My complaint to the passport office and the response I received…

[PassportProblemo]

So, I recently applied for a new UK passport. During the application process, I was asked for my “gender” and given the options “male” and “female”. At no point was I asked my sex. Assuming there was an error, I submitted the following complaint to the passport office:

"Hello,

I recently applied for a new passport as mine is nearing expiry.

As part of the application, I was asked to provide my "gender". The options offered were "female" and "male". As "male" and "female" refer to one's sex, I do not believe that this section is correct in asking for the applicant's gender.

Therefore, may I ask why you are using the term "gender" rather than "sex"? Also, do you plan on ever correcting this to avoid confusion to your customers?

Kind regards,"

During the complaints process, it asked if I would like my response via phone or writing. I requested writing.

Two days later, I received a phone call from the Passport Office… The woman said that the office is just following their internal guidance here, which says that this is what they should do. I asked for her response in writing. She sent me the following email:

“Dear PassportProblemo,

Thank you for your enquiry.

The passport application process is structured in accordance with The Gender Recognition Act 2004 which came into effect on 4 April 2005.

For more information on The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and how it applies to the passport application process please see the below link:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/contents

Yours sincerely,”

(I have removed the satisfaction survey link they included in their email)

Right, so what do we do next? How do we challenge their holy “internal guidance”?!?

At one time gender meant sex. And as far as I’m concerned it still does. That’s why I don’t give give a shit if people ask for ‘gender’. It’s when they ask for ‘gender identity’ I get twitchy.

My bolding throughout.

That's the "Guidance for His Majesty’s Passport Office staff examining passport applications
from customers who ask for a change of gender on their passport."

Under "Crossdressers" it says

"We can only issue a passport if it is established the customer is using their new identity for all purposes. You, the examiner, must not issue a passport in a name or gender a customer uses for some but not all purposes.

If the customer cannot provide medical evidence, they must make a statement confirming they permanently use the preferred identity. They must also have a referee confirm their new identity and send us evidence if they have changed their name (see Names – evidence to change a name)."

In other words, a Passport Office examiner must not issue a passport marked F to a man who cross dresses from time to time.

You won't like the guidance for Passport Office staff on 'Gender Recognition', then. It uses the word 'identity' 28 times.

I missed this comment earlier. I don't really see how the rules of an entirely different forum are relevant to our discussion here, or why your respecting that my right not to have my speech compelled is equal to yours is contigent on decisions made on that other forum which I don't control.

I will say there is a key difference between r/transgenderUK and here, which is that this board is supposed to be a feminist discussion forum in which anyone - in theory at least - can participate, regardless of their opinion on the issue or their skin in the game, meaning people do have to be tolerant of the opinions of those who don't agree with them. r/transgenderUK on the other hand is not a general discussion forum for anyone, it is specifically a support group for trans people. Consider that while you may have a right to the opinion that all alcoholics are incurable degenerates, if you strolled into your local AA support group to share this opinion, you would likely find you weren't welcome. I have no idea why you think anti-trans views would or should be welcome in a support group for trans people.

I never said 'time to time'.

They can issue a cross dressing man a 'female' passport with no doctors letter.

Nothing like as aware as everyone is of 'trans identities' 🤣 The most visibly invisible, centrally marginalised, powerful oppressed group of all time.

In idle moments, I sometimes wonder if being the opposite of what one says one is causes a person to speak self-contradictory rhetoric.

If you frequently find yourself so bored, perhaps you should take up a hobby.

So trans people are allowed their own groups but lesbians aren’t? Didn’t every female only lesbian subreddit get closed? So if trans allies are free to post anti women views on here, why can’t feminists not post pro women opinions in grabs subs?

Yes it absolutely is worth it. It’s due to people just rolling their eyes about this nonsense that has brought us to the position of men punching women in front of millions at the Olympics and men being placed in women’s prisons.

As we keep being reminded, sex and gender are not the same thing anymore. So why ask for gender on the form but record the answer as sex in the passport?

Just thinking about this more generally, a passport's purpose is to give you entitlement to entering foreign countries, by claiming who you are. Those foreign countries are surely entitled to know what sex you are? For reasons of crime prevention, medical emergencies, all kinds of things. Altering this to being a matter about 'gender', whilst it still says 'Sex' on passports (you made me look!) is disgraceful.

Omg have you nothing else going on in life. The service is already overstretched without people like you. Get a life.

Thankyou for your eloquent and useful contribution to the thread. It adds so much value.

That makes no sense.

Most men look like men, even in full make up wig and dress. If someone put female down I would think they were deluding themselves.

If this is for immigration purposes shouldn’t we have several descriptions
I would tick

Bulldog chewing a wasp

There have been a few posts saying ‘how does this affect you?’

For me, it’s a very simple example of how this ideology erodes trust in institutions.

A passport is a document of identity issued by a government and states a person’s sex. If this document is allowed to include something untrue, for example, stating that a female person’s sex is male, this identity document is false and the government is colluding in a lie. That matters to me.

The identifier is sex and people can’t change sex.

If this identity field on a passport is to be based on the subjective and nebulous concept of gender identity then the arguments for it need to be made public and clearly spelt out.

Another way to think about it is- if you can change the sex marker then why not the age marker?

The document either contains information that reflects verifiable reality or it doesn’t.

So no, the fact of someone holding a passport with incorrect information on it doesn’t directly affect me but it does deeply affect my trust in public institutions when they willingly support the falsification of official and fundamental facets of public life such as identity documents.

(edited for grammar)

Well it affects women who have to do searches on men with F on their passport, their job role should not be part of a man's fetish.

Crazy this is even a matter of debate. Passports are a key marker of identity. People should not be able to lie about their sex on their passport. Asking for gender instead of sex gives them the leeway to do this. It should be changed.

💯

💯

Bloody hell, if this thread doesn't show how completely useless a passport is, then I don't know what does. How can it possibly be only a description of what you look like when most men look like men even if they want to be women?

Plus as a pp pointed out, what if you look young for your age? or old?

Surely, if a man identifies as a woman the most accurate description would be sex - male, gender - female.

As Helen Joyce says, gender ideology rots everything it touches.

You've got men punching women at the Olympics because of this 'F', violent men demanding they're searched by women and high profile men, including doctors using it as a legal argument claiming they're biological women because it says F on their passport.

It's a complete shit show. Even their own office knows fuck all about it claiming it's do with the gender recognition act

Then asking for gender on the form because of some spurious connection to the GRA but morphing it into sex when printing it on the actual document!

Absolutely risible.

Plus for those saying how it wasted the Passport offices time, when they're already backed up to the hilt. They phoned back in two days. That must be a record

“many countries now offer an X option”

Actually, as of 2025, only 17 countries offer an X option. And even if you belong to the small number of countries that offer the X option, it doesn’t follow that other countries will let you in with an X passport

And of course it's a bloody feminist issue. Doctors claiming in a court of law that their passport makes them biological woman, men demanding to be searched by women, and men being allowed to punch women in the Olympics of all places, because of the F in their bloody passport.

it doesn't look like it's much of a problem for men, though, which might explain things.

Obviously the best world is one where a full diversity of human personality and self expression is just accepted, without having to force people to pretend to be the opposite sex. But the world we're currently in is absolutely mired in stereotyping, so for the time being a seperate sex and gender box would be ideal, if indeed these things are actually necessary at all on ID?

Does anyone else remember when all the women on a flight at Doha airport were ordered off the plane and non-consensually strip searched to look for evidence of having recently given birth (after a baby was found abandoned at the airport)? It was a few years ago. The victims understandably felt utterly violated and were traumatised by the assault.

Does anyone know how Qatar airlines identified which passengers to order off the plane?

This is exactly the knd of things that's been slipped in on the nod, the genpub probably not even being aware of it. Who really thinks replacing sex with gender on passports is a good and sensible idea? If we had a referendum on it, I doubt more than10-15% of the population would support such an idea (YMMV). But the civil servants, who know best, of course, have already set it up like that.

If I saw someone's passport has their sex as female I would assume they were actually, you know, female. It's wrong to ask for gender identity and then label it as sex.
It's like switching from inches to cm but keeping the same number. Inaccurate and dishonest.