Neither man nor woman: the United States issues the first passport with the X, without gender

Whenever Dana Zzyym was in an airport, she had to face the border guard’s gaze. And the same happened when he presented himself in uniform, enlisted in 1978 as a Navy engineer, first in Beirut, then in the Persian Gulf. On the passport it said ‘M’, male, to indicate his sex, but Dana felt neither man nor woman.