The campaigner welcomed the decision by Mr Justice Gilbart in the high court in London that there would be a full judicial review of the government\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m elated,\u201d said Elan-Cane, who has pursued the issue for more than 25 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one stage, but it\u2019s going the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, UK passports restrict sex designations to male or female. Ten countries permit their citizens to opt for a third category, X, or unknown.<\/p>\n
Australia, Denmark, Germany, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Ireland and Nepal all offer the third option, with Canada also adding their name to the list recently.<\/p>\n
According to written arguments submitted by Kate Gallafent QC, counsel for Elan-Cane, as many as 1% of the UK population could apply for an X passport.<\/p>\n
They include intersex individuals \u2013 people born with biological characteristics of both sexes \u2013 transgender people, and others \u201cwith gender dysphoria \u2026 gender variant, non-binary and other analogous categories of gender identity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Before the court hearing, Elan-Crane said: \u201cLegitimate identity is a fundamental human right but non-gendered people are often treated as though we have no rights. The UK\u2019s passport application process requires applicants to declare whether they are male or female. It is inappropriate and wrong that someone who defines as neither should be forced to make that declaration.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
HM Passport Office has refused to grant X passports on several grounds, claiming an affect on other legislation, the high cost to change computer records and the increased need for consular support abroad for gender-neutral British citizens.<\/p>\n
Sarah Hannett, counsel for the Home Office, said, \u201cThis is a matter of delicate social policy. Member states [of the Council of Europe] have a margin of discretion as to how they advance this agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Gilbart, however, ruled that a full judicial review should go ahead. \u201cThis is an arguable case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Narind Singh, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance, which represented Elan-Cane on a pro bono basis, said: \u201cWe are delighted that the court has granted permission for a full hearing of this significant public interest case on the fundamentally important issue of the right to respect for individuals\u2019 identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cGender identity is a fundamental part of an individual\u2019s intimate, personal identity and X passports are a crucial step in the protection of the human rights of this group of individuals, who otherwise face an unacceptable choice between forgoing a passport and making a false declaration and using a passport which misrepresents their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christie Elan-Cane\u00a0has won permission to challenge the Home Office\u2019s refusal to issue gender-neutral, or X passports. The campaigner welcomed the decision by Mr Justice Gilbart in the high court in London that there would be a full judicial review of the government\u2019s policy. \u201cI\u2019m elated,\u201d said Elan-Cane, who has pursued the issue for more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":24444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}