US Passport to offer X gender marker starting April 11

The State Department said Thursday that the X gender designation will become an option for US citizens to select on their passport applications starting April 11. The department said the X gender marker would be defined as “unspecified or other gender identity”. Input from members of the LGBTQ community and others.

The department said the option will become available next year on other document forms including passport cards or emergency passports.

The move is part of a federal effort to expand the options available to applicants and promote equal rights for transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming people. Americans will also be able to change their gender without presenting supporting medical documentation in these forms.

The State Department issued its first passport with an X gender designation in October 2021 to Dana Zazim, an intersex and nonbinary US Navy veteran who sued the department in 2015 over the issue.

“It took six years, but to get an accurate passport, which does not compel me to identify as male or female, but recognizes that I am neither, is free,” said MX Zazim, who -Uses neutral respect, said a statement of the time.

According to a June 2021 study from the University of California, Los Angeles, more than 1.2 million people in the US identify as non-binary, meaning their gender identities do not align with traditional male or female definitions.

In recent years, more US states and companies have offered the option of an X gender designation on driver’s licenses and other identification documents.

The Biden administration on Thursday released details of several other initiatives it said would improve the airport travel experience for transgender and non-binary people. The Transportation Security Administration said it is tweaking its gender-based advanced imaging technology to reduce additional screening for some “causing alarm in sensitive areas.”

The White House also took steps to improve mental-health resources for transgender youth. And it said other parts of the federal government would offer new gender designation options, including options on forms used by individuals to file with allegations of discrimination through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, said Thursday that the Biden administration’s efforts “come at a much needed time.”

“Today the White House is proving that they have the back of the transgender community,” Joni Madison, interim president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.

The federal effort comes after lawmakers in some states introduced and passed measures to prohibit student athletes, especially transgender girls, from participating in categories different from their biological sex at birth. Proponents of the bill say transgender female athletes have a natural physical advantage and that the law would create an even greater playing field for women’s sports. Opponents say the rules are unnecessary, unconstitutional and deny transgender students opportunities to play school sports like their peers.

Republican governors in Utah and Indiana vetoed such bills last week, differing from GOP leaders in other states that have signed similar rules into law. Utah lawmakers on Friday voted to override the governor’s veto, and Republicans in Indiana expect to override the veto when called for later this spring.