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A gender non-conforming teenager from South Carolina was baffled when he was told to take off his makeup before posing for his driver’s license photo.

According to Daily Mail, Chase Culpepper was denied a new photo after the DMV forced him to take off his ‘disguise’ in order to look less like a girl.

“This is who I am and my clothing and make-up reflect that,” Chase said. ‘The Department of Motor Vehicles should not have forced me to remove my make-up simply because my appearance does not meet their expectations of what a boy should look like.”

The request for Chase to retake his photo was sent to the DMV by the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, but was shot down. Spokesperson Beth Parks explained that those are the rules for all individuals who apply for a driver’s license and has refused to make an exception for Chase.

“If it’s Thomas Jones on the license and yet it looks like a female, that is very confusing for them,” Parks said. “They want to know what the identity is.”

No word on whether Chase and his family will continue to fight the DMV on the issue. But his mother, Theresa, summed up how something that was supposed to be exciting for her son was completely ruined.

“Instead, he was singled out and discriminated against because he did not meet the DMV’s expectations of how a boy should look,” she told Pink News.

“I want my son to be able to be himself without discrimination or harassment. I love him that way and the government should not be telling him that he’s not OK the way he is.”

SOURCE: Daily Mail | VIDEO CREDIT: News Inc.