While the federal government has only recently allowed Canadians to identify themselves as a third gender on official documents, one teenager in Okotoks says they’ve been left in the lurch by the province.

17-year-old Mordecai Dueck doesn’t identify as male or female and says it’s hard to express who you are, especially when forced in a situation like government-issued identification.

Mordecai, who prefers the term non-binary, was excited when Ottawa announced changes to forms to include a third gender marker in September.

Alberta had already passed a similar bill in 2016 but had to wait for the country to follow suit. Mordecai is now waiting to the province to catch up.

“The more that they prolong it, I guess, it’ makes it more disappointing,” Mordecai said. “I’d like them to communicate more with everybody and address concerns that we have.”

Shari-Lynn, Mordecai’s mother, says she’s called the province a number of times but still hasn’t gotten a good answer.

“It’s extremely hard to watch your child wait for identification when everybody else is entitled to it. It blocks them from certain services or forces them to lie about who they are, so it’s extremely frustrating.”

Tina Faiz, press secretary with Service Alberta, says that the changes needed to make the third gender option a reality are complex and take time to process.

“We’ll need to be updating the motor vehicle systems [and] updating government forms.”

Experts say the issue is very important.

“This may seem like a very trivial or small change to some people but it can have a big, profound impact to a vulnerable segment of our society,” said Dr. Kristopher Wells, a faculty director for the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies at the University of Alberta.

Mordecai says the issue is important to him because he wants to be free of the wrong label and be identified properly.

The province says applications that include a third gender marker will be available at all provincial registries by next summer.

(With files from Jaclyn Brown)