Florida Bars Transgender Claims on Driver’s Licenses

The state of Florida will no longer allow people to put false information about their sex on their driver’s licenses.

Florida will prohibit people who identify as transgender from changing the sex on their state driver’s license, according to a report by NBC News.

Robert Kynoch, deputy executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, reportedly told the department’s executive director on Friday that the department will repeal a clause in the Driver License Operations Manual that allowed people to list a false sex on their licenses.

Kynoch explained that the department doesn’t have the authority to enforce a provision that allows an individual to change their sex on their driver’s license.

He added that the term “gender” in the clause “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.”

“A driver license is an identification document and, as such, serves a critical role in assisting public and private entities in correctly establishing the identity of a person presenting the license,” Kynoch wrote in a memo to the department’s executive director.

“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,” he added.

Moreover, misrepresenting one’s sex on a driver’s license constitutes fraud, and could carry criminal and civil penalties, including the cancellation, suspension or revocation of a driver’s license, Kynoch noted.

Molly Best, the department’s director of communications, which confirmed the policy change to NBC News, added that an individual can establish their sex while applying for a new Florida license by using documents such as a driver’s license from another state, a U.S. passport, or a U.S. birth certificate.

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