Florida is banning transgender individuals from updating their driver’s licenses to match their gender identity, raising concerns about possible fraud charges for those who have already done so.
On Friday, Robert Kynoch, the deputy executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, revealed the decision to revoke the provision that previously enabled Floridians to update the gender marker on their licenses.
According to Kynoch, the department lacks the legal authority to enforce gender marker updates on licenses. Consequently, Florida licenses can only be replaced for reasons such as loss, theft, name or address changes, or adjustments to restrictions.
Kynoch clarified that in the provision on gender requirements, ‘gender,’ “does not refer to a person’s internal sense of his or her gender role or identification, but has historically and commonly been understood as a synonym for ‘sex,’ which is determined by innate and immutable biological and genetic characteristics.”
“A driver license is an identification document and, as such, serves a critical role in assisting public and private entities in correctly establishing the identity of a person presenting the license,” Kynoch wrote. “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.”
According to the department’s communications director, Molly Best, the provision for establishing gender on a new Florida license remains unchanged. Supporting documents like out-of-state driver’s licenses, U.S. passports, or birth certificates can be used to establish gender.
Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani described the change as “another gross example of how every state agency has been” weaponized to “attack trans people.”
“Instead of addressing the property insurance crisis, this is what our state is doing. Shameful,” Eskamani added.
It’s currently unclear how the advisory will align with Florida and federal laws regarding transgender individuals changing their birth certificate sex, despite the state’s existing process requiring an application, affidavit, and physician’s letter for such changes.
Under the new policy, transgender individuals in Florida with driver’s licenses can’t get replacements showing their gender identity, even if they changed their Florida birth certificates.
Additionally, It’s uncertain if someone who has updated their U.S. passport to reflect their gender identity rather than their assigned sex at birth would be able to get a replacement Florida license with an updated gender marker.
Kynoch’s memo asserts that depicting gender as sex on a driver’s license constitutes fraud, risking penalties such as license cancellation.
However, it remains uncertain whether transgender individuals who have updated their licenses would be considered fraudulent for continued use.
“In Florida, tens of thousands of people have legally updated their gender marker on their driver’s license or ID,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida. “They carefully followed the rules to ensure their identification accurately reflects who they are, and they trusted this process. Now, an abrupt policy reversal has thrown their lives into chaos.”
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