In a decision that will have far-reaching implication, Germany became the first country in Europe to create a new category for "indeterminate sex." According to BCC the move is aimed at taking the pressure of parents of newborns to make a quick decision on the sex assignment surgery.

The intense difficulty for parents is often that a gender has to be chosen very quickly so that the new child can be registered with the authorities, the BBC report said.

Parents need to decide on surgery so as to turn the baby's physical characteristics into a male or female.

This new law is a result of review of cases where people revealed they continue to remain unhappy with their parents' decision taken at the time of birth.

The BBC relays on case in which "a person with no clear gender-defining genitalia was subjected to surgery. The person said many years later: "I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

The report quoting interior ministry said, German passports, which currently have the holders sex identified as M for male or F for female will now have a third designation indicating, X, for intersex holders.

They are known as "intersex" people because they have a mixture of male and female chromosomes or even genitalia which have characteristics of both genders, the report notes.

It was, however, not clear how the policy will impact marriage and partnership laws in Germany, where marriage is defined as a union between man and woman and civil partnership is a union between same-sex couples.