In a planned opposition against the state’s new move to stop gender changes on driver’s licenses, about ten people staged ‘die-ins’ in Orlando on Friday, joining activists in five different Florida cities who laid down at DMV offices, pretending to be dead.
In order to increase affirming spaces and resources for LGBTQ+ children, South Florida high school students founded the volunteer PRISM, which organized the protests.
Maxx Fenning, the founder and executive director of PRISM, claims that unlike other types of protests, which are frequently audible, a “die-in” tends to be purposefully solemn and quiet.
Fenning remarked, “Sometimes the point is the quietness.” It is intended to bring notice to the harm and danger while also demonstrating the loss of life caused by these decisions in a very visually effective manner.
Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) issued a memo late last month prohibiting Floridians from changing the gender marker on their driver’s licenses, which led to the statewide demonstrations on Friday.
The letter overturns earlier instructions to company personnel to permit gender changes on Florida driver’s licenses. The Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a progressive nonprofit, claims that Florida and Kansas are currently the only two states in the United States that forbid such updates.