the US’s first state to ban a nonbinary option from birth certificates. Supporters claimed that it would make Oklahoma more secure. “clarity and truth”On official documents
On Tuesday, Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law the bill. This follows an executive order he had issued in November that prohibited the Oklahoma State Health Department from changing gender designations on birth certificates. The controversy began after OSDH – unbeknownst to the governor – settled a civil lawsuit by agreeing to allow a nonbinary option.
“People are free to believe whatever they want about their identity, but science has determined people are either biologically male or female at birth,” said Representative Sheila Dills, the Republican lawmaker who sponsored the bill on gender designations. “We want clarity and truth on official state documents. Information should be based on established medical fact and not an ever-changing social dialogue.”
A total of 12 US states permit gender designations beyond male and female to appear on their birth certificates. Others don’t provide a nonbinary option, but Oklahoma is reported to be the first to legally prohibit the designation.
President Joe Biden’s administration last month announced that it was making an “X” gender marker available on US passports. The US State Department has allowed citizens to select their own gender identity by allowing them to sign the documents.
The new law relating to birth certificates comes less than one month after Stitt signed a bill prohibiting biological males from participating in girls’ sports. More than a dozen Republican-controlled legislators have passed such bills since 2020.
Oklahomans elected the nation’s first openly nonbinary legislator, Mauree Turner, in 2020. This is the Oklahoma City Democrat’s Twitter account. “not a woman,”As the House was discussing the bill, nonbinary gender markers were criticized. “I find it very extreme and grotesque use of power in this body to write this law and try to pass it when literally none of them live like this,” Turner tweeted.
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