Florida DMV Targets Gay Married Couple?

Even if you believe that the right to enter into the civil contract of marriage should be granted or denied certain couples as a matter of state's rights, the targeting of a gay married couple in Florida by that state's Department of Motor Vehicles might cause a frisson of concern, if for no other reason than the story suggests that, when it comes to government bureaucracies, the left hand doesn't necessarily know what the right fist is doing.

An Orlando ABC local affiliate reported on how Florida couple Daniel and Scott Wall-Desousa -- who married in New York, a state where gay couples are afforded equal family rights under the law -- received letters from the DMV telling the men that they must undo their legal name change or face the loss of their drivers licenses.

"The warning came in the mail after Channel 9 did a story on how Daniel and Scott Wall-Desousa managed to legally change their name with an out-of-state marriage license," the ABC affiliate reported in a Nov. 11 story.

Until that point, the story indicated, there was a culture of "don't ask don't tell" at the Florida DMV around the issue of same-sex marrieds whose marriages had been granted in marriage equality states, and who then came back home to resume their domestic lives under their new, married names.

Scott Wall-Desousa called the DMV's move a "repercussion" of the temerity he and his husband exhibited, not only in getting married and asking for equitable treatment from the state agency, but in allowing themselves to be profiled by the local media.

"But their new last names are already on federal documents like Social Security cards and other documentation like voter ID cards and their work badges," the ABC affiliate reported.

Regarding the matter of the DMV's choice of target and timing, local news channel anchor Jorge Estevez asked the couple, "What does that say to you?"

Replied Scott, "It says it is a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy and that is offensive. It didn't work once and it is not going to work again."

The story was covered online by the Advocate.com on Nov. 14. The Advocate noted that the couple have been together for a decade.

Whether as a cost-savingmeasure or a backhanded show of respect for the men's now-married status, the DMV's letter was address to both spouses and used their hyphenated new surname.

Various online news sources, including the New Civil Rights Movement.com, reported that the Wall-Desousas intend to sue the state over the matter.

The men's plight is a new spin on an old headline. For years, transgender drivers have faced similar problems when their legal names and their gender identities -- and the names attached to those identity is -- did not match up. Anti-gay and anti-trans activists have protested when state lawmakers have amended legislation to resolve the problem, but state laws that offer no such accommodation arguably impose an extraordinary burden on trans citizens.

Transgender people who live, dress, and look like the gender with which they identify may still be listed as belonging to the other gender on their passports if they have not undergone expensive genital reconstruction surgery -- a step that many transpeople do not take due to the out-of-pocket costs involved.

Such barriers can be problematic. Mara Kiesling, the National Center for Transgender Equality's executive director, told EDGE in 2009 that, "We are more and more living in a country where having appropriate ID is necessary.

"Most of the focus on things like identification in news media has been around travel and how you need good ID to get on an airline," added Kiesling, who went on to note that, "you also need appropriate ID that matches to open a bank account, to ride on trains, to buy cigarettes, to drink alcohol and most importantly -- far, far more importantly -- to have a job."

The end result is that transgendered people are more vulnerable to de facto forms discrimination than are others. For at least one married gay couple in Florida, a similar form of discrimination seems to have reared its head.