A Texas woman traveling with her 16-month-old son and his mother claims she was removed from a flight home on Wednesday after she misrepresented the gender of a flight attendant.
Jenna Longoria, a women’s health and hormone expert from suburban Austin, told The Washington Post that she accidentally addressed a United Airlines flight attendant by the wrong pronouns multiple times as she was preparing to board a flight at San Francisco International Airport around 9 a.m.
“when [the flight attendant]”She identified as a woman and she handed me my boarding pass and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and that was it,” Longoria, still confused by the incident, told The Washington Post on Wednesday night.
“She was upset. I walked up to walk down the aisle of the plane and she held my mother down and wouldn’t let her come with me. [past the gate],” she said.
Once on the plane, she asked for help from another male flight attendant, who she said had detained her mother at the gate while she was helping care for her son.
“He said, ‘Him?’ and I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘She’s wearing a dress,’” Longoria said.
“My son is crying in my hands and I’m about to board a plane,” she recalled. “As a mother, my right is to get my son safely on that plane, not what pronouns someone uses.”
She admitted on social media that she’s “not very familiar with pronouns.”
Longoria, her son and her mother were ultimately barred from boarding the flight, which departed with their luggage and medication still on board.
In a statement, United Airlines told the Post that Longoria and her family were banned from flying “as a result of discussions regarding having too much carry-on luggage,” a claim that Longoria denounced as a “complete lie.”
mother She documented the incident on Instagram.There, she posted a video of her speaking with a United official, who identified herself as Gabriella, who had come to discuss the situation.
Gabriella told her they had to get statements from witnesses to “find out the facts”, but acknowledged that it was the captain who ultimately made the decision to take her off and “that’s the end of the story”, the footage shows.
When Longoria asked for further clarification, United officials said he was denied “because of the words that came out of his mouth.”
“I want you to know that you were removed from this ship because of an argument with my staff,” she tells the family, “and it was confirmed by the captain. They heard it all.”
Longoria explains that she still doesn’t understand what she said that prevented her from boarding the plane.
“I don’t want to speak for them because we still need a statement, but there were transgender comments and derogatory comments about flying because it’s prejudiced. That’s what I heard,” the United official said.
“What?” she asks in disbelief in the video.
Longoria said Wednesday night that if the captain had been nearby to hear what actually happened, he would have been allowed to board the plane.
Longoria said Gabriela told him he would likely be banned from flying on United Airlines as a result of the incident.
“I was very shocked. It was very traumatic,” she added.
United Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the possibility of further airline bans.
Longoria said the entire situation was handled calmly.
“There was no yelling, no pushing, so I was very surprised,” she said. “It all happened quietly, so no one else could have heard it. [passengers] I knew what was going on.”
Longoria and her mother were stuck at the airport, not knowing whether they could board another United Airlines flight, so they decided to purchase tickets on an American Airlines flight to Austin departing three hours later.
Longoria said she has not received an apology or compensation for her American Airlines ticket.
