| James Shupe | |
|---|---|
 Shupe in 2018 | |
| Born |
August 10, 1963 Washington, D.C., United States |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |
 United States |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1982–2000 |
| Rank | Sergeant First Class |
| Awards | |
James Clifford Shupe[2] (born 1963; formerly Jamie Shupe) is a retired United States Army soldier who in 2016 became the first person in the United States to obtain legal recognition of a non-binary gender. In 2019, he released a statement explaining that he had "returned to [his] male birth sex".[3] He has since become a vocal critic of the concept of gender identity.[3]
Biography[]
Born male, Shupe grew up in southern Maryland as one of eight children.[4] He and his wife, Sandy, were married in 1987;[5] they have one daughter.[4] He served in the U.S. Army for 18 years, receiving a number of military decorations, and retired in 2000 as a sergeant first class.[1]
Shupe has written that he was physically and sexually abused by relatives during childhood.[6] He recalls his mother punishing him for behaving like a "sissy",[5] and says that he was denied the right to explore his gender expression or gender identity.[1] That suppression continued through his military career, which included periods before and during Don't ask, don't tell.[1][4] After he retired, Shupe began living as a transgender woman in 2013. He chose the gender-neutral first name "Jamie" and convinced the Army to change his sex marker to female on military records.[7][8]
In June 2016, Shupe successfully petitioned a Multnomah County, Oregon, court to change his sex designation to non-binary, in the first legal recognition of a non-binary gender in the United States.[4][7] That November, he was issued a birth certificate in Washington, D.C., with a sex marker of "unknown".[8] Lambda Legal later cited Shupe's petition as a legal precedent for non-binary gender markers in the passport lawsuit Zzyym v. Pompeo.[9] Shupe is a critic of transgender surgeries, cautioning against what he says are high complication rates.[10] He has also expressed opposition to transgender people serving in the military.[11]
In January 2019, Shupe announced that he no longer identified as non-binary and was returning to identifying as male. He said that his original motivation for transition was autogynephilia and that he was experiencing symptoms of psychosis when he sought a non-binary sex marker.[6][12] In March, he changed his first name back to James.[2]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Miner, Colin (2016-06-12). "Military Veteran Says 'Jamie' is Neither Male Nor Female" (in en-US). Portland, OR Patch. http://patch.com/oregon/portland/portland-singular-victory-non-binary-veteran.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Shupe, James (2019-03-25). "Jamie Shupe Name Change: Please Address Me As James Shupe Now" (in en). https://jamieshupe.wordpress.com/2019/03/25/jamie-shupe-name-change-please-address-me-as-james-shupe-now/. Retrieved 2019-03-30.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Shupe, Jamie (26 January 2019). "Public Announcement: I Have Returned To My Male Birth Sex" (in en). https://jamieshupe.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/public-announcement-i-have-returned-to-my-male-birth-sex/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Dake, Lauren (2016-06-16). "Jamie Shupe becomes first legally non-binary person in the US" (in en). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/16/jamie-shupe-first-non-binary-person-oregon.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 O'Hara, Mary Emily (2016-07-23). "Why can't the nation's first legally nonbinary person get an ID?" (in en-US). The Daily Dot. http://www.dailydot.com/irl/jamie-shupe-dana-zzyym-passport-state-department-gender/.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Shupe, Jamie (2019-03-10). "I Was America's First 'Nonbinary' Person. It Was All a Sham.". https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/03/10/i-was-americas-first-non-binary-person-it-was-all-a-sham/.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Mele, Christopher (2016-06-13). "Oregon Court Allows a Person to Choose Neither Sex" (in en). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/oregon-nonbinary-transgender-sex-gender.html.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Woodstock, Molly (2017-03-10). "Male? Female? Jamie Shupe Battles for a Third Option.". https://www.pdxmonthly.com/articles/2017/2/20/male-female-jamie-shupe-battles-for-a-third-option.
- ↑ "Case: Zzyym v. Pompeo (formerly Zzyym v. Tillerson & Zzyym v. Kerry) Plaintiff's Reply Brief" (in en). Lambda Legal. 2016-06-15. https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/zzyym_co_20160615_reply-brief.
- ↑ Dorman, Sam (2018-11-17). "Some Veterans Call for Taxpayer-Funded Gender Surgery — This Fmr Army Sergeant Tried Transitioning and Disagrees" (in en-US). IJR. https://ijr.com/former-army-sergeant-disagrees-a-funded-surgeries/.
- ↑ Foden-Vencil, Kristian (2017-07-26). "Oregon's Transgender Population Reacts To Trump's Military Ban" (in en). Oregon Public Broadcasting. https://www.opb.org/news/article/donald-trump-transgender-military-ban-oregon/. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
- ↑ Bawer, Bruce (2019-02-13). "A Transgender Hero Breaks Ranks" (in en). https://pjmedia.com/trending/a-transgender-hero-breaks-ranks/.
The original article can be found at James Shupe and the edit history here.