Colorado

“It took six years, but to have an accurate passport, one that doesn’t force me to identify as male or female but recognizes I am neither, is liberating.”

Today the Colorado Supreme Court heard two cases addressing the recognition of common law marriages of same-sex couples.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit today rejected three of the five reasons the U.S. State Department gave for denying an accurate passport to Dana Zzyym, a U.S. Navy veteran who is intersex and nonbinary, and does not identify as male or female. While the Tenth Circuit held the State Department exercised its authority in an arbitrary and capricious manner, it nonetheless overturned a U.S. District Court ruling in favor of Zzyym and ordered the State Department to reconsider Dana’s passport application anew.

Lambda Legal last night filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit urging the court to uphold a lower court ruling that the State Department cannot rely on its male-or-female-only gender policy to withhold a U.S. passport from Dana Zzyym, a U.S. Navy veteran who is intersex and nonbinary, and does not identify as male or female.