#Florida HB1639

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lil Kalish at HuffPost:

Jules was driving to their friend’s house in St. Petersburg, Florida, last year when a police officer pulled them over for a busted taillight. Jules wondered if the officer saw their “Say Gay” sticker — a small protest to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill — and nervously handed over their driver’s license. The 26-year-old EMT in training had legally changed their gender marker to an M on their state documents in 2019, but their photo still reflected how Jules looked early in their medical transition, someone without a thick dark mustache and more baby-faced. The officer returned Jules’ driver’s license without any mention of their photo. But the officer did scold Jules, who had recently moved to a new home, for not having their current address on their ID. When Jules, who is using a pseudonym out of fear of harassment, went to their local Department of Motor Vehicles in November to update their address, employees told them there was no record of their gender marker update and that they could not get a replacement ID with their new address and keep the M at the same time.

“I seem to think that they lost my paperwork,” said Jules, who is nonbinary and transmasculine. “The person sitting across from me at the time was pretty much like, ‘Any point going forward, any other time you change this ID, we’re going to have to put an F on it.’ I was like, ‘Damn, wow.’” Jules said the same thing happened when they tried to get a replacement ID in January. Then, on Jan. 31, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles quietly issued a memo stating that residents could no longer update or change their gender on state driver’s licenses but could still receive replacement licenses for any name or address changes. “Misrepresenting one’s gender, understood as sex, on a driver license constitutes fraud … and subjects an offender to criminal and civil penalties, including cancellation, suspension, or revocation of his or her driver license,” the memo read.

Now transgender Floridians like Jules don’t know what to do: They’re worried about being turned away from getting a replacement ID with an accurate gender marker, but they’re also anxious about what will happen if they’re pulled over again with a license that has other incorrect information. The memo isn’t a formal law, rule or policy, advocates told HuffPost, which means it may be enforced at different department locations around the state. But even though there isn’t a law in place, the reality is that many trans Floridians are barred from updating their gender marker on their licenses, said Quinn Diaz, a public policy associate at LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida. People can still update their gender marker on newly issued licenses if they have already done so on other documents such as a passport or birth certificate.

“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,” wrote Molly Best, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, in an emailed statement. “The security, reliability, and accuracy of government issued credentials is paramount.” Florida’s DHSMV rolled out the memo while the state legislature was still deliberating over HB 1639, a bill that would have narrowly defined sex by one’s genitalia at birth and also barred transgender people from updating their IDs. “Sponsors of the bill started presenting the case for passing HB 1639 on the basis that it would bring the state into compliance with its current operations at the DHSMV,” Diaz said. “They were saying the bill was necessary because of the memo that was released by the agency days earlier in a unilateral overreach of its delegated authority. It’s so frustrating and I feel like we’re likely to see that again.”

State lawmakers ultimately rejected the bill and nearly two dozen other anti-LGBTQ bills this spring. But the memo, Diaz said, is an example of the larger trend across Florida state agencies — many of which are stacked with DeSantis appointees who are sympathetic to his anti-trans agenda — creating policies or unofficial guidance that will help pave the way for other anti-trans legislation down the line. Under DeSantis, Florida has in many ways been a testing ground for the broader conservative movement to push some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ policies — from the memo to laws barring trans people from bathrooms and gender and sexuality from being discussed in public classrooms.

“The right wing was using Florida as a petri dish for what would be possible across the country should they gain power in Washington, D.C., again,” said Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. “I think we should believe them. It is a road map to making America a place like Florida, and allowing the federal government to do much of what we’ve seen governors like DeSantis and [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott do across the country.” The reality unfolding in Florida today is just a microcosm of what the United States could look like if Donald Trump were to be elected president this November, according to a nearly 1,000-page document that lays out goals and recommendations for a conservative president. The “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” better known as Project 2025, draws upon many of the current state-level anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies and expands them to the national stage by any means necessary.

‘The Worst Of Everything We’ve Seen’

Authored by former Trump officials and dozens of right-wing organizations including the Heritage Foundation, nearly every page of Project 2025 details policies that would impact LGBTQ+ people — and there’s a particular focus on transgender people. On the very first page of the manifesto, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts laments the “corruption” of the country “under the ruling and cultural elite” whose children “suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” Many of the document’s suggestions are things that advocates say Trump could enact on his first day through a series of executive orders, like barring trans people from the military, and removing gender-affirming care and abortion from veteran health care policies. The document also calls for policies to redefine sex as “biological sex,” which not only effectively erases the legal recognition and protection of transgender people but goes against modern science. Project 2025 also recommends rolling back Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court decision that protects LGBTQ+ people from employment discrimination; eliminating the promotion of gender-affirming care for minors nationwide; reinterpreting Title IX to permit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; and abolishing the Department of Education and returning “control of education to the states.”

The project’s agenda encompasses a number of recommendations that target the very existence of LGBTQ+ people. Per Project 2025, a second Trump administration would erase the legal recognition of transgender identity — and go as far as to delete any mention of terms including gender identity, sexual orientation, diversity and abortion from every “federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation to exist.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would stop collecting data on gender identity, and the administration would block transgender students in public schools from using a name or pronoun that is different from what is listed on their birth certificates without the written permission of their parents.

The conservative manifesto illustrates a vast agenda to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” In a chapter about the Department of Health and Human Services, former Trump HHS director Roger Severino, who drafted many of Trump’s anti-trans health policies, urges the incoming HHS secretary to “proudly state … that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure.”

HuffPost reports on how a 2nd Donald Trump "Presidency" would be a massive nationwide nightmare for trans, intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people (and LGBTQ+ people and their allies more broadly), with the assistance of The Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. 🏳️‍⚧️

[nando161mando]

Restrictions on using restrooms

Restrictions on medical care

Restrictions on medical privacy

And now Florida wants to take away drivers licenses and health insurance from anyone trans

The Florida House Select Committee is moving HB1639 forward

This would replace “gender” with “sex” on licenses and require insurers to cover detransition costs along with harmful detransition therapy

…because freedom. 🦅

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=80354&SessionId=103

[spiralsketchbook]

It's transgender day of visibility and I live in Florida. Several sources have issued travel advisories against this state for transgender people, but I live here. The Republican party is leading the way in trans discrimination and eradication, using this state as experimentation grounds to see how best to go about it and I live here. I haven't been on hormones for near a year now because they're inaccessible and unmanageable, since I live here. They don't want me to live here, or at all, really.

However, earlier this month, 21 of 22 anti-transgender bills died in session. HB1639, which banned gender marker changes and barred insurance coverage of gender affirming care in favor of conversation therapy? HB1663, that protected abusive parents of transgender children? HB599, which banned the mere sharing of pronouns in government buildings and businesses? All of them, dead on the house floor. The only one to survive was HB 1291, which banned educating teachers in DEI topics. They can still seek out their own education. And new bills are being introduced all the time.

It's hard for people outside of here to fathom, and I have trans friends from the north asking me to leave every time a new headline hits. I don't think anyone should have to leave their home, ever. I believe in the right to protect yourself and your homeland. There are hundreds of thousands of transgender people who call Florida their home. The death of those bills is a beacon of hope for each and every one of us that we will not be leaving our home. We are here. You can see us today and we'll still be here tomorrow.

As for what you can do, check where you live. Call your representation and make sure they aren't supporting anti-trans bills. If they are, vote for people who don't. (Please vote in November, at least. For every position open. It's not about morals, it's about policy and who gets to stack the supreme court.) Donate to your local queer support groups. They exist and need help. You can do something, even if it's just being respectful. Or sending me 5 dollar. (https://ko-fi.com/spiralsketchbook). #tdov #tdov2024

Also. It's Easter. Happy Easter for those who celebrate.

[transfloridaresources]

[Photo ID: White background with small rainbow stretching across it off center. Text reads: '#DefeatHB1639. Email Bankson now! With HB1639 passing through its first committee, we must continue the pressure on Rep. Bankson to rescind his hateful bill targeted at the queer and trans community of Florida! Email Rep. Bankson at doug.bankson@myfloridahouse.gov and demand he rescind HB1639 now! Let him know how hate does not belong in Central Florida and that his constituents will continue to stand up against this hate-filled agenda. Script in Linktree! #NotOneStepBack. Orlando for Gender Equality.' /End ID]

Email script: https://linktr.ee/orlando4ge Image source

HB1639 SPONSOR DOUG BANKSON doug.bankson@myfloridahouse.gov Hello, this is [your name here], and I’m a concerned resident of Orlando. I’m writing today because I am deeply concerned about the anti-LGBTQ bills currently under consideration in the House and Senate. I believe in equality, diversity, and inclusivity, and I expect Rep. Bankson to represent these values. I want to make it clear that as a constituent, I demand that Rep. Bankson rescind HB 1639, otherwise known as the Trans Erasure bill, because of its discriminatory nature. Hate does not belong in Central Florida and these types of bills do not represent us. HB 1639 is a gross attack on trans and gender non-comforming individuals’ right to correct identification. Your constituents are closely watching your actions on this issue, and we will remember your stance during future elections. Thank you for taking the time to listen. I trust that Rep. Bankson will make the right decision and kill his discriminatory bill. Our community deserves a representative who stands up for equality.