Is A Third Gender Option Coming To MA Driver's Licenses?

BEACON HILL, MA – Lawmakers in Massachusetts are mulling a third gender option for driver's licenses and identification cards. The bill, which the state Senate will debate on Thursday, June 28 at the state house, would add an "X" gender option in addition to male and female for IDs.

The proposed legislation, "An Act Relative to Gender Identity on Massachusetts Identification," was submitted by Ashland Democrat Karen Spilka last fall. The state senator filed the bill after receiving a letter from a 16-year-old who was applying for a driver's license and did not identify as male or female, according to the Gloucester Times.

California, Oregon, Washington state and Washington, D.C. have non-binary gender options for licenses. Mason Dunn, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, told WCVB non-binary gender options are compliant with the federal REAL ID act because the law "declares that you have to have a gender marker on state ID’s in order to be compliant with REAL ID’s, but they don’t declare what those gender markers have to be."

Residents would not be required to show documentation to prove their non-binary identity in order to choose the option.

Photo of RMV in Watertown by Jenna Fisher/Patch