A Florida House panel Thursday approved a controversial bill that would require driver’s licenses and identification cards to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth and impose requirements for insurers who cover treatments such as hormone therapy for transgender people.
The Republican-controlled House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee voted 12-6 along party lines to approve the bill (HB 1639), which has drawn heavy opposition from LGBTQ people and advocacy groups. With lawmakers nearing the end of the fourth week of the 60-day legislative session, the Senate does not have a similar bill.
The House bill would require that insurance companies and health plans offering coverage for such treatments as hormone-replacement therapy and surgeries for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria also over coverage for “de-transitioning.”
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Rep. Doug Bankson, an Apopka Republican who is helping sponsor the bill, said it would not mandate coverage but is about “parity.”
The bill also would require driver’s licenses and identification cards to reflect a person’s sex, based on “the person’s sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.”
Rep. Dean Black, a Jacksonville Republican who is co-sponsoring the bill, said such identification could help medical and law-enforcement officials. “This is about biology, not ideology,” Black said.
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But Democratic lawmakers and numerous public speakers blasted the bill, saying it would discriminate against transgender people. GOP lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis in recent years have approved a series of measures targeting transgender people.
“Let them be,” Rep. Marie Woodson, D-Hollywood, said. “Let the transgender community be because they are people, they are human beings and they belong.”
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