Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
There were hundreds of bills that made its way to Governor Jerry Brown's desk over the weekend, among them, "The Gender Recognition Act."
If he signs it, it will create a "non-binary" designation for birth certificates and state identification, non-binary meaning neither identifying as male or female. It will also make it easier for people to change their gender on those official documents.
Laws similar to these have already been passed in Oregon and D.C. earlier this year, but they've been common practice in countries like Canada and New Zealand for some time.
Corinne Green is a Policy staffer at the Transgender Law Center. She's been reading up on this bill. When she spoke to A Martinez, she explained the importance of having this type of legislation statewide.
"It's really important for most people to have access to appropriate identification, right? You go to the movie theater, you go to a bar, you're always showing I.D.
And for trans and non-binary people, it can be dangerous not to have identification that matches their presentation. You might get outed accidentally, and so what this bill does, is it makes it accessible for non-binary people to get non-binary designations on their ID's so that it appropriately reflects who they are."
To hear more about this bill entails and how it could set the table for future legislation like this, click the blue play button above.