In countries like New Zealand, Australia and India, there's a third option in addition to "male" and "female" on passports -- usually in the form of "X" (as opposed to "M" or "F"), "Other" or "Third Gender." Yesterday (Oct. 26), on Intersex Awareness Day, Lambda Legal announced a lawsuit against the United States federal government aimed at getting a similar option on U.S. passports.

Lambda Legal, a national organization dedicated to working toward full civil rights for the LGBTQIA+ community, filed the lawsuit on behalf of an intersex person from Colorado named Dana Zzyym (pronounced "Zimm"), who was denied a passport for refusing to check either "M" or "F" on their application.

The lawsuit, which lists Secretary of State John Kerry as a defendant, states that the federal government is essentially asking Zzyym, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns "they," "them" and "their," to lie in order to receive a passport by forcing them to choose only either "M" or "F," since Zzyym is in fact intersex.

"It is against the law to ‘willfully and knowingly’ make a false statement on a passport application," Lambda Legal attorney Paul D. Castillo explained in a statement. "And yet, in a classic Catch-22, the application itself and State Department ‘policy’ make it impossible for a person who is inherently neither male or female to list their gender. Dana is being deprived of the right to lawfully exit the United States because of personal characteristics, and that’s discrimination, pure and simple."

The same statement from Lambda Legal explains that Zzyym was born with ambiguous sex characteristics and then endured "several irreversible, painful and medically unnecessary surgeries that didn’t work, traumatized Dana and left them with severe scarring" as a child.

Zzyym was raised as a boy, and it wasn't until they were an adult, after six years of service in the U.S. Navy, that they figured out that they were born intersex and began connecting with others who'd had similar experiences. Now, Zzyym works to help the international intersex community by serving as associate director of the US branch of the Organization Intersex International (OII-USA).

“I defended the rights of this country," Zzyym told the Associated Press. "I believe I should be able to use a few of them.”

The AP report noted, "It’s not clear how many people would want to take advantage of the 'X' option. Castillo said an estimated 1.7 percent of the population is intersex -- making them about as common as people with red hair -- but some identify as men or women, unlike Zzyym."

Zzyym said in the statement from Lambda Legal, "When I was a child, I had no say in what was done to me in order to make me 'fit' in some acceptable category. I continue to suffer the consequences of those decisions today. But, as an adult, I can take a stand. I am not male, I am not female, I am intersex, and I shouldn’t have to choose a gender marker for my official U.S. identity document that isn’t me."