The City of Boston is stripping sex and gender identification from marriage licenses, a measure aimed at providing a more inclusive experience for residents whose identities have historically been ignored by the government.
Gender markers will be included upon request, but otherwise, marriage certificates will be issued without a couple’s identifying information, the Wu administration announced at a Tuesday press conference.
“For people like me, the marriage certificate’s outdated and narrow gender markers were a glaring reminder that our city still had a long way to go to acknowledge our existence,” said Kimberly Rhoten, a non-binary resident who works in the mayor’s office of returning citizens.
“They were a subtle, yet powerful message that our love, our relationships, and our identities were somehow less valid and less recognized underneath the eyes of the law and the City of Boston. Today, by removing gender markers, we actually alleviate dysphoria for many in our community.”
Those applying for a marriage license will no longer be forced to choose among “narrow gender-delineated options that don’t actually reflect who we are,” Rhoten said of the new policy, which went into effect on Tuesday.
The changes were particularly poignant for Rhoten, who got married to their non-binary partner, Jacob Burley, this year at City Hall, and was presented with Boston’s first gender-marker-free marriage certificate at the press event.
“This is not just a win for the queer community,” Rhoten said. “It’s a win for everyone who believes in the principles of fairness, equality, and equal access to our city services. It’s a win for Boston.”
The change is the first Boston has made based on new gender-aware guidelines for city resources and the collection of gender-identity data throughout government processes.
It builds upon a gender inclusion ordinance filed by Mayor and then-Councilor Michelle Wu and Councilor Liz Breadon three years ago, that required city-issued forms, documents and certificates to include a non-binary gender identification option, to be marked as an “X.”
The ordinance was later amended with a filing by Councilor Gabriela Coletta, who said she sought more inclusivity at City Hall after witnessing the difficulties her North End liaison, Jack Imbergamo, encountered as a transgender person during the hiring process.
“The only thing that was available to him was his legal name, his dead name that he no longer identifies with,” Coletta said. “It’s a small thing to some folks, but it’s a huge thing to folks going through their own journey and how they identify. It was traumatizing. Let’s be real. It was traumatizing to have to live through that.”