Transgender woman says she was humiliated after DMV worker ordered her to remove her make-up for driver's license photo
A transgender woman who hails from Utah says she was publicly humiliated this week when a DMV worker ordered her to remove her makeup before she took her drivers' license picture because her appearance did not match her mentioned gender.
In an interview with Fox 13, Jaydee Dolinar, a University of Utah Ph.D. student and graduate teaching assistant said that the incident happened on Wednesday when she had gone to get her license replaced at the Fairpark Driver License Office in Salt Lake City.
Jaydee added that the DMV who attended to her took her license picture, helped in filling out the paperwork and went away. Around 10 minutes later she said a hostile supervisor came and told Jaydee that she would have to remove her makeup because of the gender mentioned on her license.
She said the supervisor told her she has to remove her make up, "because my appearance didn't match my gender, it wouldn't be able to be picked up by face recognition software." The supervisor allegedly told her that it was state policy but didn't give her a proper explanation of what it was and just said that they cannot "have confusion in the system."
When Jaydee asked the supervisor what she should, the supervisor just told her to use some hand sanitizer that they have to remove the makeup from her face. Jaydee added that she stood in the middle of the DMV while everyone watched her scrub off her makeup using just sanitizer and paper towels.
Jaydee shared she felt humiliated by that incident and began to cry because the hand sanitizer was stinging her eyes and face. And since it wasn't the best makeup remover, there was lipstick residue all across her face. She then had to retake her picture with the lipstick residue across her face and mouth.
That picture of Jayee is now the same image used on the temporary license that is currently being used by her. Talking about it, Jaydee shared, "It hurts, a lot,' she said of the image and incident. I don't want anybody to have to experience this. It's terrible. It’s like, just have some humanity."
In an interview with Fox 13, Chris Caras, Director of the Utah Department of Public Saftey Driver License Division shared that the department had gotten to know about Jaydee's complaint on Thursday. Adding to that he said that there was a miscommunication over a policy that does not allow "extreme makeup" because that would materially change the appearance of the person which makes it hard for them to ID them from their old pictures or make it easier to commit fraud.
Chris said, "We would definitely never support disrespecting any individual in our offices." He added that the department intends on sending Jaydee a license with her original picture that was taken, the one where she had her make-up on.