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According to Forbes, Dutch ID Cards are scheduled to become gender-free in several years (~2025):

Dutch ID cards will be gender-free within five years, as the Government seeks to end the “unnecessary” registration of gender.

I am wondering if this is already happening in another country or state.

CDJB
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Alexei
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    A more comprehensive list is on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_recognition_of_non-binary_gender (in US it varies state by state). – Maja Piechotka Dec 21 '21 at 08:25
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    @MaciejPiechotka that seems to be more about recognition of additional gender options rather than removing the field altogether. – CDJB Dec 22 '21 at 08:45
  • Are you interested only in having no gender field, as opposed to allowing an X option or similar? Do titles count- since the most commonly used are linked to gender. – Comic Sans Seraphim Dec 23 '21 at 11:53
  • @Unfair-Ban I am interested in the IDs that do not contain gender-related information, explicitly or implicitly (can be deducted from some numeric ID, for example). "Allowing an X option" list would be an interesting topic though (for another question). – Alexei Dec 23 '21 at 12:00
  • Michigan will not have gender free IDs, but now has "X" gender: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/11/02/license-change-allows-non-binary-michigan-residents-use-x-id/6257581001/ – Cardi DeMonaco Jr Dec 25 '21 at 15:29

8 Answers8

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The German identity card doesn't have gender information. It is neither in the human readable part of the card, and in the machine readable code, the gender character is "<" for "Unspecified". No gendered honorifics or pronouns are used on the card.

The UK doesn't have identity cards. The drivers licence acts as a de facto identity card (you can use it to establish your identity in interactions with the police, for example). The human readable part of the UK driver's licence is ungendered, however the driver's number encodes the sex of the drive (in the six digits which encode the date of birth, the second digit is 0 or 1 for male drivers and 5 or 6 for female drivers) However Northern Ireland driver's numbers don't use this scheme. Older licences use Mr or Mrs, but newer ones seem to be ungendered.

Glorfindel
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James K
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    I believe the UK driving licence encodes gender in the licence number, although it doesn’t have an explicit gender field. – CDJB Dec 19 '21 at 11:16
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    You're right! I'd never noticed that. – James K Dec 19 '21 at 13:48
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    ICAO specification 9303 (part 5) identifies "sex" as a mandatory field in the visual inspection zone, calling for the value to be "X" when the issuer of the document wishes not to specify. Have the German authorities explicitly decided to issue ID cards that are not compliant? Are they lobbying for a change in the specification? They already seem to have scored one accommodation, which is the use of D>> to denote "Deutschland" instead of the ISO 3166 alpha-3 code like all the other countries use. – phoog Dec 19 '21 at 17:17
  • This is in the machine readable part. My understanding is that position 21 is "Sex (M, F or < for male, female or unspecified)" Anyway, that part is just for aviation, this is its use on an identity card, which not for aviation. It is not a machine readable travel document. – James K Dec 19 '21 at 17:50
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    Yet the card is mostly compliant with 9303, and it can be used in aviation, for example to fly from Germany to Ireland or vice versa. So it is a travel document, and it is machine readable; it's just not fully compliant with the specification. – phoog Dec 19 '21 at 18:13
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    The ID card is not a international travel document for ICAO purposes, so the specification does not matter. The passport (Reisepass) is, however, and that does also include the sex (F/M/X) both in the visual inspection and machine readable zone. (And Germany uses D<<, not D>>). – Alexander Wolters Dec 20 '21 at 11:07
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    Given the UK's complicated relationship with national ID systems, in some cases a utility bill (even a mobile phone bill) can act as an "identity card" (or at least, in the place where other countries would use an ID card) whether this is gendered or not depends on how stupid the service provider's IT system is with its choice of titles. – origimbo Dec 20 '21 at 12:19
  • @phoog it's probably the usual way standards evolve: https://xkcd.com/927/ If experience is any guide (i.e., I don't have a source for this), Germany had some legacy system because of which they "must have" "bent" the standard "a tiny little bit". – D. Kovács Dec 21 '21 at 18:07
  • @AlexanderWolters what is "an international travel document for ICAO purposes"? A German ID card can be used, just like a passport, to board a commercial flight between, for example, Frankfurt and Dublin, and to prove identity and citizenship in order to clear border controls. What further ICAO purpose is there for which the German national ID card is not intended? You seem to give more weight to 4hr ICAO standard than it deserves. A noncompliant international travel document is still an international travel document; it is merely a noncompliant one. – phoog Dec 22 '21 at 22:52
  • @phoog If a German ID card was a travel document for the purposes of the ICAO regulations, you could use it to board a flight between e.g. Frankfurt and New York as well, but that will not work. The fact that you can use it to board the flight between Frankfurt and Dublin is due to the EU/Schengen rules, which makes it more like an inland flight, and the ICAO doe not apply to those either. – Alexander Wolters Dec 23 '21 at 11:47
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    @AlexanderWolters there are no ICAO regulations. It is a standard. And a noncompliant passport does allow one to board a flight between Frankfurt and New York, for example any of the passports listed at https://platform.keesingtechnologies.com/errors-in-travel-documents/. The fact that a passport or ID card is required at all is a matter for domestic law, as is the decision to tolerate deviations from the standard. If you aren't satisfied with the example of Ireland, would Egypt or Turkey do? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_identity_card – phoog Dec 23 '21 at 12:26
  • @AlexanderWolters the definition of "Machine Readable Official Travel Document" includes "may be used to cross international borders by agreement between the States involved," which EU identity cards certainly satisfy, not "may be used to cross any international border." The only reason the German ID card isn't a MROTD as defined in the spec is that it doesn't comply with 9303-5 because it doesn't mention "Sex" in the VIZ. The only reasonable conclusion is that it is a machine-readable travel document that doesn't comply with the spec. – phoog Dec 23 '21 at 12:42
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A few examples:

  • The Iranian national identity card does not record gender or sex, and must be applied for by all citizens aged 15 and over. The Iranian identity booklet, does contain gender information, but is more comparable to a birth certificate.

  • Similar to the UK; Australia doesn't have a national identity card; instead, driver's licences may be used as a valid form of identification. Queensland was the only state to ever include gender on its driver's licences, and this field was removed for licences issued after October 2016.

  • In Ontario, Canada, sex designation was removed from state health cards from June 2016. Minister of Health and Long Term Care Dr. Eric Hoskins gave this explanation:

The purpose of health cards is to show that the card holder is eligible for public health care. A person’s sex is not relevant. Ensuring that all people in Ontario feel comfortable and safe is especially important in health care settings, and removing sex designation from health cards is a step towards achieving that.

CDJB
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  • Australian state of Tasmania has also made gender an optional field on birth certificates https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/birth-certificate-gender-laws-pass-in-tasmania/10989170 – Daveo Dec 20 '21 at 11:02
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Belgium will begin the implementation of ungendered identity card in 2022.

EPrivat
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    Interesting... the article seems to suggest that gender was only added in 2003 as well. – CDJB Dec 20 '21 at 08:28
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    @CDJB also odd is the apparent implication that its withdrawal is connected to its status as "personal data." The very purpose of an identification card is to hold personal data and convey it to others in order to establish the identity of a person. – phoog Dec 20 '21 at 10:17
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    @phoog does the gender stated on an ID card help others confirm the holder's identity? If not, then it's just sharing that (personal) information unnecessarily. – JJJ Dec 20 '21 at 17:51
  • @JJJ would you say the same of date of birth or of height? In this age of photographic identity documents, and especially of biometric identity documents, the date of birth also seems somewhat superfluous. – phoog Dec 20 '21 at 18:34
  • @phoog the date of birth serves another purpose as it allows others to verify the holder's age. Height can be used to help identify someone because it doesn't change much over time, it's similar to the photo. Some ID cards may list a birthplace which I would agree is unnecessary. – JJJ Dec 20 '21 at 18:42
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    @JJJ well, you need some personal data to distinguish people from each other. Otherwise, all John Smiths of the world could impersonate each other (for example, use each other's university degrees, or vaccination passes) – wimi Dec 21 '21 at 08:15
  • @wimi I don't know how all other countries do it, but I think that's normally solved using (alpha)numerical citizen ID codes. For example, here in the Netherlands that doubles as one's tax ID. I don't think using height and gender for that is a reliable way of uniquely identifying people. It might be an interesting question though. :) – JJJ Dec 21 '21 at 08:24
  • For extra information, the gender will still be registered and recorded by the government (with a third non-binary option also coming soon), but it will nog longer be displayed on the ID-card. – Ivo Merchiers Dec 22 '21 at 09:44
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Mexican voter IDs became optionally ungendered in 2019. Instead of assuming, they explicitly ask if you want the card to state the gender. Voter IDs are issued to people 18 years or older, and are the de-facto national identity cards of Mexico.

False Friend Finder
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3

Don't know if this matches what you're looking for, but the US is issuing X gender identification on passports.

reirab
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doneal24
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In New Zealand we don't even need ID cards*, and our drivers licence which is sometimes used for proof of identity, doesn't have a gender on it.

*There is an ID card that you can get in New Zealand to prove you are over 18, called Kiwi Access Card, again no gender.

Dijkgraaf
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Driver's license cards in the European Union follow the European standard (see wikipedia), which does not have a field for gender. As the driver's license can be used as an ID card, one could claim that all of Europe already has gender free ID cards.

It then depends on the country whether the gender is then easily obtainable. In Sweden, for example, the driver's license has your national ID number listed, which allows authorities to obtain pretty much all information about you, including your gender.

fishinear
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Argentina started allowing the X gender in 2021.
Official source in Spanish

jmm
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