By Bill Cotterell
As Florida legislators work on hundreds of bills in the 2024 session, they ought to ask themselves some threshold questions every time they debate a bill.
Is this really a problem actually happening all over Florida?
Are we dealing with something worthy of a grown-up’s attention, or am I just posturing for the voters back home?
The 60-day lawmaking session that convened last week has plenty of serious business to discuss. There are matters of homeowners insurance, education, health care and public safety, to name just a few. These require varying degrees of hard work and expenditure of tax money, and they’re often not glamorous.
But there are also some feel-good bills and cheap shots that require no courage to vote for and bring the political bonus of being difficult for an opponent to argue against this summer, when most legislators will be back home running for re-election.
And no topic makes for easier demagoguery than sex, specifically any activity that makes strait-laced Republicans a little squeamish.
After the last two sessions — with passage of the “don’t say gay” law, tightened abortion restrictions, a crackdown on drag performances and the purge of school library shelves — you’d think Florida has little left to attract chanting demonstrators, rainbow banners and colorful picket signs to the Capitol.
But there’s a dozen or so proposals pending to provoke the LGBTQ activists and their Democratic allies who mainly speak out, offer doomed amendments and cast futile votes against bills being rushed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk.
Consider, for instance, House Bill 1233, which says the sex listed on your driver’s license or state identification card has to be the same as the anatomy you were born with. The real-world effect of this is just to needlessly insult trans people. If a man decides to live as a woman, or the other way around, it’s a free country and he or she has a right to do so.
If a cop is puzzled by the information on a license, a couple of questions can straighten it out — “Yeah, that’s an old picture, and that was my name when I was a guy.”
Do we have thousands of drivers, or people showing identity cards for other reasons, who cause massive confusion all over Florida? Or is this just a cheap, easy way for lawmakers to cast a vote for traditional family values — and potentially to upstage an opponent with TV ads and mass mailings saying this guy might be soft on trans people.
Some transgender teachers are challenging the constitutionality of a law restricting use of personal pronouns in schools. A bill pending for this session expands that law, forbidding government agencies and contractors from using the “he” or “she” or “they” as desired by a trans or non-binary person.
That one also says non-profit organizations and companies receiving state payments may not require their employees to undergo training on sexual orientation, sexual identity or gender expression. Never mind if some of those companies, or individual employees, think such instruction is useful in creating a harmonious work environment.
In this regard, the conservative Republican Legislature will make an exception to its usual hands-off approach to private enterprise and tell employers how to deal with a small number of staffers.
But do we need a law?
If your official identification says “John Smith” and you live your life as “Jane Smith,” what harm is done? Anyone observant enough to be a traffic cop, or a school registrar or some other kind of official functionary can probably clear up any confusion pretty quickly. It’s hard to imagine some necessary government function, licensing requirement or official verification that requires retaining a person’s original genitalia.
The real purpose of these bills is not to meet any real needs of the state, or solve any pressing problems of the people. It doesn’t even matter much if the bills pass or fail.
Introducing them and advocating these ideas in the House and Senate gives their sponsors bragging rights. To tell voters back home they stood up to that very loud and highly visible LBGTQ crowd.
That’s a lot easier, and gets more TV publicity, than dealing with rising hurricane insurance rates on Florida’s coasts or sinking reading and math scores in our schools.
Bill Cotterell is a retired capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at bcotterell@govexec.com.
JimboXYZ says
The DL is an official documentation of identity, it’s used for bank accounts, employment. If a DL is used to identify an individual with a photo, signature, it’s like a birth certificate. You know, people forget, but back under Obama, not a Republican, the States required everyone to produce a birth certificate for citizenship. It didn’t matter your age, gender, race, education, the DL, voter registration, to get one, you needed a birth certificate on file. Trust me on this, I ended up having to get certified birth certificates to get a valid DL & anything else. This has been around for decades & centuries really. Here you go, I-9 Form, see page 2 of the pdf. This goes as far back as the 1970’s that I know of when I sought to go wash dishes at a seafood restaurant during tourist season in Daytona Beach, FL. And that list certainly applies to this very day in 2024. The rules are the rules, play by them the same as everyone else has to.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-9.pdf
melly says
Thank you. I’m seriously tired of being scolded because I don’t want to help facilitate someone’s fantasy life. And it IS a fantasy that Johnny can just magically turn into Sally with wishes and drugs and surgery.
Nobody has a problem with you, doing you, on your own time, in your own way. What everyone wants to gloss over now–for some reason–is the reality that your fantasy life stops at the end of your own nose. Total strangers looking back at you do not have to support you in the public domain. This is not the DMV, the library, the courts or anybody else’s problem, it is yours.
Nancy N. says
The real question here should be…why do you care so much? Why is it of such importance to you what genitals a person has or whether there is a “M” or an “F” on their birth certificate? Why do you care what name a person chooses to go by? How does any of this affect your life in any way?
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. You only imagine it does because you fear what you don’t understand.
If I can automatically change my last name on marriage, a football player can legally become “Ochocinco” and a court can change Kanye West’s name to “Ye”, why can’t someone change their name to reflect their personal gender identity? Names are not sacrosanct.
Skibum says
Melly, your argument makes about as much sense as telling someone who introduces themself to you as Jill that she doesn’t look like a “Jill” to YOU so instead you are always going to call her by the name you think fits her best, which is Catherine. Doesn’t it strike you as incredibly disrespectful to others that you refuse to use someone’s preferred name? Call me stupid, but not even moronic DeSantis is suggesting that we enlist a bunch of genital police to randomly stop individuals on their way to the bathroom in order to visually inspect everybody’s private parts to verify that they are intact and correlate with a photo and identifying information on their state issued identification before they are allowed to pee… maybe that will become a future bill for our idiotic GOP legislators to rant about! In the meantime, why is it so hard to respect other people just a little bit by being decent human beings without going full raging MAGA extremist and vilifying those who you deem to be different and not worthy of being treated like YOU would like to be treated??? It is not that difficult to be NICE.
Ray W. says
Well, there is always the argument that some FlaglerLive commenters want to be addressed by whatever pseudonym they select. We all can just make up a name and then change it at will and Mr. Tristam will publish it anyway. Doesn’t seem to hurt anyone.
Pogo says
@Ray W.
These “burner” names are obvious and conspicuous childish banality; before social media, it was the usual reason to avoid the writing on walls, and aroma of public restrooms.
Between regard for the 1st Amendment (and the reason it’s first) and practical necessity, I put no blame on Mr. Tristam. We have both noted he works 7 days a week, 365 days a year (and damn, this is a leap year). The vandals are like Trump, trailing toilet paper stuck to his shoe in front of the whole world.
May you, and Mr. Tristam, live long and prosper.
Ed P says
I agree with you Ray. But why does the majority of the Flagler live community use pseudonyms?
Skibum says
You’re absolutely right, Ray. I have been using “Skibum” online and in my email address for many years. Of course, that isn’t my name… it is Dave, but my favorite pastime since before I was old enough to drive a car was snow skiing, and I often look back fondly on the many years I spent speeding hell bent down a ski slope in “God’s country” somewhere in the Western hemisphere. Hence, the moniker stuck in my brain. Why can’t we all be called whatever we like? It sems to me that this aversion to calling people by their preferred name, or pronoun was never an issue until it was highjacked by the rightwing extremists who were determined to make this issue a political cause celebre.