British ex-pat recognised as “world’s first officially genderless person”

This is interesting.

From the article:

“Norrie May-Welby, 48, was born a man but had a sex change operation in 1990, at the age of 28. 

After becoming unhappy as a woman, May-Welby decided to become a “neuter”. The 48-year-old is now officially recognised as a person of no specific gender.”

Of course, as the article says, this is not the world’s first genderless person, just the first to be officially recognised as such. What interests me is how in the article they use words like “the Briton” and “May-Welby” to avoid using a pronoun. Someone should tell them about “ze” and “hir”… I would like to see those words enter public use a bit more, but for them to acknowledge that it is indeed possible to be neither male nor female is a step in the right direction.