What Box Would You Check Off On Your Passport

Here in the U.S. we can have our passport in the gender that we identify with, not our birth gender. In Nepal they added a third gender, Raw Story reports…

Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to alter passports so that transgenders no longer have to describe themselves as male or female, a court spokesman said, a move welcomed by rights activists.

The court made the decision on Monday following a petition from a transgender who wanted a third category introduced on passports for people who identify themselves neither as male nor female, the spokesman said.
[…]
Early this year, Nepal introduced a transgender category for people obtaining their citizenship certificates. People can register as a “third gender” when completing the certificates, which serve as national identity cards required to open bank accounts, sell and buy property and get a passport.

I think it is a good idea, but… will it stigmatize people who chose to identify as “Third Gender?” That is what I would think about before marking down “Third Gender.”

It is kind of like what I wrote about on Sunday about your medical records, but this would be public for all to see. Would it be like wearing a lavender triangle?

Back when we were trying to pass Connecticut gender inclusive anti-discrimination law one of the senators introduced an amendment requiring trans-people to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a notation on their driver license indicating their transgender status. I nicknamed it the Scarlet Letter amendment.

I don’t know the climate in Nepal for trans-people; maybe they are all open and accepting but I know that I wouldn’t want to be labeled “Third Gender.”