Sen. Amy Klobuchar participated in an LGBTQ town hall hosted by CNN in Los Angeles Thursday night while President Donald Trump was rallying in her home state of Minnesota.
Klobuchar was one of nine Democratic presidential candidates to participate in the forum, co-hosted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
The Minnesota senator was asked by an audience member if she would “recognize third-gender markers at a federal level” if elected president.
“Yes, I will,” Klobuchar immediately replied. “And I think there’s also—you know, I think that there is a lot of work we need to do all over the country, with driver’s licenses as you know, not every state has some of the provisions that California have in place and just work on a state-by-state basis to make those changes.”
There are currently five states that allow residents to choose “X” as their gender on birth certificates. Minnesota’s Driver and Vehicle Services Division announced in October 2018 that Minnesotans would be allowed to select either M, F, or X under the state’s new Real ID-compliant driver’s-license system.
The state said the “third option” would “better serve all Minnesotans.”
“The new application has three options: male, female, and non-binary. Gender identification is a self-descriptor like eye color, height, and weight,” the department claimed.
Klobuchar criticized President Trump for “dividing people in any way he can.”
“You want to bring people in,” she said. “We have a president right now in the White House who spends his time dividing people in any way he can. Every single morning he writes a tweet going after someone, going after people of color, going after immigrants, going after trans-people.”
“It just never stops,” she continued. “And so I think it’s going to be just a complete change to have a new president in place. That’s putting it mildly. And just changing that culture and changing the tone of our politics, and part of that will be educating people about people’s identities and what’s happened and where they are because he sure isn’t doing that.”
The full clip of Klobuchar’s response can be watched here.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Amy Klobuchar” by CNN.
