US to roll out passports with ‘third gender’ category

The United States has pledged to make passports with gender marked as ‘X’ available for all applications from early next year.

Those who say they are ‘non-binary’ or ‘gender non-conforming’, will be allowed to avoid declaring their biological sex on the official document, fulfilling an election pledge from the Biden administration.

The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken added that those who wish to change sex on their passport would no longer be required to provide medical documentation.

UK passports

Biden’s special envoy for LGBT rights, Jessica Stern, claimed that the move would reduce the “dehumanising harassment and mistreatment that so often happens at border crossings when a person’s legal documentation does not correspond with their gender expression”.

In the UK, a woman who claimed to be ‘non-gendered’ failed in an attempt to force the Government to issue gender-neutral passports after the Court of Appeal ruled against her last year.

Christie Elan-Cane believed it was discriminatory that the Passport Office (HMPO) did not permit her to use an ‘X’ on her passport instead of an ‘F’. The case was first dismissed by the High Court in 2018 and the Court of Appeal backed the earlier ruling.

Lady Justice Eleanor King said in her ruling: “The current policy of HMPO does not amount to an unlawful breach of the Appellant’s Article 8 private life rights.”