Florida stops trans people’s chosen gender identity on driver licenses
Opponents of legislation targeting pro-Palestinian student activists say it violates First Amendment
Transgender Floridians can no longer change the listed gender on their driver licenses.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced the change in a memo late last week sent to county tax collectors, where state residents can get licenses.
“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,” wrote Robert Kynoch, the department’s deputy executive director, in the memo.
The memo further says that someone “misrepresenting” their gender, meaning not using their sex assigned at birth, constitutes “criminal and civil” fraud.
The department separately issued a statement that said, in part, that the move was begun by Executive Director Dave Kerner, who “tasked senior Department leadership with ensuring our policies, procedures, and technical guidance/advisories were consistent with both statutory law and the Department’s inherent authority.
“... Expanding the Department’s authority to issue replacement licenses dependent on one’s internal sense of gender or sex identification is violative of the law and does not serve to enhance the security and reliability of Florida issued licenses and identification cards. The security, reliability, and accuracy of government issued credentials is paramount,” it adds.
Democrats call FLSHMV change ‘shameful,’ ‘disgusting’
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, called the move “shameful.”
“This is another gross example of how every state agency has been weaponizes to attack trans people,” Eskamani said. “Instead of addressing the property insurance crisis, this is what our state is doing.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement that “erasing and criminalizing trans people is absolutely disgusting and can’t be allowed to stand.”
“We’ve seen state agencies continually weaponized under Ron DeSantis, and this rule change at DHSMV serves the same purpose as the rest — allowing right-wing extremists to get the wildly unpopular policies they want without having to go on the record as voting for them,” Fried said.
The memo comes as state Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill requiring driver’s licenses to display the carrier’s sex at birth rather than their gender identity.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule is based in Tallahassee, Fla. He can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com. On X: @DouglasSoule.
A bill that opponents say violates the First Amendment because it would withdraw financial aid and state scholarships from college students who promote “foreign terrorist organizations” such as Hamas cleared its first House subcommittee this week.
The legislation (HB 465) would also require those students to pay out-ofstate tuition, which is much more expensive than in-state tuition. If they’re an international student on a visa, universities would have to report them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Florida lawmakers and others officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have criticized pro-Palestinian protests which erupted on college campuses in Florida after Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
They say these demonstrations don’t count as First Amendment-protected freedom of expression and threaten students’ safety on campus. They have also suggested some students who participate in these protests have direct connections to terrorist organizations.
“The point of this bill is not to limit anyone’s free speech,” said Rep. John Paul Temple, R-Wildwood, a sponsor of the bill. “If they are tied to terrorist organizations and they are spewing the rhetoric of the terrorist organizations and creating an environment in which students are feeling threatened, those are the situations which we want to make sure that we resolve.”
Democrats in the Postsecondary Education & Workforce Subcommittee slammed the bill, stating that it does in fact violate students’ First Amendment rights and would contribute to Islamophobia and an unsafe atmosphere on campuses.
They also said the bill is “vague” because it doesn’t define language instrumental to the bill’s intent like “promote,” “tied to terrorist organizations” and “material support.”
“I can’t support legislation that is incredibly subjective,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, an Iranian-American who said she has personally experienced Islamophobia and been called a “terrorist.”
“I encourage folks to put your political viewpoints aside and really just look at the constitutionality of this legislation and the danger it has on free speech on college campuses,” she added.
Temple said that he would work with members on both sides of the aisle to more clearly define the bill’s terms. In committee, he said that direct monetary support, waving flags and saying specific phrases could constitute promoting or providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Bobby Block, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, spoke against the bill during public testimony and said that state courts would likely declare the bill unconstitutional if passed, costing Florida taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees. He also stated that it is already illegal to provide material support for terrorist groups under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act of 1990.
“Expressions of support for ideas that we find abhorrent are protected under the First Amendment,” said Block. “I fear the bill’s true aim is about punishing student protest and speech. Otherwise, there is no need for this law.”
The only Democrat in the committee to vote for the bill was Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, who said she had a tough time deciding whether to approve it.
Tant agreed with her Democratic colleagues’ criticisms of the bill and said she is “not unsympathetic” to Palestinians who spoke against the bill in public testimony.
She brought up her daughter’s lifelong experiences with antisemitism: “She is scared on her college campus every day. Protection of free speech must happen but you’ve got to make sure we’re not hurting each other in the process. I’m very concerned with what my own family has experienced and where we’re going in this state.”
Officials first sought to reckon with Pro-Palestinian student groups when State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues teamed up with DeSantis and ordered Students for Justice for Palestine chapters to be deactivated.
The University of Florida’s chapter of the organization, one of two known chapters in the state, fired back with a federal lawsuit against the State University System, alleging violations of the First Amendment.
“[The order] violates UF SJP’s First Amendment freedoms by punishing it for its protected speech and association ... And it runs afoul of the First Amendment’s protection against viewpointbased restrictions on speech and association,” the group said in its lawsuit.
The House has two more panels before it can be heard on the House floor. An identical bill has been filed in the Senate.