A court in Germany has ruled the Federal Government must provide a third gender category in all official documents, or else remove a gender designation from them entirely.  The court said that providing only male or female categories on government documents violated anti-discrimination laws and citizens’ constitutional right to privacy. It gave the Government a deadline of Dec. 31, 2018 to effect the change in the law to provide the third gender category in all official documents or delete gender entirely from them.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, there is a proposal to likewise recognise a third category of gender, “non-binary”, for those who identify neither as male nor female. A consultation paper on the plans stated that ministers favour setting a minimum age of 16 for people to change their gender, although one of the options under consideration would mean pre-pubescent children could also make an application.

The document also recognised that the UK Government would have to agree to change UK passports and driving licenses to include a non-binary gender option although, it said, there was no guarantee that other countries would recognise its validity.