Northwestern Medicine adds 'X' gender designation for nonbinary patients

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Northwestern Medicine will now allow patients to use the letter "X" on documents for their gender if they do not want to identify as male or female.

Northwestern officials said it's been a yearlong process that has involved the collaboration of hundreds of employees to provide a nonbinary gender designation.

"They feel seen, they see a shift in the medical world, right, and acceptance," said Becca Sebree, Northwestern Medicine program coordinator for the Gender Pathways program.

Sebree said the X gender designation drastically changes the type of care patients get. One medical provider described as a woman going to the doctor's office but the doctors, nurses, and all the medical staff treats you as if she was a man. The provider said that's what it's like for those who identify as something other than male and female.

"A lot of it really is going over how the patient wants to be spoken to, how they want their medical history and issues placed in their chart," Sebree said.

"We found that there were something just hundreds if not, thousands of different tests that clinically varied depending on somebody's sex and or gender," said Dr. Lauren Beach, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine assistant professor.

Beach said the first time they were able to identify as nonbinary on a healthcare form was just two years ago. This year, they led the training for medical providers to treat those who identify outside of the male/female binary, and understand the complexities when a patient's legal documentation is different,

"It's helping people understand the differences between legal sex, which is on somebody's driver's license, or their birth certificate, compared to anatomy," they explained.

Currently in Illinois there is no option for an X designation on a license, so for folks like Dr. Beach their license says female but they write nonbinary on healthcare forms.

"It's hard to get people to think differently if they, you know, if they don't have that as a personal challenge for themselves. And also, if they don't see the world that way," they said.

All the more reason to make sure a patient's needs are in writing.

"It's documented it's there. It's gonna be a lot harder to erase me when I've written it down," Sebree said.