FBI Should Add ‘X’ Gender Option to Crime Reports, NJ Says

TRENTON – The FBI has been urged to recognize non-binary individuals by adding the “X” gender code to its Uniform Crime Reporting system.

State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey led a coalition of 21 attorneys general in a joint letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking the FBI to update its reporting system as a way of making federal and state crime data more accurate.

The coalition said the addition of “X” alongside male and female gender codes would protect non-binary individuals’ dignity and interests, while also generating information about criminal victimization of the non-binary population.

New Jersey began offering the X gender marker option on driver’s licenses through the Motor Vehicle Commision as of April — among 23 states and jurisdictions that have done so.

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Lack of a non-binary gender option in the FBI’s database creates complications for law enforcement officers who handle such IDs with an X gender marker, the joint letter continued, as data containing non-binary gender designations cannot be submitted to the UCR.

The FBI had already begun to consider adding the third gender code to its crime reporting system.

In addition to New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, Attorneys General from the following signed the letter: California; Colorado; District of Columbia; Delaware; Hawaii; Illinois; Iowa; Maine; Maryland; Minnesota; Nevada; New Mexico; Oregon; Rhode Island; Vermont; Virginia and Washington.