LID applauds historic Non-Binary Inclusive Amendment to State Democratic Party Rules

At its meeting on Tuesday, the New York State Democratic Committee nearly unanimously passed a historic amendment to the state party rules in order to make the party inclusive of non-binary individuals, or individuals who do not identify as being either women or men.

Currently, the rules make references to the “opposite” gender, gender “balance,” sex, and make specific references to men and women only. These are found mostly in requirements that associated officer positions, such as the Secretary, be filled by members of “opposite” genders, and that committees contain an “even” number of members from “each” gender. This amendment changes this language to use the term “different genders”, among other fixes, in order to remove explicit references to the gender binary while still maintaining rules that require diversity of gender amongst officers and committees of the party.

Additionally, the resolution specifies that each district that elects two Members of the State Committee shall elect members of different genders, rather than “one male and one female.”

The resolution was proposed by State Committee Member Emilia Decaudin of Westchester, the state committee's youngest and first openly transgender member.