Kyle Knight\/Kathmnadu : The United States government announced today it will institute a third gender category on passports, allowing citizens to choose to be designated other than male or female.<\/p>\n
Currently US citizens have to choose \u201cF\u201d for female or \u201cM\u201d for male on travel documents. The new policy will allow applicants to select \u201cX\u201d for non-binary or unspecified, meaning the US joins a dozen other countries \u2013 from Canada to Malta to Nepal \u2013 that recognize more than two genders on their passports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working to add a gender marker for non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming persons as soon as possible,\u201d the US Department of State\u2019s\u00a0website announced today<\/a>.<\/p>\n The move comes on the heels of\u00a0advocates pushing<\/a>\u00a0the US government to recognize more categories on passports, including the\u00a0years-long legal battle<\/a>\u00a0of Dana Zzyym, who sued the State Department in 2015 when they were denied an X passport. The new policy states that people will not need to provide any kind of medical documentation or other \u201cproof\u201d to have their gender markers on their passports changed.<\/p>\n Non-binary identification documents are already available in 20 US states and the District of Columbia, meaning some people who carry non-binary state documents have then been forced to apply for a passport listing them as female or male. In 2020, Congressmember Ro Khanna\u00a0introduced legislation<\/a>,\u00a0endorsed<\/a>\u00a0by Human Rights Watch, to mandate an \u201cX\u201d category on passports.<\/p>\n Before the 1970s, sex or gender\u00a0was not required<\/a>\u00a0to be listed on passports at all. The\u00a0International Civil Aviation Organization<\/a>\u00a0(ICAO), the United Nations agency that sets global regulations for machine readable passports, allows for three sex categories: female, male, or \u201cX\u201d for unspecified.<\/p>\n The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US has ratified, protects the rights to recognition before the law, privacy, and nondiscrimination. To fully respect these rights, states should not only allow people to change from \u201cF\u201d to \u201cM\u201d and vice versa; they should also provide them with an \u201cX\u201d or equivalent option.<\/p>\n