Maryland explores ‘unspecified’ gender option for drivers license applications

Transgender activists are vying to add Maryland to the list of states that allow for “unspecified” gender options on drivers licenses.

The Old Line State may join California, Washington state, and the nation’s capital regarding transgender licenses if lawmakers can garner enough support. The House of Delegates debated a bill working its way through the legislative process on Thursday.

“I’m not concerned about how [transgender individuals] feel about themselves,” Del. Bill Folden, R-Frederick, said, a local radio station reported. “The issue is you are born one way or the other.”

Transgender activist Dana Beyer of Chevy Chase countered: “You really do need to respect peoples’ sense of who they are. Sexual development is very complicated. Gender is your sense of yourself as a man or a woman or as neither.”

The bill, if passed into law, would allow citizens to use an ’X’ in lieu of traditional male and female designations, WTOP reported.

“Because you don’t feel [a specific gender, it] doesn’t mean that you are still not, physically, a male or female,” Mr. Folden added.

“Yes it does,” the activist replied.

“No, it doesn’t. It’s a fact,” the lawmaker said.