The X factor: Questioning the legitimacy of gender registration

A handful of countries currently allow for the issuing of identity documents (passports, birth certificates, healthcare IDs) with a third option for registering gender (e.g., ‘X’, ‘divers’, ‘other’, ‘unspecified’, or ‘third gender’). This growing list includes Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malta, India, Nepal, Germany, and the Netherlands. The procedures, availability and possibilities (how, for whom, what and what for) differ significantly across these contexts. Malta, for example, offers the possibility to have two passports: one with an X and one with F/M. Meanwhile in the UK, Christie Elan-Cane recently lost their battle to obtain a gender-neutral passport. In this paper, we will present an overview of these developments as well as the problems and advantages of existing binary policy and new non-binary possibilities, focusing on travel documents. In this respect, differences in registration policies between common law and civil law systems are relevant. Drawing on individual accounts of people experiencing problems at the border (with X and with M/F), we will explore when, why, and for whom a passport with an X can be regarded as an improvement and when and why it may not be. In this respect, we will discuss possibilities for how to proceed, including deleting the gender marker, giving citizens with an X two passports, assigning all individuals an X, or relying on other biometric data to identify individuals (keeping in mind that biometrics pose another set of problems). Broadly, this paper critically interrogates the legitimacy of states’ purposes served by the gender marker in the context of travel, and if so far as they can be considered legitimate, whether they can be achieved by other means.