Florida Cancels Trans Activist's Driving License Over Gender Change
TikTok campaigner after they used a "loophole" to have their gender listed as female when they had been born male.James Rose, who identifies as non-binary and uses she/they pronouns, announced they had succeeded in acquiring a driving license that identified them as female in a TikTok post.
However, on Tuesday, a popular conservative X account shared a letter addressed to them from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) saying the license was no longer valid.Newsweek contacted James Rose, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the FLHSMV for comment on Thursday via online contact form, email and telephone respectively outside of regular office hours.Conservative controlled Florida has passed a number of laws impacting on the transgender community in recent years including a ban of "classroom discussion" around gender identity and prohibiting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for transgender children, though this was later ruled unconstitutional.The debate over transgender rights, and whether these clash with women's rights, has become extremely heated in recent years with Donald Trump pledging to speak for "you" rather than "they/them" during the recent presidential election campaign.Rose, who goes by @jamesissmiling on TikTok where they have over 520,000 followers, posted a since-deleted video on the platform claiming they had succeeded in getting a driving license that described them as female.They said: "I just got my gender changed on my driving license in the free f****** state of Florida, my God Ron DeSantis would be screaming right now if he knew this."Rose continued: "You're not even supposed to be able to do this in this state.
Here's the loophole: listen up if you're replacing your driver's license, not renewing it, but replacing it because you [sarcastic finger gesture] lost it they have to take all of your information from what they consider a primary document.
