Mx

A couple of days ago Arlo and I sat down to start their legal name change via Deed Poll, and as they scrolled down the list of titles I saw ‘Mx’ – the non-gendered version of Mr/Mrs – and that was the title Arlo chose. Unsure if Mx was a title that all legal instituations in the UK would honour I did a little Googling, and it actually turns out that Mx has been a legally registered title since 2015!

It’s moments like this that I realise Arlo and I are actually very lucky to live in the UK, and that non-binary and genderqueer people are slowly being legally recognised.

Although it’s not all roses, the UK have refused to legalise ‘X’ gender markers on passports, driving liscences, and birth certificates a couple of times over claims that is would be too much of a change to their current system (I kid you not) and that it would create issues when travelling – despite the fact that Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Malta, New Zealand and Pakistan all have ‘X’ as a gender marker and India, Ireland and Nepal have various third-gender options.

Also at present in the UK you are required to be married according to your birth sex, so either as ‘husband’ or ‘wife.’ If Arlo and I got married today we’d be legally classified as ‘wife and wife’ which is pretty annoying, I’m hoping that will have changed by the time we actually get married.

It seems slow, but I remind my progress is happening, change is coming.