While HB 1521 does not apply to private businesses like bars, cafés, grocery stores, restaurants, and shopping malls, one of the law’s many insufficiencies is that the average Floridian doesn’t actually know what it does.
According to sources who spoke with The Daily Beast, that lack of information has resulted in vigilante behavior, in which civilians attempt to enforce the statute in venues where it does not actually apply. They say they have been stopped and questioned while using the locker room at the gym and the bathroom at the gas station, among other places. The double whammy of the harm the law already does—and then how broadly it’s being used to target an already vulnerable population—has made it difficult for trans Floridians to participate in the outside world or go about their day just like everyone else.
Gina Duncan, strategic partnerships manager for Equality Florida, says that the “general public is misinterpreting these bills,” resulting in increased reports of harassment to the statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy group. A trans woman in central Florida, for instance, recently contacted her after she was prevented from using the restroom at a local cinema. Duncan says that the woman reported that a male customer had appointed himself the bathroom monitor, and was “challenging anyone, who in his opinion, appeared to be transgender.”
Florida
The ramifications of this rule could be far-reaching. All transgender individuals in the state with Florida driver's licenses not aligning with their “biological sex” might immediately be in possession of a fraudulent license. The state could seek to suspend or revoke the licenses of transgender individuals under this policy. Moreover, during traffic stops involving transgender individuals, they could face legal challenges with police officers if the officers believe the driver's license “misrepresents” their “biological sex.”
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Under this policy, transgender individuals in Florida could face considerable challenges in daily life. Many have already left the state, and of those remaining, 80% reportedly wish to leave. This policy could instantly criminalize transgender individuals who drive in the state with updated gender markers. It would compel transgender people to disclose their identity in any situation requiring a driver's license. Additionally, it would provide Florida a means to enforce its bathroom laws, which criminalize transgender individuals for using bathrooms that align with their gender identity in many public spaces.
The Escambia County School District, located in the Florida panhandle, has removed several dictionaries from its library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law. The American Heritage Children's Dictionary, Webster's Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster's Elementary Dictionary are among more than 2800 books that have been pulled from Escambia County school libraries and placed into storage. The Escambia County School District says these texts may violate HB 1069, a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) in May 2023.
HB 1069 gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that "depicts or describes sexual conduct," as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic. Rather than considering complaints, the Escambia County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district's librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate HB 1069.
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Along with dictionaries, the books removed from Escambia County school libraries as a result of this process include eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of The Guinness Book of World Records. Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are also locked in storage.
Classic texts like Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile are no longer available to Escambia County students. Twenty-three novels by Stephen King have been removed. The dragnet has also swept up books popular with the political right including Atlas Shrugged and two books by conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly.