Trans advocates stage die-ins at Florida DMVs to protest rule erasing their identities

Dozens of trans activists and allies staged “die-ins” at DMVs across Florida on Friday morning, protesting a new rule that criminalizes correcting the gender marker on driver’s licenses in the state.

Demonstrators occupied DMV offices in Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and Gainesville, laying on the floor with “tombstone” epitaphs that read “Killed by Ron DeSantis,” “Killed by the DMV,” and “Hate Kills,” among others.

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The protests were organized by a coalition that included Prism, Youth Action Fund, Equality Florida, Hope CommUnity Center, GLSEN Central Florida, and SPEKTRUM Health.

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“Participants will stage die-ins to underscore the devastating consequences of efforts to erase the transgender community’s legal recognition,” read a press release by Prism.

The new rule, issued in a department-wide letter distributed to Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on January 26, ordered that gender will be interpreted as “biological sex.”

Any individual “misrepresenting” their gender can be found guilty of fraud and face civil and criminal penalties and revocation of licensure.

“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,” a copy of the memo read.

Permitting trans people to update gender markers on their driver’s licenses would “prevent the state from enforcing its laws,” the letter read, alluding to a ban in Florida on transgender individuals using bathrooms that align with their gender and rules targeting gender-affirming care. 

Sources indicate the rule change was issued unilaterally by the DeSantis administration DMV, even as a bill moves through the Florida legislature to accomplish the same end. The so-called “What Is a Woman Act” would ban driver’s licenses with gender markers that indicate an individual’s sex is different from the one assigned to them at birth.

As with Florida’s Board of Medicine ban on transgender care, the DeSantis administration didn’t wait for legislators to impose the same discriminatory rules through legislation.

The “die-in” was accompanied by an email campaign from coalition partners demanding the Biden administration use the Real ID Act to overturn DeSantis’ latest attempt to erase trans identity.

If the new rule holds up, Florida would become the first state to prohibit driver’s license changes under criminal penalty for transgender individuals.