In 1993, Minnesota became the first state to protect transgender individuals from discrimination as a matter of state law. However, it did so in a somewhat confusing way. The legislature included the term “sexual orientation” within the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA). But when the legislature defined the term, it included the somewhat clunky phrase “having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.” A possibly apocryphal legend asserts that certain members of the legislature misinterpretated this language and thought it was designed to protect the stereotypical butch lesbian or swishy gay man from discrimination. However, advocates for the amendment to the MHRA understood that this language was designed to refer to transgender people. It may not be a coincidence that, beginning in the session immediately following its enactment of the 1993 amendment, the legislature endeavored for eleven years to restrict and ultimately deny transgender Minnesotans Medical Assistance coverage for gender-affirming surgery. Nonetheless, this language was there, and transgender individuals were protected from discrimination under state law.
During most of the thirty years in which this language was operative, the question of whether it applied to nonbinary individuals rarely, if ever, came up. Generally, the existence of nonbinary identities was not recognized culturally until later in the three-decade run that the MHRA contained this language. But it was clear that the language should protect nonbinary people. After all, the typical nonbinary person has “binary” anatomy—that is, either male or female anatomy—and a self-image or identity that is not associated with it. Nonetheless, there have been no reported cases interpreting the 1993 MHRA language in this regard.