Navy veteran Dana Zzyym, who is intersex, was recently denied a passport from the U.S. Department of State for refusing to select either male or female on their application. Zzyym, who is now suing the Department of State, calls this denial a constitutional violation. They said in a statement:
I am not male, I am not female, I am intersex, and I shouldn’t have to choose a gender marker for my official U.S. identity document that isn’t me.
The Huffington Post article talks about Zzyym’s past and the ways they were forced to conform to a binary in their youth.
Yesterday was Intersex Awareness Day, and incidents like these reveal how overlooked the “I” in LGBTQIA is. We talk a lot about how gender is a construction, but oftentimes fail to mention that sex is also not a binary.
Intersex is more common than many realize, and individuals are often subject to “normalizing” surgeries. Forcing Zzyym to choose a gender is a violent act because it denies them their identity and characterizes it as invalid. Countries like India, Nepal, Malta, Austrailia, and New Zealand allow for a third gender option on their passports, and Zzyym hopes that their actions will lead to a larger change in U.S. policy.
(via The Huffington Post, Image via Kat on Flickr)
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
