A new bill introduced in Florida on Thursday evening aims to abolish all legal recognition of transgender individuals and mandates biological sex affidavits for all Floridians, including those who identify as gay or bisexual. This bill is one of the most extreme acts committed against gay people to date. For license renewals at the DMV, these affidavits may be required, allowing the state to compile information on the biological sex of every Florida resident who requests a driver’s license. The state may be able to compile lists of trans people with Florida driver’s licenses thanks to the affidavits. They could then be used to carry out additional anti-trans legislation in the state. The bill would also impact all Florida laws that mention gender, effectively eliminating all legal recognition of trans people in the state.
The legislation is similar to those in countries like Russia in 2020 and Hungary in 2023 that have abolished all legal recognition of transgender people. Some trans adults in Florida are also prohibited from receiving gender-affirming treatment, which has forced a sizable number of them to leave the state. Similarly, a different bill that was introduced would effectively eliminate LGBTQ+ nonprofits in Florida by forbidding them from requiring staff members to receive training on LGBTQ issues. For example, it would be impossible to run an LGBTQ+ business without receiving training on the subject. If passed, this policy would make Florida one of the most repressive states in the world against transgender people.
The bill begins by defining “sex” in a way that eliminates transgender people and incorporates this concept into Part 1.01 of Florida’s legal script. It requires that all Florida laws follow this definition, effectively eradicating all transgender legal recognition in one go. Then it reviews numerous code provisions and develops new regulations that enable the scanning of trans people’s assigned sex at birth and the enforcement of laws that either exclude or criminalize them.
One of these sections is devoted to driver’s licenses, where the act states that one must sign a natural sex affidavit to be issued in Florida. Anyone with a certificate that is in conflict with the natural sex affidavit would have their driver’s license suspended. Transgender residents of the state would then be forced to choose between entering their chosen sex and potentially risking revoked licenses and criminal penalties, or signing the affidavit and allowing Florida to have a report of their transition.
Discover the pertinent clause here:
The bill also targets transgender school pupils in Florida. The assigned sex at the time of each student’s birth may be required to be included in data collected and reported by Florida schools. It specifically requires schools to determine the assigned sex at birth of “each individual” who is included in the dataset, so schools may also be required to collect affidavits of a similar nature.
The act also impacts all other areas of Florida laws. Employment laws and health rights are both affected. Social charges with female names must treat trans people as their assigned sex at birth. Florida civil rights law may follow suit.
Dean Black, the bill’s author, is known for supporting strict anti-trans policy and scheme positions. He criticized Jacksonville’s governor attending Pride in 2023, even suggesting that it should be “prevented from happening again” by policy.
The Florida bill’s protection measures are absent from similar rules and orders in other states. Additionally, these states do not share the same set of anti-trans rules that, when combined with this bill, make it particularly risky. This is the eleventh anti-trans bill to be submitted in Florida during this period. The state, which was created as one of the worst for trans people in the nation, is demonstrating that it has the potential to go even further in its efforts to banish them.
Following The Money reports that Rep. Black has received donations from a number of Fortune 500 companies:
- Chevron
- Comcast
- Eli Lilly
- Duke
- NBC
- HCA
With Erin In The Morning’s consent, this article was republished.
