New gender category
“X” becomes an option in US passports
4/1/2022 4:32 am
People who identify as neither male nor female will soon be able to have a third option entered in their passport in the United States. For intersex persons, the US Department of State allows the specification “X”.
US citizens will soon be able to select an “X” for a third gender when applying for a new passport. This marks another milestone in “serving better all US citizens, regardless of gender identity,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Starting April 11, US citizens will be able to select an X as their gender when applying for a US passport.”
The ministry is the first US federal agency “to offer the X as a gender identifier in an identity document”. Instead of an “M” for “male” (male) or “F” for “female” (female), people who do not identify themselves with either gender can enter an “X”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the new regulation in the summer of last year. In October, the authority then issued the very first passport with the entry “X”. Gender identity takes many forms: Not all people classify themselves as male or female. In Germany, identity cards do not have a gender entry. In passports people who do not assign themselves to a gender can have an X entered.