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,” wrote Robert Kynoch, the department’s deputy executive director, in the memo.
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, who “tasked senior Department leadership with ensuring our policies, procedures, and technical guidance/advisories were consistent with both statutory law and the Department’s inherent authority.
“… Expanding the Department’s authority to issue replacement licenses dependent on one’s internal sense of gender or sex identification is violative of the law and does not serve to enhance the security and reliability of Florida issued licenses and identification cards. The security, reliability, and accuracy of government issued credentials is paramount,” it adds.
Democrats call FLSHMV change ‘shameful,’ ‘disgusting’
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, called the move “shameful.”
“This is another gross example of how every state agency has been weaponizes to attack trans people,” Eskamani said. “Instead of addressing the property insurance crisis, this is what our state is doing.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement that “erasing and criminalizing trans people is absolutely disgusting and can’t be allowed to stand.”
“We’ve seen state agencies continually weaponized under Ron DeSantis, and this rule change at DHSMV serves the same purpose as the rest — allowing right-wing extremists to get the wildly unpopular policies they want without having to go on the record as voting for them,” Fried said.
The memo comes as state Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill requiring driver’s licenses to display the carrier’s sex at birth rather than their gender identity.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla. He can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com. On X: @DouglasSoule.
