Gender Marker

A gender marker is the field on an identity document, such as a passport, driver's license, or birth certificate, that records a person's sex or gender. It commonly appears as M for male, F for female, and in some jurisdictions X for nonbinary or unspecified. Updating a gender marker to match one's gender identity is an important step for many transgender and nonbinary people, and the rules vary widely by state and country. In the United States the policy has shifted: the State Department introduced an X option and self-selected markers in 2021, then in 2025 moved to issue passports reflecting sex assigned at birth and to stop offering the X marker. Existing passports remain valid until they expire, and legal challenges are ongoing.