Major airlines in the U.S. are planning to add a new gender option for their customers when buying tickets. Usually, passengers have to select either male or female when purchasing plane tickets, however, there are people who do not categorize themselves in either of the two options thus the airlines want to include more choices under the gender category.
According to The Daily Beast, the airlines' ticketing systems will be upgraded to accommodate transgender passengers. This means that those who are not covered in the male or female categories will have other options to choose from to identify their sexuality. To be more specific, this new scheme aims to assist non-binary individuals who have an "X" in their identification cards.
It was revealed that in addition to male and female, Airlines for America (A4A) recently approved the newest international standard that will accept "unspecified" or "undisclosed" as options. The decision was reportedly made and agreed on in cooperation with the members of the International Air Transport Association or IATA. The new non-binary gender option will take effect on June 1 as per the A4A's order.
Currently, the members of A4A are American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, United and JetBlue. While all of them agreed to implement the scheme, they still have to update their booking processes so that the additional options will appear and passengers will be able to find the new choices from the drop-down menu.
Delta withdrew from A4A in 2015 but USA Today reported that the airline will also join in the plan of implementing more gender options for passengers. The effectivity date was set to June but it will be up to the airlines on when they are planning to change or upgrade their systems. On the other hand, American Airlines is now in the process of adding the new gender options but it is not certain when it will be finished.
As per Los Angeles Times, prior to the airlines' decision for gender choices, the California Department of Motor Vehicles already applied the system and it was launched on Jan. 1. As of today, the department stated that it already updated more than 600 driver's licenses of people with "X" on their gender detail.
Finally, Beck Bailey, deputy director of the Human Rights Campaign's Workplace Equality Program said that the airlines' action is a welcome change and called the non-binary gender decision as "a necessary shift." He added that this is a good move because it is finally recognizing the reality of non-binary citizens.
