Free Republic

When Oregon resident Jamie Shupe quietly walked into a Portland, Oregon, courthouse this June and received permission to change their gender from female to "non-binary," they did so without the assistance of any nonprofit or national transgender advocacy group. Shupe's successful legal change to a third gender stunned the national LGBTQ community; many intersex and gender nonconforming people had dreamed of someday being able to opt out of "male" and "female" gender designations, but no one thought it could be done so easily. In the six months since Shupe became the first legally non-binary U.S. citizen, the amount of people...

Leo is 10 years old. For most of his life he's lived as a girl, but this summer he began to speak openly about his sense that this didn't feel quite right. With research help for his parents, he's decided he is non-binary - in his case, both masculine and feminine - though for the moment he dresses as a boy and has taken a male name. This is Leo's story in his own words. I'm not a boy. I thought I was a boy, because I'm not entirely a girl. We tried that for a bit, and I thought:...

Some girls at La Guardia HS of Music & Art and Performing Arts were not amused that a boy stole their stiletto-heeled thunder and became this year’s prom queen — and their claws have come out on social ­media. “I know I go to LaGuardia because a boy won prom queen,” snarked Asia Pierre in a Facebook post that attracted 500 homophobic comments and 100 shares before it was removed. “It just sucks that men win everything and we thought we at least deserve that,” wrote a classmate under the name Taj Mahal. Matthew Crisson, an 18-year-old Staten Islander who self-identifies...

PORTLAND, Ore. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A circuit court judge has ruled an Oregon man can legally identify as "gender binary." Following a decision passed down by the Multnomah County judge, 52-year-old Jamie Shupe has become the first individual in the country to attain the legal classification of being neither male nor female. "I have my life back," Shupe stated after the court ruling last week. "I'm not a male. I'm not a female." The decision is being lauded by gay activist organizations, who argue "classic gender markers don't fit everybody," and the court decision will serve to help people "exist without...