Dana Zzyym | |
|---|---|
 Zzyym in 2016 | |
| Born | 1958 (age 66–67) |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Organization | Intersex Campaign for Equality |
Dana Alix Zzyym [1] (born 1958) is an intersex activist and veteran of the U.S. Navy. [2] After the culmination of a six-year legal battle, they became the first U.S. citizen to receive an official U.S. passport with an "X" sex/gender marker. [3]
Zzyym was born in 1958. Zzyym says that their childhood as a military brat made it out of the question for them to be associated with the queer community as a youth due to the prevalence of homophobia in the armed forces. Their parents hid Zzyym's status as intersex from them; Zzyym independently discovered their identity and the surgeries their parents had approved for them after their Navy service. [4] In 1978, Zzyym joined the Navy as a machinist's mate.
Zzyym is the associate director of the Intersex Campaign for Equality. [5] [6] [7] They are nonbinary and intersex. [3]
Zzyym is the first veteran to seek a non-binary gender U.S. passport, in the lawsuit Zzyym v. Blinken (formerly Zzyym v. Pompeo, Zzyym v. Tillerson, and Zzyym v. Kerry). [8] In light of the State Department's continuing refusal to recognize an appropriate gender marker, on June 27, 2017, a federal court granted Lambda Legal's motion to reopen the case. [9] [10] On September 19, 2018, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado enjoined the U.S. Department of State from relying upon its binary-only gender marker policy to withhold the requested passport. [11] In February 2021, the state department stated "To fully integrate the change into its software systems would take approximately 24 months and cost $11 million". [12]
In October 2021, they became the first U.S. citizen to receive an official U.S. passport with an "X" sex/gender marker. [2]