Just a few days ago, Wimbledon announced that the use of gendered titles like ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ will be now dropped on its honour roll, making the honour roll equal for both female and male winners. Winners like Chris Evert and Serene Williams will now occupy the same space in the All England Club’s honour boards, making it a great stride in gender equality in the sporting world. In more recent news, two airline companies have also made a more inclusive, gender-neutral stride by adding the title of Mx in their booking platforms.
To mark Pride Month 2022, Vistara and AirAsia have attempted to show solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community by adding the gender-neutral title of Mx on their booking platforms in India. The change, reports reveal, was brought about through the efforts of Indrajeet Ghorpade, a member of the LGBTQIA+ group YesWeExist. Two years ago, Ghorpade was booking a ticket for a trans, non-binary friend, when he realised that no airline company in India offers gender-neutral titles for the LGBTQIA+ community.
What followed, was a petition on Change.org called StopPinkWashing, which garnered over 33,000 signatures. “In India, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, does not allow airline companies to discriminate. However, in reality, until recently, no airline booking forms included the gender-neutral title ‘Mx’, which many in the LGBTQ community prefer to use. Due to this, passengers who use ‘Mx’, were forced to pick an inaccurate title for themselves, either ‘Mr’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘Ms’, in order to book a ticket,” Ghorpade said in an interview.
Now, after years of campaigning, Ghorpade is celebrating the fact that two leading airline companies are making a move in the right direction, but also points out that more needs to be done to make airports and airlines gender-neutral and inclusive. The further steps he and many across the world are promoting the adoption of include gender-neutral washrooms and security check procedures.