A video game designer in Portland, Oregon has become the first US citizen to legally be recognised as agender.
A County Court granted 27-year-old Patch a "General Judgement of Name and Sex Change" earlier this month in a historic ruling.
“I was told ‘men were this, women were this.’ As a teen I learned about transgender people, and that didn’t seem like what I was," Patch said. “And then I learned about genderqueer, and that didn’t seem like what I was.”
Patch does not use gender-specific or even gender-neutral pronouns saying that they “don’t feel as if they fit me”.
“I feel no identity or closeness with any pronouns I’ve come across…What describes me is my name.”
Patch has spoken of the difficulties encountered when filling out official papers that require an M or F box to be ticked.
“Having a blank field still allows other genders to exist,” said Patch, adding that “you should let people opt-in to that. Forcing it is weird.”
“I think it’s creepy that society wants to track such personal information about everybody.
“Why does it matter? But we do exist in that system, and since we do, we can’t just scrap it all,” Patch said.
Kyle Rapiñan is an attorney for the Sylvia Rivera Law project and has applauded the Portland court for “recognising the person as they are.”
“We hope that other government agencies will help people self-determine their gender identity, which also includes the option to identify without a gender,” says Rapiñan.
The judge who presided over Patch's case also signed off on a landmark ruling last year, allowing resident Jamie Shupe a legal change from female to non-binary.
Judge Amy Holmes Hehn told NBC that she “made these decisions, like all decisions, because they were supported by facts and law, and out of respect for the dignity of the people who came before me.”
