Transgender Rights and the Airline Passenger Experience
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APEX Insight: Although transgender rights are having an unprecedented moment of visibility in the media, legislature that protects these rights is still catching up. While the TSA has stopped using the word “anomaly” to describe transgender travelers and two major American airlines have publicly condemned a law that subjugates transgender individuals, there is still room for progress.
In early August, Canadian model Gigi Gorgeous claimed she was detained at Dubai International Airport because she is transgender. With an Instagram post, she helped extend the spotlight on transgender rights – which has been shining brightly on American schools in recent months – to the airline passenger experience.
“Traveling as a trans can be very, very tricky,” transgender actress and frequent flyer Laverne Cox, told APEX Media at the Television Critics Association Summer 2016 Press Tour.”There are trans folks I know, who are routinely stopped by the TSA, going through the body scans … We are having an unprecedented moment of transgender visibility in the media and we haven’t been under attack more legislatively than we are right now.”
“We are having an unprecedented moment of transgender visibility in the media and we haven’t been under attack more legislatively than we are right now.” – Laverne Cox, transgender actress and activist
Earlier this year, Cox, who is constantly traveling between coasts, working on her new CBS series, Doubt in Los Angeles and then flying back to New York City to continue her Emmy nominated role on Orange Is the New Black, felt hassled by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) while traveling through Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. “I cried during the TSA pat down and [while] watching folks go through every inch of my property,” Cox tweeted. “It’s deep how unsafe I felt so that we can all be ‘safer.'”
Still, progress is being made. Last October, the TSA officially announced it would stop using the word “anomaly” to describe transgender airline travelers. Both American Airlines and United Airlines have publicly condemned the discriminatory North Carolina law, passed earlier this year, that requires individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth.
Last year, San Diego International Airport changed the signs on 12 of its single-stall public restrooms to reflect gender neutrality. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport started overhauling restrooms as part of a renovation in 2012, relabeling its new “family” restrooms as simply “restroom,” designated by signs with the symbols of a woman, child, man, transgender person and a wheelchair. While steps are being taken toward gender neutrality in the airline passenger experience industry, there is still much distance left to cover.