Northwestern Medicine now allows patients to use the letter "X" on documents for their gender if they do not want to identify as male or female, WLS reported.
Officials said it's been a year-long process involving the collaboration of hundreds of employees to provide a nonbinary gender designation.
Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Beach (who identifies as noxnbinary) said, "We found that there were … hundreds, if not thousands, of different tests that clinically varied depending on somebody's sex and or gender."
COVID-19-related hospitalizations are increasing, moving Chicago and Cook County from the "low" to "medium" level based on metrics from the CDC, a Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) press release noted.
At this level, CDPH recommends, among other things, that people stay up to date regarding COVID-19 vaccines; maintain ventilation improvements; follow isolation guidelines if suspected or confirmed of having COVID; and wear a high-quality mask or respirator (e.g., N95) if they are at a high risk of becoming very ill.
Andrew Davis