Germany will become the first European nation to recognize a third gender for intersex babies.

The new German law, which is expected to go into effect Nov. 1, says that children do not have to be classified exclusively as male or female in cases where a gender is not clear. It is reported that about 1 in 2,000 children are born without a specific gender.

The law allows parents to leave their child's gender uncategorized in order to allow the child to determine a gender later in life. The law also allows individuals to remain uncategorized by gender forever, if they so desire. According to ABC News, the parents have the option of listing their child's gender as "undetermined" or "unspecified".

New York City psychiatrist and gender identification specialist Dr. Jack Drescher told ABC News about the outlook for intersex children as they grow older.

"Some people have life-endangering conditions that require surgery, but most kids do not," he said. "You can make a gender assignment without surgery and then see how identity develops. The science of knowing how a child will develop any gender identity is not very accurate.... Nobody can answer the questions about why this happens."

Spiegel Online has reported that it is unclear how the law will affect documents such as passports, which require individuals to list either a specific male or female gender, particularly when those documents must be recognized by other countries.

According to Spiegel Online, Australia recently became the first country in the world to introduce legal guidelines on gender recognition.