Mastodawn

Mos, 2E40h, beste reiziger, toucher of computers Apr 5

Dutch non-binary people who had their passport updated: should I get an x or just go with a v?

An x would be more accurate for me but I could live with a v. I'd like to have more weight behind me when complaining about systems that don't accept nonbinary people (gendering on insurance letters comes to mind) but I don't like the idea of not being able to go to certain countries. I don't want to have to go to court but I don't want to feel like I'm compromising on this either.
And I don't know how to weigh these things against each other.
Would love to hear more viewpoints, tips, experiences, etc

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Anya

Apr 6

@alyeska Ooh, i can help, i have an X!

So for me part of the reason was more that the procedure for getting an X does not have to involve going through a psychologist for approval (iets met fuck het VU, trans zorg NU). And part was that converting to the opposite binary gender would not be correct either (OTOH, it would be not as incorrect). And part was to have legal weight behind complaining about gendering.

The court procedure was relatively simple: i paid the lawyer (Kim Smienk, who back then seemed to do all gender X cases; haven't checked in a while) a bunch of money to handle everything. She got me to write a page in my own words why i want the name/gender change (so i explained that i've known myself to be trans for a very long time, used maths to come up with a good gender neutral roepnaam and i was getting tired of being accused of fraud by the americans/french/... for signing my emails with my own name but my ID saying the old one.) Lawyer then sent a bunch of letters to various legal institutions that responded with a court date a few months later.

At the court appointment i had to show up wearing some nice clothing but nothing too formal (tip: they have metal detectors there, make sure your collar is either removable or non-magnetic

). Then the lawyer repeated what she said in the letters, then i repeated what i said about my gender on that page. Then i handed the judge a book published under my own name to prove this is who everyone already knows me as.

A month or so later the change was approved (the lawyer said back then there had thus far been no rejections at all in the procedure, no idea how it is now...) and three months after that i got a letter from the birth municipality with a corrected birth certificate, and a few weeks after that i got a new passport and driving license.

It did cost a bunch of money, €1200 for the lawyer (this is subsidizable; do it while you're still studying!) and a couple hundred in documents (but that was my own fault for doing it just a bit too close to my old passport's validity date, so i had to get an intermediate driving license/passport under the old name which lasted 2 months before being shreddered).

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Anya

@alyeska

As for not being able to enter certain countries: i don't reliably pass as either binary gender now so either of those would give me quite a bit of hassle in those countries. For example, i don't think i would be particularly safe trying to enter the US with any gender marker. i haven't tried going to/through any arabic countries or Singapore; i heard (from an Australian) they tend to be very annoying about gender markers, even binary ones, but let (rich white) foreigners through after the hassle. And to be honest, being able to go "i can't come because they will 100% imprison me" tends to discourage your colleagues from scheduling meetings in places i didn't want to go anyway due to hatecrimes.

i travel a lot and booking things (plane, Eurostar, hostels with one-gender dormitories) is consistently broken even within Europe. i tend to need to call customer service half of the time. (Often they say: flip a coin to pick a random gender and call us to have it corrected.) Being handed an official goverment paper form and getting to draw in my own checkbox for gender feels like a victory though. For this, you do need to be a bit perverted about bureaucracy and the ability to use a phone call to make it someone else's problem.

In all, the X makes my life a bit harder, but it's a manageable challenge. Having the right name makes my life a lot easier. And the happiness from a correct passport matters too.