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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau carries a Canadian flag disfigured with the homosexual movement's rainbow branding at Toronto's Gay Pride Parade.Justin Trudeau / Flickr

OTTAWA, August 29, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Canada’s Liberal government has cleared the way for Canadians who don’t want to identify as either male or female to opt for an X on their passport.

Pro-family advocates decry the move as further entrenching the false ideology of “gender fluidity.”

“This is so harmful,” says Jack Fonseca, senior political strategist with Campaign Life Coalition. “The government trying to force its citizenry, en masse, to deny scientific fact and biological reality.”

Fonseca says the move is dangerous for children who are “at risk of sexual confusion by the further societal normalization” of transgenderism.

Canadians are harmed by “unwittingly but systematically being trained to deny the evidence of their own eyes,” he told LifeSiteNews in an email.

And it will hurt people “suffering with the mental illness of gender dysphoria” by corroborating the illusion they can alter their sex.

Meanwhile, transgender activists complain this doesn’t go far enough, and that the provinces are dragging behind their federal counterpart.

X for not sure about sex

Minister of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada Ahmed Hussen announced the new passport option August 24 as part of the Liberal government’s commitment to “support LGBTQ2 rights and advance the Government’s agenda on gender equality, diversity and inclusion,” according to a ministry statement.

The X option to indicate “unspecified” sex on a passport is available August 31. Those choosing it can add an observation to their passport until the ministry has printed passports with the designation.

According to the ministry statement, the IRCC will provide this “gender neutral” option on other documents it issues.

But some transgender activists are upset their province’s regulations don’t mesh with the federal framework.

Provinces falling one by one

“How do I [apply for a passport] when I can’t get any documents that support me provincially to prove that I’m actually not male or female?” Gemma Hickey told the National Post.

Hickey, described as “transmasculine but identifies as non-binary” in the Toronto Sun, is taking the Newfoundland and Labrador government to court because she wants a gender-neutral birth certificate. The case is scheduled to be heard November 22.

The Saskatchewan government has also been taken to court by three families who want gender markers erased from all government-issued ID, including birth certificates. The case was heard in July, and no ruling has yet been released.

Kori Doty, a self-described “non-binary trans” person who doesn’t want to be either man or woman, has taken British Columbia to court for a birth certificate with no sex designation for her baby.

BC has already issued a health card for Doty’s child with a U for unspecified sex, in what is thought to be the first time a government issued a health card with “unknown gender.”

Ontario’s Liberals nixed gender markers on health cards in June 2016, and in early 2017 allowed the X option on driver’s licences. The province aims to have “gender neutral” or “non-binary” birth certificates by 2018, the CBC reported.  

The Northwest Territories claimed in July to be the first Canadian jurisdiction to allow an X for those undecided about their sex on birth certificates. Transgender individuals in the NWT can also request a sex marker change without having sex reassignment surgery.

But Alberta beat the NWT to it with its December 2016 Bill 29, which allows the X option on birth certificates.

However, Alberta’s NDP made the implementation of this clause contingent on the federal decision on passports, according to the CBC.

Passports have to have a sex marker … so far

As for passports, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body, sets the requirements.

The ICAO currently mandates a sex designation on passports but allows the X option.

Canada, Australia, Bangladesh, Germany, India, Nepal, New Zealand and Pakistan allow for the third option on passports.

A 2012 study by the New Zealand government for the ICAO concluded the costs of scrubbing a sex marker from passports outweighed the benefits.

That’s a problem for Helen Kennedy of the homosexual activist group Egale Canada.

The “big question” is why “gender markers” are even needed on passports, she told the Post.

“Canada needs to do more work to lobby (international bodies) around gender markers in general on passports.”

That’s echoed by Toronto immigration lawyer Adrienne Smith, who told Global News an X designation might cause problems for those entering countries where homosexuality is illegal.

“Gender isn’t necessary for security purposes to be listed on an identity document,” Smith said. “We now have biometric passports, we have fingerprints, we have other much more secure forms of establishing identity.”

Ideology to trump security and privacy

But Fonseca counters that by lobbying for genderless passports and IDs, “these sexual revolutionaries are willing to put our country’s national security and our privacy at risk.”

Genderless passports bring up privacy concerns, and the justification for government to requiring biometric ID, which uses iris recognition as a key aspect, Fonseca said.

“Are we actually hearing people suggest the solution to the risks introduced by genderless passports and security documents is to force every citizen to agree to put their iris scans into a worldwide government database?” he pointed out.

“No thanks. I prefer we just stick to science and accept that there are only two genders: hims and hers.”