Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether applications for passports to the Passport Office require additional documentation along with self-declared gender to clarify whether a person is (a) male or female or (b) in possession of a Gender Recognition Certificate.
Passport applicants are required to submit evidence to enable HMPO to identify them and to issue a passport containing all necessary biographical information. This includes the person’s sex marker indicating whether they are male or female, in accordance with international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. This will often include production of the person’s birth certificate. Where a customer applies to change the sex marker in their passport or requests a sex marker which differs from their gender registered at birth, they are required to show they are using the new identity for all official purposes and will normally be required to submit a gender recognition certificate, a re-registered birth certificate or evidence from a medical practitioner that their gender change is likely to be permanent. HMPO guidance on handling gender recognition cases can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-recognition.
HM Passport Office currently has no plans to replace use of the word gender, or the male and female options, as part of the passport application process.