Jules was driving to their friends 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 Dont Say Gay bill and nervously handed over their drivers 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 drivers 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, were 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 drivers licenses but could still receive replacement licenses for any name or address changes.

Misrepresenting ones 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 dont know what to do: Theyre worried about being turned away from getting a replacement ID with an accurate gender marker, but theyre also anxious about what will happen if theyre pulled over again with a license that has other incorrect information.

The memo isnt 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 isnt 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 Departments authority to issue replacement licenses dependent on ones 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.

Floridas DHSMV rolled out the memo while the state legislature was still deliberating over HB 1639, a bill that would have narrowly defined sex by ones 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. Its so frustrating and I feel like were likely to see that again.