New Yorkers who don’t identify as male or female can use ‘X’ to designate their gender on driver’s licenses and other government documents, new bill says

• New York lawmakers passed Friday a bill to allow a third option for a person’s gender on official documents.
• People who do not identify as either male or female would be able to mark their gender as “X.”
• The Biden administration hinted previously it could adopt a similar policy at the national level.
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Lawmakers in the New York State Assembly on Friday passed a bill that would allow New Yorkers who do not identify as male or female to mark their gender as “X” on official state documents, including their driver’s license and birth certificate.

The bill previously passed the State Senate.

“The provisions in this bill will make life safer, reduce the stigma and affirm the identities for so many of our friends and neighbors,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat representing Manhattan who sponsored the legislation, according to the New York Daily News

The bill, known as The Gender Recognition Act, now heads to the desk of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. If signed, the bill will allow transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people in New York to alter their gender on state documents and identification that matches so it matches their gender identity, as the Daily News reported.

According to the bill, New Yorkers who seek to change their gender identity would no longer be required to provide medical evidence to change their gender designation on state documents. The bill would also eliminate the requirement that legal name changes be listed in a local newspaper.

Cuomo’s office did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment on Saturday when asked if he planned to sign the legislation.

As CNN reported, if signed, New York would become the 25th state in the US to allow some sort of gender-neutral identifier on state documents.

The federal government has hinted that it could soon make a similar change.

A White House official February told The 19th in February that the Biden administration was considering making the change to federal documents, including passports. A group of congressional lawmakers in May pressured President Joe Biden to add the “X” option, as The 19th reported.

“We believe that a gender-neutral marker (“X”) should be available on all federal IDs, and that accurate gender markers should be accessible using a self attestation standard,” a letter to Biden sent last month read, according to the outlet.

The letter, which asked Biden to make the change by issuing an executive order, was authored by Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and signed by 20 other congressional Democrats, according to The 19th.