The Tallahassee Democrat reports:
Transgender Floridians can no longer change the listed gender on their driver licenses. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced the change in a memo late last week sent to county tax collectors, where state residents can get licenses.
“Permitting an individual to alter his or her license to reflect an internal sense of gender role or identity, which is neither immutable nor objectively verifiable, undermines the purpose of an identification record and can frustrate the state’s ability to enforce its laws.”
The memo further says that someone “misrepresenting” their gender, meaning not using their sex assigned at birth, constitutes “criminal and civil” fraud. The department separately issued a statement that said, in part, that the move was begun by Executive Director Dave Kerner [photo].
Read the full article.
In a separate action, last week Florida Republicans advanced a bill that would require all state-issued IDs to reflect a person’s gender assigned at birth in order to legally “de-trans” them.
Today’s action by the Florida DMV apparently only applies to new requests for gender changes.
Of note, DMV executive director Dave Kerner formerly served in the Florida House as a Democrat and in 2022 he endorsed DeSantis for governor. DeSantis paid him back by appointing him to head the DMV last year.
This letter from Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles was shared w/me last night — I have contacted the department to confirm its authenticity but based on what I am hearing, computer systems locally are no longer allowing gender to be updated. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/Uly8fIA9tq
— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) January 30, 2024
This is another gross example of how every state agency has been weaponizes to attack trans people. Instead of addressing the property insurance crisis, this is what our state is doing. Shameful. 2/2
— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) January 30, 2024