Courtesy D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles.

Legislators have moved to make D.C. the second jurisdiction in the country to offer a non-binary gender option on licenses.

“Gender is a spectrum and some of our residents do not identify as male or female. Current licenses force residents to conform to genders that don’t accurately reflect their identity,” said Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau in introducing the bill. She was joined by At-large councilmembers David Grosso, Robert White, and Elissa Silverman; Ward 6’s Charles Allen and Ward 3’s Mary Cheh.

If passed, applicants for licenses or identification cards would choose between “F,” “M,” or “X.”

Last week, Oregon became the first state to add a non-binary option on licenses after a court ruled last year that non-binary is a legal gender. A bill in California is also working its way through the statehouse.

“This change in ID is a huge piece of validation for me,” J Gibbons, a 26-year-old Portland resident, told the Guardian after the change went into effect. “The state of Oregon sees me for who I am. I don’t even think ‘excitement’ can capture all of my emotions about this change.”

In the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, a third of all respondents who had shown IDs with a name or gender that didn’t match their presentation reported being harassed, denied services, or attacked. Just over half of transgender men and women said they had changed the gender noted on their licenses, whereas just 9 percent of non-binary individuals had done so. Nearly 90 percent of non-binary individuals who said that none of their IDs or records reflected the gender they preferred said it was because the available options didn’t fit their gender identity.

“Every person deserves to have their identities affirmed and respected by their governments,” said Xavier Persad, legislative counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement. “Ensuring that identity documents reflect the broader diversity of gender identities is a matter of both principle and public health.

In other local license news, starting at the beginning of this month, the Department of Motor Vehicles began modifying the cards to read Washington, D.C. as opposed to the District of Columbia thanks to misinformed bouncers and TSA agents everywhere.

Nonbinary Identification Cards Amendment Act of 2017 by Office of Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau on Scribd