The U.S. Department of Agriculture threw out a farmer’s license application because it contained a “banned word.”

Georgia cattle farmer Gene King “applied for a special ID through the USDA called a Premises Number,” which allows him to buy and sell cattle across state lines, Fox 5 reports.

King lives in Gay, Georgia. Because the application included the word “gay,” it was rejected because it included a “banned word.”

“No one’s got a problem coming to Gay, Georgia,” King says. “I don’t have a problem living in Gay, Georgia. But the USDA’s got a problem with Gay, Georgia.”

The town was founded in 1882 and named after William F. Gay.

That doesn’t matter to the USDA because they apparently think “gay” means something else.

“She said it’s kicking it out saying that’s an offensive word and won’t accept your application,” according to the farmer.

After trying to resolve the confusion, King says a USDA bureaucrat proposed a “work around:” changing his town’s name to “Bay” on the application.

“And I said no, I don’t want to submit it as Bay, Georgia,” King says he told the worker over the phone. “I want to submit it as Gay, Georgia because that’s where I live. And she said do you want a number or not?”

The USDA claims it created a database of words with “bad connotations.”

The agency says in a statement:

The premises identification allocator was originally developed in the early 2000s for the National Animal Identification System, using the technology available at the time.  The program was very contentious and IT developers were concerned about the possibility of people attempting to create “bad” premises IDs to prove there was a problem with the program or its IT systems.  They created a database of words with bad connotations that would not be allowed in the system.

Since that time, the NAIS program has ended and been replaced by animal disease traceability regulations.  The IT architecture was repurposed to meet the new regulations, until the time it could be redesigned to take advantage of newer technology available to validate addresses.  After a delay due to intensive efforts to combat highly pathogenic avian influenza this spring, the agency is working to upgrade the technology so this will no longer be an issue.

But still was an issue, according to King. And he’s not backing down.

“My name is Gene King. I live here in Gay, Ga. That’s G-A-Y, not B-A-Y,” he tells the news station.