Air Vistara and AirAsia have made their ticket booking ‘gender-neutral’ with an option named ‘MX’.
Air Vistara and AirAsia have made their ticket booking ‘gender-neutral’ with an option named ‘MX’.
In a positive move to reinvigorate the trans community, Air Vistara and AirAsia Airlines have made their ticket booking gender-neutral by adding a third option.
The decision is believed to be the result of an online petition started in 2020 by Inderjit Ghorpade, a member of the LGBTQIA+ group ‘YesWeExist’. While booking an airline ticket for her friend, who is a trans, non-binary person, she realized that no airline company in India offered a “gender-neutral title”.
“Many members of the LGBTQI community prefer to use the title ‘MX’. But, I was shocked to see that the ‘MX’ option was not available when booking air tickets in India. To make air ticket booking gender-neutral I started a petition on Change.org called Change.org/StopPinkWashing,” said Mr. Ghorpade.
He then started speaking about the issue on social media and garnered support for his cause. He also wrote emails to alert the airlines on the issue and to make them aware of the demands of the community. Over 33,000 people signed his petition and supported the cause.
The online petition mentioned, “The Transgender (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 stipulates that transgender persons should not be denied or mistreated with respect to their right to movement and access to services. All airlines in India violate this act. Four years ago, Indian Railways updated its booking form and added transgender as an available gender option.