Germany is the first European country to allow babies to be registered as “indeterminate sex.” The law will allow parents to leave the gender assignment portion on the birth certificates blank, thereby creating a third option for children born with characteristics of both sexes.
Previously, parents had to hurry to make a decision about gender so that their baby could be registered properly as a citizen. Often, a BBC correspondent reports, the pressure led to sex-assignment surgeries for newborns.
An estimated one in every 2,000 people is intersex, meaning they have a combination of male and female chromosomes. German passports will add a third designation, X, in addition to M and F.
