Story highlights Searyl Atli has been assigned a health card that leaves the baby's sex unspecified

Authorities have refused to issue a birth certificate

(CNN) A Canadian baby has been issued a health document that doesn't specify male or female, in what campaigners are claiming is a possible "world first."

Parent Kori Doty wants to avoid assigning gender to the child. Doty identifies as non-binary trans: According to GLAAD , non-binary is a term to describe people whose gender identity falls outside the categories of man and woman. Trans, short for transgender, describes people whose gender identity doesn't match the sex or gender they were assigned at birth.

"It is up to Searyl to decide how they identify, when they are old enough to develop their own gender identity," Doty said in the statement. "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.

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