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While a number of provinces offer gender-neutral birth certificates, many in Canada’s trans and gender-diverse communities say they are concerned their lived identity is not always reflected in official documents after their death.

“It’s the final ‘screw you,”‘ says Callum Tate, a Toronto transgender man in his mid-30s. “It erases them without their voice here to say, ‘You made a mistake.”‘

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Between 2012 and 2017, all Canadian provinces and territories amended their Vital Statistics Act and lifted the requirement of gender confirmation surgery for people to change their gender on various documents. Five provinces and two territories offer a gender-neutral option.

Death certificates, however, are far behind.

“How an individual’s identity is reflected on vital event certificates is an important conversation that is being had in jurisdictions right across the country,” says Maria MacInnis at the Nova Scotia Vital Statistics and Medical Examiner’s Offices.