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8/19/13

Germany To Offer Third Gender Option On Birth Certificates

As of November, Germany will be the first country in Europe to offer a "third gender" distinction on its birth certificates.

A new German law stipulates that children who are born of indeterminate gender no longer have to be categorized as "male" or "female." Instead, parents can choose to leave the space blank on their child's birth certificate, according to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Those individuals can eventually decide whether to identify as male, female or neither.

The German legislature voted this as an amendment to the Civil Status Act on May 7. As Süddeutsche Zeitung recently noted, the "legal change has received little attention so far." But that all changed when some determined the new law, while progressive, doesn't go far enough.

FarMZ, a German Family Law Journal, recently outlined the measure's shortcomings as such: Once the third gender option is legal in Germany, those who choose to identify as "blank" are going to encounter a host of bureaucratic headaches when traveling abroad. The group suggests that Germany use an "X" to designate third-gender identifiers on its passports.

Read more: Germany To Offer Third Gender Option On Birth Certificates

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