The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has rescinded guidance allowing personnel to issue new licenses for people trying to change their gender from their biological sex, citing the importance of the “security, reliability and accuracy of government-issued credentials.”
The department sent out a technical advisory on Jan. 26 stating a patron’s gender on his or her driver’s license or identification card must be taken from a primary identification document. And on Tuesday, the department’s director of communications told The Daily Signal that the move is important to “enhance the security and reliability of Florida-issued licenses.”
“The department is charged with important statutory duties, to include issuance of Florida driver’s licenses and identification cards, and to issue replacement credentials under specific circumstances,” said Molly Best, director of communications for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
“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 told The Daily Signal. “The security, reliability and accuracy of government-issued credentials is paramount.”
In January 2023, department Executive Director Dave Kerner tasked senior department leadership with making sure that the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ policies, procedures, guidance and advisories were consistent with both “statutory law” and the department’s authority.
This latest development is a result of that move, Best said. She noted that “the rescission pertains solely to replacement license requests” and that “no changes have been made to the process of establishing gender on a newly issued Florida credential, governed by [Section] 322.08, F.S.”
Leftist groups, such as the ACLU of Florida, responded to the decision with criticism.
“All transgender and non-binary people should have access to an accurate ID,” the ACLU of Florida said in an “X” post on Tuesday.
“Transgender Floridians can no longer change the listed gender on their [driver’s] licenses,” the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported. “A state memo further says that someone ‘misrepresenting’ their gender, meaning not using their sex assigned at birth, constitutes ‘criminal and civil’ fraud.”
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