Jacob Ogles
Transgender activists staged die-ins at driver’s license offices statewide, with crowds disrupting business in many lobbies. The demonstrations follow a controversial decision to stop allowing gender changes on state ID.
After 10 a.m., protesters arrived in lobbies for tax collectors in Alachua, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Orange counties and collapsed on the ground, feigning death in the offices. Some held gravestones reading “Killed By the DMV” or “Killed by Ron DeSantis.”
The protests were organized in large part by PRISM, an LGBTQ advocacy group leading the “Let Trans People Drive” campaign. The organization worked with Youth Action Fund, Equality Florida, Hope CommUnity Center, GLSEN Central Florida and SPEKTRUM Health
“Participants will stage die-ins to underscore the devastating consequences of efforts to erase the transgender community’s legal recognition,” read a PRISM press release.
PRISM has also asked President Joe Biden’s administration and the Justice Department to intervene and prohibit the change in policy based on the federal Real ID Act from 2005. That allows the establishment of federal criteria for government IDs. A virtual campaign through Wednesday promoted more than 650 emails to the administration seeking intervention in the Florida policy.
The event served to spotlight a change in state policy on issuing state IDs. While the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) in May 2022 updated its guidelines to allow a change in gender of state IDs without proof of gender reassignment surgery, the state agency sent out a memo to Tax Collector’s Offices in January reversing that policy.
FLHSMV Deputy Executive Director Robert Kynoch wrote in a memo to every Tax Collector’s Office that the term gender “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.”
That memo said having a state ID or license listing a gender that did not align with gender assigned at birth would effectively be violating Florida’s statute prohibiting false IDs. That would make individuals guilty of a felony and subject to up to five years of prison or probation and a $5,000 fine.
The FL DMV is killing trans people, so we're showing them the consequences pic.twitter.com/HyjSDHLyK8
— PRISM FL, Inc. (@prism_fl) February 9, 2024
15 comments
Dont Say FLA
February 9, 2024 at 11:26 am
Why does a DL need to know whats in your pants? So the police can profile women drivers? They got your DL up on their car laptop before they ever even hit the blue lights, ya know.
To pull or not to pull, that question is answered by your information on the police laptop if you just have a broken taillight or some piddly thing like going 10 to 14mph over the limit, rolling a stop sign.
Your personal data is in play for the decisions cops make. Male Female or other on their laptop screen allows for their profiling women drivers.
Same goes for race and weight. Race and weight have no bearing on anyone’s ability to drive a car. Why do the cops get to know that info via their laptop while deciding whether to initiate a traffic stop?
Gender, race, weight on a DL, those are nothing but profiling, profiling, profiling.
Dave
February 9, 2024 at 4:44 pm
Exactly! They profile because of their hatred, and rationalize because of their greed. Cops get away with heftier fines and ticketing to minorities, this is just another way to keep the working class divided and impoverished. When there is no more money in targeting minorities, they won’t hesitate to turn on white cis men. Cop’s authority will always be above the working class, it’s social caste’s all the way down.
Bill
February 9, 2024 at 11:28 am
Have you been to the DMV lately? How on earth would you notice that someone was dead? The staff may as well be dead for all the use they are and the customers look like they’ve died of boredom.
Sally B
February 9, 2024 at 11:47 am
A useless political stunt? Notice how “they” did use “their” performance “art” in the jurisdiction of America’s Sheriff — Grady Judd of Polk County?
Dont Say FLA
February 9, 2024 at 12:51 pm
The last “America’s Sheriff” was Joe Arpaio. How’s things going for that guy with his concentration tent camps and his criminal contempt rap sheet?
Oh yeah – TRUMP pardoned the law breaking law man from Arizona.
Vote GOP, the party of law and order for you, but not for us.
I swing You swing
February 9, 2024 at 2:01 pm
Agreed. It’s no one’s business. I should be allowed to enter whatever bathroom I choose. I should be able to shower in whatever gym facility I use and their locker room as well.
Keith Wilson
February 9, 2024 at 2:28 pm
When your entire “identity” depends on the actions of OTHER people, you have a very weak point.
Dont Say FLA
February 10, 2024 at 11:02 am
You’d be totally fine having “Female” stamped on your driving license, right Keith?
Scott W.
February 9, 2024 at 2:59 pm
There’s nothing controversial about requiring your chromosomes to be included on your state issued ID. The reaction of these jackasses to reality is what is controversial.
Dont Say FLA
February 10, 2024 at 11:04 am
Because DL info is available to polices on their car laptop, a DL should have zero information that can be used for profiling. You know there’s cops out there who have it in for women drivers, right? And there’s other cops out there who might decide to see if the lady on their laptop will trade them a favor to get out of that DUI, too.
Scott W.
February 10, 2024 at 4:09 pm
Because somebody might do something bad isn’t a legitimate reason not to put sex on identification.
Dont Say FLA
February 11, 2024 at 11:59 am
Granted, potential misuse isn’t always a reason to ban legitimate things.
But what reason IS there for having gender on a driving license? What’s the point? Why’s it there? What purpose can it have other than potential abuse?
Do they need to know what’s in your pants when you buy beer? No.
Do they need to know what’s in your pants when you drive? No
Voting? Nope.
Is there anything? Why is it there at all?
Was it that some sneaky female might have signed up for the military? They can do that these days openly as females.
Is it a poopy room thing? Have you ever showed your DL to get into your appropriate public bathroom? No.
So why? Why’s it on there? What’s the point?
Is a traffic stop less threatening when its a female? If so, that gets cops killed. Cops let their guard down, that’s when they get killed.
If for no other reasons, for officer safety alone, driving licenses should have gender entirely removed.
Scott W.
February 11, 2024 at 2:29 pm
It’s on ID to help identify the person, you dunce. With your logic why even have their surname on the ID.
Dont Say FLA
February 12, 2024 at 11:36 am
The driving license number identifies the person, and the only need for ID when driving should be to know whether your license exists and is current. Everything else on a license these days is for profiling via the laptops in every popomobile.
Scott W.
February 12, 2024 at 6:56 pm
If I were a cop I would definitely want to know the sex of the people I had to pull over.
Comments are closed.