Arwyn Jordan Regimbal would have celebrated finally having the correct gender marker on their Quebec driver’s licence, had they not been an exception to the rule.
A year and a half after taking steps to have an X gender marker on their documents, the 23-year-old non-binary person finally got their licence in the mail last Wednesday — a first in the province.
Since 2022, trans and non-binary people in Quebec can legally obtain the letter X rather than M or F on their civil status documents such as birth or marriage certificates, but not health-care cards or driver’s licences. Radio-Canada confirmed a dozen people have requested an X gender marker from Quebec’s automobile insurance board.
Quebec’s automobile insurance board, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), has said it lacks provincial authorization and the IT systems needed to add an X to cards to replace the letters M or F. It said it will have to wait until Quebec’s new gender identity committee files its report at the end of the year.
Regimbal, however, had taken legal action against the SAAQ to force it to put the correct gender marker on their driver’s licence. The X marker was put on their licence “in accordance with an out-of-court agreement,” SAAQ spokesperson Gino Desrosiers told Radio-Canada.
Quebec must ‘act quickly,’ human rights commission says
Regimbal says they still feel a sense of injustice as other trans and non-binary people will have to wait until at least 2025 to have their papers corrected.
“It remains an attack on the dignity and ability of some people to be equal members of society,” they told Radio-Canada.
“It’s important to me that everyone in Quebec has the same right to dignity and to be able to prove their identity with official documents,” they said.
The province’s human rights commission, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ), says Quebec is the only province that doesn’t have the option of an X gender marker on its licences. Halimatou Bah, a spokesperson for the CDPDJ, said the commission urges the Quebec government “to act quickly” to approve the X gender marker for all those who request it, “in line with the changes already in effect to civil status.”
Regimbal also criticized the Legault government.
They consider it “insulting” that the committee on gender identity is being used as a reason to delay legal recognition of gender identity for some.
Last week, Geneviève Guilbault, the minister responsible for the SAAQ, said the committee’s report would allow “more informed decisions” to be made on the subject of gender identity “in light of what is happening here and elsewhere.”