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”?!?

Passports aren't only used for travel. They are used as ID in many cases, job vacancies for example. So a passport could get you an interview for a job reserved for a sex you didn't belong to.

Good analogy. The only reason they get away with that is that ‘gender’ is such a disingenuous, slippery term.

Ask for ‘gender’
Allow people to answer with their ‘gender identity’
Publish answers as ‘sex’ and claim this is ok because ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ can mean the same thing.

As you said the result is exactly like measuring in inches then publishing the result in cm. Dishonest.

What flummoxes me is how they can get away with it? How come this isn’t called out more officially? It’s so fucking obviously wrong.

What flummoxes me is how they can get away with it? How come this isn’t called out more officially? It’s so fucking obviously wrong.

Because the lanyard classes are all for it. And most of the media either don't give a damn, or actively support it, so it happens beneath the radar of the public.

Its the ideal of the completely passing man. I think historically, the passport office assumed no man would risk swanning about with a female passport unless he passed.

Because of TRA, most accept that men with gender identity dont look like women, but everyone assumes that the process to get female id is more robust.

So we are in a weird space where men are given female passports because looking like a woman with a male passport could cause problems, and men who look like men are giving female passports, but that won't cause problems.

It adds a hell of a lot more value to this thread than so much else on this thread (and considerably more concisely)

I doubt 10 - 15% would even vote

The number one issue with this ideology is that it only works if people play along.

So it's not enough to have sex and gender identity as individual boxes.

Because despite what people say on this thread, it is all about pretending you're a different sex. Fuck all to do with actual gender identity, which is just a collection of stereotypes.

Everyone has to pretend that the person is the opposite sex. Including the bloody passport office.

And all the banging on about why is it even a feminist issue, just be kind, what about the men who pass, why do you care it's just a description of the person standing in front of you - all of it is just designed to keep people in line to keep up the pretence.

As always, no one in these orgs seems to be asking what the sex marker is FOR. These are professional gov organisations making decisions and handling important data with real life, serious consequences. Yet here they are completely fucking around with it in the most juvenile way.

They don’t seem to be able to follow the basic fundamentals. Most importantly ‘why have a blimmin sex marker in passports in the first place?’

There must have been a reason it was included? Revisit this and see if the current system is fit for purpose.

If they decide (as some posters here have suggested) that it’s important to identify people’s Gender Identity then the passport office needs to be honest and explicit about it, explain why it’s deemed necessary to include a GI field on a passport and clearly label the field “GI” not “Sex”. Oh, and at least have a stab at a definition of gender identity while they’re at it.

If the intention is to state someone’s sex they should also be explicit about this and clear about what it means.

Hell. They could even stick in an optional self id marker if they like. It could be something like

Sex: Female
WTBSA (wants to be seen as): Male

This would correctly identify sex whilst letting relevant officials know that the individual may present differently

If it’s decided that a sex or GI based identity marker is not needed, just remove it.

Why mess up a longstanding category in the name of inclusion in a way that makes that category utterly redundant. It’s bonkers.

I know this is happening all over the place, but for some reason this passport one has really pissed me off today.

I know, I know. So many people who claim they need provision for, and accommodation of, lies to make their life easier. I can guess the many things it would make easier for blokes to do. And it would matter to those women and girls on the sharp end of it.

But as long as these blokes get to do what they want, eh?

This is an important point. For all those saying it doesn't effect anyone else; are you happy to accept the risk of people using documents with false information for nefarious purposes?

There are loads of people in this country of a certain mindset (and I'm in no way suggesting that you are one of them) who use 'British' as a synonym for 'white'. As an analogy, do you think there would be a problem if the form asked for your nationality, and if a black Briton put 'British' when applying and then found that their answer had been converted into 'Race = White" when they received their actual passport?

The big, big problem is that certain groups of people will freely (correctly) affirm that gender and sex are very much not the same thing when it suits them to find a back door in - i.e. no, they are not of the biological female sex, but their gender identity is female, so they must therefore be included - but then, when it suits their cause, they will claim that they are exactly the same thing and "Everybody knows that and it's only idiots with too much time on their hands who make a fuss about it when it doesn't actually affect them anyway". It is gaslighting.

All of this. All this " gender just means sex except when it doesn't" stuff is sloppy data collection, regardless of whether one believes in gender identities or not.

How can an internationally-accepted official document seriously be solely based on 'what you look like at a glance'? Yes, the officials will use a cursory look to initially assess the situation; but if there are any queries or suspicions, your true official identity can and will be scrutinised and verified very carefully indeed.

It could also actually be dangerous for trans people, as I'm sure there are many countries in the world that don't embrace the whole 'sex is gender and gender is sex so they're exactly the same thing but they aren't necessarily and they can also be different depending on what you believe you are, identify as or look like' ideology.

If a transwoman turns up at the airport - looking very male, as the majority of TW do in spite of clothing or hair length - and presents a passport that says "Sex = Female", the instant assumption is going to be that there is nefarious intent and may well lead to a major security alert and very unpleasant consequences for the passport holder.

There seem to be an awful lot of people on this thread who think it is a really good idea for people to be able to falsify their sex on an official Government document that is often used to verify identities both in the UK and abroad.

Perhaps also because an application for a Gender Recognition Certificate can be supported by production of a Passport if the bearer has already arranged to have one issued that falsifies their sex?

Zero recognition (or perhaps there is good awareness? 🤔) that this creates a serious safeguarding issue.

- END SEX FALSIFICATION

- RESTORE SAFEGUARDING

- REPEAL THE GRA

https://wdiuk.substack.com/t/campaign

If passports can be falsified then there is no point to passports.

Yep, might as well just turn up and assure them that you're a decent sort and fine to go right on through.

Missed this thread, but found it because have only just registered the new rule about however many days left on a passport to travel. Apparently even a day trip to Paris.

Anyhow had I read this thread I wouldn't have got the shock I did when it asked my "gender".

Clearly it seems to make official would could be said to be false information.

And having skimmed read some of this thread, and without being negative or even morbid, in the event of some accident when travelling in another country, it might be necessary to identify a body as belonging to a passport near by or somehing. How do you confirm that the body is the one for the passport found nearby, if the pathologist identifies the body as male but the passport is for a "female gender".

I am not being flippant here. Too often when accidents happen or worse a victim of violence abroad, it is so important for family etc., back home to know a correct identification has taken place.

(I am going to submit this scenario to the writers of Silent Witness.)

In the end I used the "we want feed back on our new online form" to complain.

And said at the very least they should follow the Census Example (yes I know it didn't work) and make a question about sex compulsorary and an option question about gender.

And asked did they all go to Universities at the time Queer politics was taking over the students and the academics. (The GRA is about process for people with a GRC not for the entire population of the UK, so not sure why that was used to justify this moronic question.)

Has anyone done a study of how many countries have the same format as us?

And what happens in countries that dont accept gender identity.

Will the UK passport deny us access to that country?

Disagree. When women's rights to single-sex spaces are restored, it could become very important.

How so?
Are we going to need to show our passport to use the airport loo corresponding to our sex?

That's not necessarily true though. I know several trans identified women. None look like men, most look like young women dressed in men's clothing and with unisex names. They would say that they "present" as male but no one would mistake them for men.

Youth is associated with feminine facial features, and age with masculine facial features. https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2778103

An unlawful document which wouldnt survive contact with water if it went to court.

This must be why women find it easier to gain employment and respect within the workplace as they age...

The we all turn into complete fools during menopause narrative is not helping.
You go through fighting discrimination because you might get pregnant and then cost beaucoup money for maternity leave only to then immediately be in the menopause turns all women into emotional wrecks who are barely literate…and so the man is promoted or hired ahead of the 40+ woman.