Jones Hollister Just Won the Right to Identify as Nonbinary. What Are They Going to Do Now?

WW presents "Distant Voices," a daily video interview for the era of social distancing. Our reporters are asking Portlanders what they're doing during quarantine.

Jones Hollister has cooked most meals at home in Eugene during the pandemic. On Wednesday, they ordered burgers and cake.

It isn't every day the Oregon Court of Appeals affirms your right to identify as who you are.

The court's July 8 ruling means Hollister can identify outside the male-female binary on official paperwork—from doctor's office forms to a Social Security card. "It means that when I fill out paperwork, I am not lying," says Hollister, who was the plaintiff in the case.

The court's ruling was historic. But it was also a human experience: a day that began with Hollister, a former teacher and now a graduate student at the University of Oregon, setting an alarm to refresh a court website on their computer, and will end with a call to their mother. In this interview, we asked Hollister to describe that day.