“I am not going to foreclose their choices based on an arbitrary assignment of gender at birth based on an inspection of their genitals.” Despite difficulties in obtaining a birth certificate, a health card for the baby with the sex listed as “U” has been issued, with the coalition saying it arrived one day “without explanation.” An image of the card shared by the parent includes the “U” designation and the child’s name; it says the child was born in November and the card was issued in April.

Health cards entitle Canadians to use of public health care services and need to be shown each time a medical service is used. Coalition believes that the “U” stands for “unspecified or unknown” and that Searyl is the first child to be registered in such a way without sex or gender being specified.

The committee is expected to make a decision by the fall.

Another technique was used in late 2007 by the company i Date, which used email harvesting directed at subscribers to the Quechup website to spam the victim's friends and contacts.Kate Quinn, executive director of the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE), told Edmonton’s community services committee that body rub practitioners are regularly slapped, choked and sexually assaulted while working.That could mean requiring body rub parlours to have an ID scanning system, additional training to help screen clients, or something as simple as a security camera over the front counter, Quinn said.Canada has a universal health-care system paid for by taxes, and the cards themselves are the responsibility of the individual Canadian provinces. British Columbia’s Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for comment.The desire to omit a designated gender on the card was partly motivated through Doty’s personal experiences.