Oregon court allows resident to change sex from female to nonbinary

Oregon court allows resident to change sex from female to nonbinary

Oregon resident Jamie Shupe, who identifies as neither male nor female, can legally be considered nonbinary, a judge ruled.

In what legal experts believe is the state's first such ruling, Judge Amy Holmes Hehn ruled Friday that Shupe's sex has been changed from female to nonbinary.

"It feels amazing to be free from a binary sex classification system that inadequately addressed who I really am, a system in which I felt confined," the Portland resident said.
The Army veteran was assigned the gender of male at birth, but Shupe started transitioning to a female in 2013, more than a decade after leaving the military, according to The Oregonian newspaper.

Shupe: Titles did not fit
Shupe said male or female titles didn't seem fitting, and preferred to use the first name, Jamie, instead of a pronoun. In April, Shupe filed a petition for a gender change.

"Oregon law has allowed for people to petition a court for a gender change for years, but the law doesn't specify that it has to be either male or female," said civil rights attorney Lake J. Perriguey, who filed the petition.
"The law just says, 'change.' Historically, people have asked for a gender change from male to female and the other way around, but Jamie is the first to ask for the gender of "nonbinary," Perriguey, said.
gender sexuality asexual

New terms are entering the cultural lexicon as people endeavor to codify their sexual orientation or gender. These definitions, which have been edited, are primarily from the LGBTQ advocacy group The Trevor Project. The gender fluid definition is from Dictionary.com. <a