Transgender people take advantage of Nova Scotia birth certificate changes

Since Jessica Dempsey came out as a transgenderwoman in the fall of 2011, her life has been marked by struggles against discrimination.

But things are starting to change, and in a significant way. Dempseyrecentlypicked up her new birth certificate, whichindicates her sex marker: female.

"It's who I am, how I identifyand I'm still probably in awe about this," said the 40-year-old Halifax woman, wavingher new government-issued document.

"I think I'mstill a little floaty over getting this done because it's been so long."

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'This is progress'

Dempsey is one of 114 Nova Scotians who applied to make the change, and one of94 whose applications have been processed so far since the province relaxed rules last September. That's aboutdouble the number of applicants expected.

The changes have been an evensplit, with 47 birth certificates altered from male to femaleand vice versa.

And the province says a number of them are children who are15yearsold andyounger.

"This is progress. This has done a lot for the trans community that I belong to. Having this document makes things safer for me. It opens up more doors for me for employment," Dempsey said.

"I can just go apply for a passport and then I can travel.I can actually leave the country now."

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Push to remove gender marker

But the birth certificate change still leaves some people out, saidine Morse, whose gender identity isneither male nor female.

On the queer spectrum, Morse is a non-binary person who prefers being referred to by the pronoun"they."

Morse, a board member withthe Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project,says thatgroup, along with The Youth Project, havelobbied the province to consider other options.

That might includeremoving the gender makerfrom birth certificates altogether, Morse said.

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Not a 'monolith'

On a personal level, Morse likes the option chosen by Australia, Denmarkand New Zealand for passports. Those countries allow passports to use an Xas a gender designation.

"I like "X," but again, non-binary people aren't a monolith. We're all very different people and we all have different thoughts and feelings on those things," Morse said.

'We're here, we matter.'

Morse said theletter M, For X on a document is hugely symbolic.

"Some of the messaging behind government identification can reinforce some of those things and say that these people don't actually exist," they said. "We're trying our best to say like, we're here, we matter, we belong."

No further changes are planned for birth certificates, aspokesperson for Service Nova Scotia said,but the department is talking with groupsandrecognizes that this is a "dynamic and evolving area of social policy."

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Morse hopes the momentum is building towards more changes.

"We have this tendency to say, 'Oh, hey, we're done now, we're good,' without understanding what it means to protect everyone's gender identity and gender expression," they said.

"I don't think we're quite there yet."