The Florida Democratic Congressional Delegation wants the Department of Homeland Security to combat a recently publicized policy taking away people’s ability to change their gender on a Florida driver’s license. The Democrats called the move a discrimination against transgender people.
In a letter the group sent to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday, they say the change makes Florida uncompliant with the Real ID Act. If states do not comply with the standards of the act passed in 2005, the driver’s licenses they issue cannot be used for entering certain federal facilities and nuclear power plants or taking domestic flights.
“We strongly urge the Department of Homeland Security to pursue rulemaking under the Real ID Act that would include, but not be limited to, requiring one’s gender/sex identifier on compliant state identification to match the gender on one’s Federal identification documents,” the Florida Democrats in Congress wrote. “If there are any other avenues through which this discrimination can be combatted, we encourage the Department to pursue those as well.”
Earlier this week, a memo from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles instructed that “misrepresenting one’s gender, understood as sex, on a driver license” is fraud. While name changes appear to still be allowed, the gender marker must reflect people’s gender assigned at birth, according to the memo. The policy change caused backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates and Democrats.
At the same time, the Florida House is looking to cement that policy — changing gender for sex assigned at birth — into statute as well as requiring health insurance companies to cover anti-trans conversion therapy.
“Currently, Florida driver licenses qualify as Real ID Act compliant. If the above-described revisions are allowed to stand in Florida, and similar provisions are allowed to stand in other states, they will undoubtedly continue to spread, creating more confusion and inconsistency while severely hampering Americans’ ability to travel, including LGBTQ+ American’s ability to leave states that are hostile to their existence.
The Department of Homeland Security has the power to prevent this. By May 2025, all states’ driver licenses must be Real ID Act compliant to be used to proceed through airport security. Not being Real ID Act compliant would be inconceivable for an economically dynamic state like Florida,” the letter stated.
