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Florida Democrats are accusing Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Republicans of waging an assault on transgender people after Florida’s DMV issued a coverage change stating that genders on driver’s licenses can now not be altered.
The new directive from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles surfaced late final week in a memo despatched to county tax collectors saying that it has rescinded steerage that beforehand “directed personnel to issue a new license in the event that a licensee wished to alter the gender marker on his or her license.”
“Under s. 322.17 F.S., the Department can issue a replacement license only when a license or permit is lost or stolen, or when there is a subsequent change in the licensee’s name, address, or restrictions,” Florida HSMV Deputy Executive Director Robert Kynoch wrote. “Furthermore, the term ‘gender’ in s. 322.08, F.S., 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.
“Additionally, a driver license is an identification doc and, as such, serves a important function in aiding private and non-private entities in accurately establishing the identification of an individual presenting the license,” he added. “Permitting a person to alter his or her license to replicate an inner sense of gender function or identification, which is neither immutable nor objectively verifiable, undermines the aim of an identification file and may frustrate the state’s skill to implement its legal guidelines.”
FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL FINED, PUT ON PROBATION OVER TRANS PARTICIPATION ON GIRLS VOLLEYBALL TEAM
A Florida DMV office in Miami and a person holding a transgender flag. Florida has issued a policy change no longer allowing gender changes on driver’s licenses. (Monique O. Madan/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images | Reuters/Demetrius Freeman)
Kynoch concluded the memo by writing that “misrepresenting one’s gender, understood as intercourse, on a driver license constitutes fraud beneath s. 322,212, F.S., and topics an offender to prison and civil penalties, together with cancellation, suspension, or revocation of his or her driver license.”
Florida state Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani ripped the policy change as “one other gross instance of how each state company has been weaponized to assault trans people.
“Florida Republicans’ obsession with trans people has to stop,” added Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried. “Instead of addressing our raging property insurance crisis or out-of-control rent hikes, the GOP continues to pursue blatantly transphobic policies to serve their made-up culture wars. Erasing and criminalizing trans people is absolutely disgusting and can’t be allowed to stand.
Florida Gov. DeSantis recently suspended his 2024 presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. (DeSantis 2024)
“We’ve seen state businesses regularly weaponized beneath Ron DeSantis, and this rule change at DHSMV serves the identical goal as the remaining – permitting right-wing extremists to get the wildly unpopular insurance policies they need with out having to go on the file as voting for them,” she added.
DeSantis spokesperson Jeremy Redfern, when asked for a response to the outcry, told Fox News Digital, “We imagine the memo speaks for itself.”
Florida HSMV spokesperson Molly Best also told Fox News Digital, “Upon appointment as government director by Gov. DeSantis in January of final yr, Director [Dave] Kerner tasked senior Department management with making certain our insurance policies, procedures and technical steerage/advisories have been in line with each statutory regulation and the Department’s inherent authority.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani addresses college students and others at a rally to protest Florida schooling insurance policies exterior Orlando City Hall on April 21, 2023, in Florida. (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency through Getty Images)
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“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,” she additionally stated. “The security, reliability and accuracy of government-issued credentials is paramount.”
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