Pride Month has come to a close, but the US State Department created a policy for greater equality in June’s final days, announcing that US citizens will soon be able to choose a third gender option on federal passports.
Citizens will also be allowed to, for the first time, select their own gender choice, regardless of what is indicated on their birth certificate. In a statement announcing the new policy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “With this action, I express our enduring commitment to the LGBTQI+ community today and moving forward.”
Blinken did, however, note that the change would take time and significant bureaucratic overall to implement.
India, Pakistan, and Nepal already have non-binary options on their passports, and the Netherlands introduced a gender-neutral passport in 2018.
