Woman Claims She Was Kicked Off A Flight For 'Misgendering' A Crew Member — But The Airline's Story Is Different
Should this traveling mom receive grace? Or were the flight's captains justified?
PrasitRodphan | Shutterstock Air travel has gotten to be tricky business lately. There's no shortage of footage showcasing passengers showing off the worst sides of their personalities while strangers and crew are left to pick up the pieces.
That's why when a women's health advocate named Jenna Longoria shared that she was kicked off her United flight for “misgendering” a flight attendant, people were skeptical that something more nefarious wasn't going on.
A woman claimed she was kicked off a flight for ‘misgendering’ a flight attendant, but United had a different take on the incident.
Longoria, a Texas-based mom and hormone expert from just outside of Austin, was traveling through the San Francisco International Airport with her 16-month-old son and mother when she admitted to “messing up” a flight attendant’s pronouns during the boarding process.
“They’re saying that it’s a ‘hate crime’ that I did,” she recounted on social media. “That I might not ever be able to fly United again… I really don’t know what to do. I don’t know what my rights are here.”
“When [the flight attendant], who identifies as a woman, gave me our boarding passes, I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ That is it,” she told the New York Post. “She got upset… they held my mother back and wouldn’t let her come with me [past the gate].” After her mother was held back, and she struggled to manage her luggage and son while getting on the plane, she tried enlisting the help of another flight attendant on board.
When she asked for help from this crew member, she again told him that “he,” the flight attendant at the boarding gate, held back her mother, who’d been helping her to care for her baby and get their belongings onto the plane.
Again “misgendering” the first flight attendant. She said the crew member on the plane tried to clarify their gender identity once again. “He said, ‘He?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ Then he said, ‘She’s wearing a dress.’”
After trying to board the United flight with her baby, she claimed she was forced off the plane for using the ‘wrong pronouns.’
“As a mother, my prerogative is to get my son safely on the plane and not what the pronouns that someone goes by,” she told the United representative, who then allegedly barred both her and her mother from staying on the flight.
“I was speaking to a flight attendant and got their pronouns wrong. The other flight attendant didn’t like it. I said I was sorry. I’m not very versed in pronouns,” Longoria said in her follow-up Instagram story from the gate. “I was holding my son who was having a temper tantrum, I had the car seat on my back — I wasn’t really focusing on anything except for getting my son’s car seat on the flight and getting him comfortable and safe.”
After the Daily Mail reposted this Instagram story, it became clear that this mom’s story wasn’t the entire truth.
“On the surface, this doesn’t look like a great look for United,” one person wrote in the comments. But, on the other hand, it’s clear there’s much more to this story than what she shared with her followers online.”
While they’ve since been deleted or have expired from Longoria’s Instagram account, she continued to document her experience with other staff members after being kicked off the flight — including a United official named Gabriella, according to The Post.
Gabriella, the United staff member, allegedly suggested that it was “what came out of her mouth” that ultimately got Longoria kicked off the plane — a decision that they were willing to make at the captain's discretion.
After United responded that she was kicked off for having ‘too many’ personal items, commenters agreed there was more to the story.
Allegedly in the video recorded with the staff member and on her personal Instagram story, Longoria continued to express her confusion over the entire situation. “I don’t wanna put words in their mouths because I still need statements,” the United staff member allegedly told her, “but some transgender comments were made, derogatory comments about being a bigot not being on the aircraft. This is what I heard.”
“There was no yelling, there was no pushing or shoving. That’s why I’m so very surprised,” she added. “It all happened very quietly.” United Airlines told The Post that Longoria and her family were prohibited from the aircraft “following a discussion about having too many carry-on items.”
While she’s yet to post any updates on the situation, she did post an Instagram story letting followers know she’d made it safely back to Texas with her son. “We’re still in shock over what happened today,” the caption read. “What happened to us was not right.”
While many TikTok commenters argued there was more to the story than what she shared, Longoria has posted screenshots of DM’s she’s since received from supporters. “So glad you made it home,” one read, “and [I’m] praying for a just outcome that helps transmute self-righteous bs completely unaware of the world of motherhood.”
With no other public responses or apologies from either party since the posts went viral, many theorize that the situation will likely always be a “he said, she said” debate.
“Stop assuming that one person is completely right or wrong,” another argued. “If the captain made the decision to keep her off the flight, they have that right.”
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.