UK — England; Wales; North Ireland. The UK’s highest court dismissed a legal challenge against the nation’s refusal to issue sex-neutral passports to accommodate those who identify as neither male nor female.
The nearly 30-year fight of Christie Elan-Cane, a now 64-year-old activist who identifies as ‘gender non-binary’, was most recently foiled in the Supreme Court on December 16.
With the support of Human Rights Watch, Ms Elan-Cane argued that the UK’s application process requiring individuals to choose one of two sex designations is “inherently discriminatory” and breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.
According to Ms Elane-Cane, it is “unacceptable that someone who defines as neither male nor female is forced to declare an inappropriate gender in order to obtain a passport,” because “legitimate identity is a fundamental human right.” Ms Elane-Cane insisted the requirement to choose either male or female on a passport application is parallel to requiring a person of Asian ethnicity to “declare their ethnicity to be either ‘white’ or ‘black’, or requiring a bisexual person to declare their sexual orientation to be either ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual,'” compelling individuals to “collude in their own social invisibility.”
In July 2018, the High Court rejected Ms Elan-Cane’s argument that the passport application process was “unlawful” for not allowing individuals the option of requesting an ‘X’ in the sex marker field.
The Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in March 2020.
On December 15, 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal, finding that Ms Elan-Cane’s interest in being issued a passport with ‘X’ in the sex marker field is “outweighed” by other considerations, including “maintaining a coherent approach across government.”
Lord Robert Reed, President of the Supreme Court, determined: “The form is concerned with the applicants’ gender as a biographical detail which can be used to confirm their identity by checking it against the birth, adoption or gender recognition certificates provided and other official records. It is therefore the gender recognised for legal purposes and recorded in those documents which is relevant.”
X PASSPORTS IN THE UK
I VERY MUCH REGRET TO INFORM EVERYONE THAT JUSTICE WAS NOT SERVED TODAY
THE CASE WILL NOW GO TO THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN STRASBOURG.
— Christie Elan-Cane (@ChristieElanCan) December 15, 2021
A women’s rights campaigner told us that the Supreme Court’s decision “is a massive win for reality as it’s set an incredibly important precedent.”
Ms Elan-Cane has vowed to appeal the case to the European Court of Human Rights, a judicial court of law in Strasbourg, France that supervises enforcement of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2017, over 70 UK Members of Parliament from all parties supported a motion by Norman Lamb, a Liberal Democrat, to issue sex-neutral passports.
The United States issued its first passport with ‘X’ as the sex marker in October. Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Malta, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Pakistan also permit sex-neutral passports.
Read more from other sources
Courts and Tribunals Judiciary
Cane v Home Secretary
The Queen (on the Application of Elan-Cane) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home
Department (Respondent) and Human Rights Watch (Intervener) [2020] EWCA Civ 363 On appeal from: [2018] EWHC 1530 (Admin)
BBC
Gender-neutral passports: Campaigner Christie Elan-Cane loses Supreme Court case
A campaigner has lost a Supreme Court case challenging the government’s refusal to issue gender-neutral passports.
Lord Robert Reed, President of the Supreme Court, determined: “The form is concerned with the applicants’ gender as a biographical detail which can be used to confirm their identity by checking it against the birth, adoption or gender recognition certificates provided and other official records. It is therefore the gender recognised for legal purposes and recorded in those documents which is relevant.”
Lord Reed believes ‘gender’ is the biographic detail but he is completely wrong because it is and always has been biological sex which has to be entered on passports. Therefore this woman’s demand to put on her passport ‘gender non-binary’ is in fact logically legal!
No matter how hard certain individuals try they can never change/deny their biological sex. Humans are either female or male!
Why do we have sex on the passport? It serves a purpose that’s why. To identify the passport holder. It’s utterly pointless to have any data on the passport which cannot be objectively verified. If we don’t accept the reality of either M or F then we might as well remove it altogether. Having an X which is based solely on your unverifiable feelings is just a nonsense. Thank goodness sense prevailed this time.
That is just what gender identity believers want, unfortunately. They want the data in the sex field to become so meaningless on all identifying documents – from birth certificates, passports, government identification cards to Census – due to people inputting whatever they want, until the field is simply removed from all forms.
They don’t care about the statistics and information the government, researchers, medical science experts and families may gather from the data. They care about their individual selves only.
Acknowledging the existence of bisexual people without acknowledging that sex is binary – now that takes some doing!
This person has obviously missed out on the fact that the Uk has not been in the EU for a few years now. Too busy obsessing about itself,,I suppose
The ECHR is not the court of the EU though but of the European Convention on Human Rights, and we are still in it as far as I know.
Yes, the “European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights exist separately from the European Union.” Elan-Cane will be able to appeal there. Like other nations that signed the European Convention on Human Rights, the UK Supreme Court is obliged to take a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights into consideration, though not required to follow it.
https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/the-supreme-court-and-europe.html