Video above: Trans community concerned with Florida no longer allowing gender changes on driver’s license
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives want the federal government to intervene in response to a state mandate forbidding residents from changing the gender marker on their driver’s license.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, eight lawmakers, including Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, urged him to step in under the Real ID Act, which aimed to set consistent standards for federal and state identification.
Last week, Florida’s “DMV,” Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV), issued guidance that eliminated one’s ability to update their gender on their license. Transgender Floridians and their allies decried the “discriminatory” mandate, fearing it could lead to issues with work, travel, housing or their physical safety.
The lawmakers also took issue with another aspect of the guidance: the possibility of inconsistency between federal and state identification.
“This anti-trans new guidance would force trans-Floridians to potentially carry state and federal identification that lists two different genders for the same person, as state licenses would be forced to note birth gender while federally issued documents, like passports, would list chosen gender identity,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Orlando) said in a statement.
In the letter, the Democrats also discussed a bill working its way through the Florida legislature that “will likely mean the invalidation of trans, gender-nonconforming, and other Floridians’ driver licenses.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida dubbed HB-1639 a “trans erasure bill” after it was recently voted favorably out of committee.
The proposed law, titled “An act relating to gender and biological sex,” eliminates “gender” as a required identifier on the Florida license and defines “sex” as “the classification of a person as either male or female based on the organization of the human body of such person for a specific reproductive role as indicated by the person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.” The bill disregards the distinction between gender and sex, contradicting long-held medical consensus.
“The Department of Homeland Security has the power to prevent this. By May 2025, all states’ driver’s licenses must be Real ID Act compliant to be used to proceed through airport security,” Democrats wrote in the letter. “Not being Real ID Act compliant would be inconceivable for an economically dynamic state like Florida.”
Castor and Frost were joined by Reps. Lois Frankel (D-West Palm Beach), Darren Soto (D-Kissimmee), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Sunrise), Frederica Wilson (D-Miami), Jared Moskowitz (D-Boca Raton) and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fort Lauderdale) in signing the letter.