British activist Christie Elan-Cane has lost a legal challenge to the government’s policy of not allowing gender-neutral passports. Elan-Cane argued that the requirement for passport applicants to indicate whether they are male or female “breaches human rights laws.”

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Christie Elan-Cane’s appeal, which came after the Home Office won an earlier ruling in the Court of Appeal.

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As BBC reports, Lord Reed, President of the Supreme Court, explained that gender or sex is „a biographical detail which can be used to confirm one’s identity (…) It is, therefore, the gender recognised for legal purposes and recorded in those documents which is relevant”, he said.

Lord Reed added that there is “no legislation in the United Kingdom which recognises a non-gendered category of individuals” and that while non-gendered identity may be central to Christie Elan-Cane’s private life, the designation of identity in a passport is “not a particularly important facet of the appellant’s existence or identity”.

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However, Christie Elan-Cane does not intend to give up. He (she?) already announced the case will now go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg. He also complained on Twitter that the UK government and judicial system are “on the wrong side of history”.

To this day, so-called gender-neutral passports are already issued by Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Malta, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the USA and Pakistan, while Germany has recently introduced an “intersex” category.

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen

Photo: Twitter @ChristieElanCan