American Airlines Offers Non-Binary Gender Booking Options

Good news for the LGBTQ community.

American Airlines has joined United Airlines in offering non-binary gender options for customers during the booking process.

At the moment, passengers must call American to make the designation, although the option will be part of its online booking process shortly. Current ticket-holders can call to update their reservations.

“We recently completed a system update to offer non-binary gender selections,” American spokesman Ross Feinstein confirmed to USA TODAY. “Taking care of our customers and team members is what we do, and we are glad to be able to better accommodate the gender preferences of our travelers and team members.”

People can now designate “U” or “X” for their gender.

Earlier this year, United became the first U.S. airline to offer passengers non-binary gender options while booking their flights.

United’s announcement came after Airlines for America (A4A) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) had approved a new international best-practices standard that suggests accommodation for travelers using “non-binary IDs.”

USA TODAY noted that the suggested standard is to create an option for “unspecified” or “undisclosed” for passengers booking tickets. That option would be in addition to the options for “male” or “female.”

It is up to individual airlines to make the option available to their booking platforms, including online travel agencies.