Florida has become the only state in the union to ban people from changing their gender on their drivers’ licenses. The result has been rampant chaos and confusion. The move did not come from the Florida legislature, but from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles:
The decision came from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, run by Dave Kerner, a political appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis. It was announced in a memo last week asserting that a person’s gender “is determined by innate and immutable biological and genetic characteristics.”
“Permitting an individual to alter his or her license to reflect an internal sense of gender role or identity, which is neither immutable or objectively verifiable, undermines the purpose of an identification record and can frustrate the state’s ability to enforce its laws,” read the agency memo.
So what happens to people who have already changed their gender markers on their drivers licenses? This suggests the next step for Ron DeSantis, who is doubling down on his fascism now that he is out of the race. Given their own words, this suggests that Florida is next planning to arrest people for possessing a false identity and/or revoke the drivers licenses of people who have already changed their gender markers.
I’m not the only one who is wondering:
The latest move confused some drivers, like Speegle, who wondered whether their licenses would be revoked or suspended because they had already switched gender designations.
“I followed the rules that they had in place,” Speegle said. “Does that mean I’m now breaking the law? I could be driving with my children and get pulled over for some reason. And then what, is my license suspended?”
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has this to say:
A spokeswoman for the motor vehicle agency, Molly Best, said the new policy applies only to replacement license requests going forward. For new licenses, the memo said, misrepresenting a driver’s gender could be prosecuted as criminal fraud and result in the license being revoked.
But what if a cop didn’t get the memo? I can easily see a situation where a cop might see that you’re trans and either arrest you for possessing a false identity and/or take your license away from you. Many police departments act on the side of authoritarianism, not caution, as we know from Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.
And even if the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety is reassuring us that the law does not apply to people who have already changed the biological markers on their drivers licenses, what is to stop them from making it apply to them in the future? After all, Putin said he had “no plans” to invade Ukraine. A few months later, he attacked.
And there is plenty of peer pressure on people who are transitioning from conservative friends and family. There are plenty of people who decide not to go through with transitioning. Does this new rule mean that if you have already changed your marker on your driver’s license, then decide not to transition, that you can’t change your marker back?
