A United Airlines passenger flying from San Francisco to Austin with her young child was kicked off her flight on Wednesday after misgendering a flight attendant. It’s disputed whether the misgendering incident is the only reason for her removal.
Jenna Longoria was traveling with her 16-month-old son and her mother. She says that the misgendering was an accident. The airline, though, says that “a party of three traveling out of San Francisco today was not allowed to board following a discussion about having too many carry-on items.” It seems likely that’s when the pronoun discussion occurred.
Last year United Airlines introduced wings with crew names and pronouns. These replaced separate nametags and crew wings.
According to her, she said “thank you, sir” to a flight attendant who identifies as a woman. Despite her immediate apology, explaining that she was preoccupied with her toddler and not good at preferred pronouns, things escalated. She says another flight attendant confronted her about the mistake during boarding.
United says they had too many carry-ons, and that eventually the woman was rebooked on a later flight. There’s often confusion over bringing on car seats and strollers and how those interact with standard carry-on limits.
Longoria took to Instagram to share what happened, with multiple videos about her side of the story. She was holding her son, who was having a tantrum, and carrying a car seat.
The woman tells her story from the jetbridge of the aircraft:
Here she is filming her interaction with United’s customer service after being kicked off the aircraft. I thought the employee handled this well, and non-confrontationally. She wasn’t accusatory. She didn’t get into debating what happened. She explained that it would be a mistake to go off of hearsay, where something might have been misheard. Instead, she could only work with the captain’s decision not to allow the passenger to fly.
Finally, off the aircraft and inside the terminal, she recaps her experience including not knowing how she was going to get home to Texas.
While Longoria says flight attendants accused her of committing a hate crime and suggested she might be permanently banned from flying with United Airlines, she was not at least so far. The airline did ultimately rebook her on a later flight:
Broadly speaking, while airlines like many big corporations have moved towards inclusiveness and recognizing the diverse backgrounds of their employees and making customers from all walks of life feel welcome, United has been the most ‘woke’ – supporting affirmative action in California, committing to choosing board members based on race and imposing speech codes.
As a lawyer I have heard too many accusations which don’t pan out when all the facts come out. This case seems like one of the just self-justification by the passenger. Possibly she has a case, possibly not.
Why is it OK for a bakery to not sell a cake to a gay person, but it’s a problem when we don’t provide services to a bigot? Either you have the right to refuse service or you don’t. Doesn’t matter if people agree with you ideologically. We decided via the Supreme Court you can deny service based on your sincerely held beliefs. Suck it up snowflakes and find a different airline if respecting humans is too hard of an idea for you to process.
But on top of that, this woman is clearly lying and exaggerating why she got bumped. She wanted to sneak on more carry-ons than she is allowed and threw a little cry baby fit when she didn’t get her way. Don’t like it? Fly private, I guess.
Count me amongst those who think this is about too many things, “woke” is just a way of trying to make it not her fault. I can believe a deliberate misgendering was the final straw, but I would be very surprised if it was the cause.
5 minutes of my life because I was bored
If she had too many items to carry on, they should have denied her entry at the gate. I believe she may have misgendered some united employee and they used this total denial of flight to show just how “committed” they are to DEI. The fact that they wouldn’t explain exactly why they chose such drastic action, which she deserves, hints at how trivial her “transgression” was. Don’t fly the ‘unfriendly’ skies!
It’s always suspicious when people record this stuff and shove it out to the masses.
@Loren the only people doing ‘deliberate misgendering’ are the mentally ill that are trying to convince us they’re not what they were born as. Truth sometimes hurts but it most certainly matters.
The US has turned into the twilight zone. It’s ridiculous. Makes me wish I could buy my own island.
Moms for liberty are out in force. They will film any kind of interaction that they claim involves being disrespected or hurt by a member of the trans community. They only need to get the story some traction and a headline that grabs attention and steers their narrative. The court of public opinion is swayed through social media. Same thing just happened with some drag performers in Waikiki.
It isn’t always possible to read a name badge.
My question: Did the flight attendant LOOK like a man ( to a reasonably-observant person?) I’ve made the mistake of calling a masculine looking woman “Sir” before. It was not meant as an insult. And it didn’t result in a fight.
Instead of making and posting all of these videos, this mother should be:
1. Tending to the needs of her son. That should be her #1 priority.
2. Spending her time determining if she can be placed on a later flight, or finding another airline to fly her to her destination.
3. NOT placing medicine in checked baggage. Every airline cautions its passengers to carry their medications in their carry-on bags. That is just common sense.
It will be fascinating to learn exactly what she said to the flight attendant, and if, in fact, she was attempting to carry on a prohibited amount of baggage.
Flight attendants should be renamed as the police….
“I’m not good with pronouns”. What does that even mean? Seems like she got booted for good reason, being a deliberate clout chasing provacteur is increasingly uncivil.
She explained that she’s “not good at preferred pronouns”? Something tells me that if things started with an innocent mistake, she just couldn’t stop digging herself a deeper hole.
Thanks for showing me not to fly United. The male flight attendant is being catered to for no reason. He’s a male and he was correctly identified as one.
Look in your pants, that’s what you are. and unless you have something cut off. – you are just a crossdresser
Well, one more reason why I will not fly United and why I prohibit any one of 10,000 employees from flying United. It is extremely improbably that the lady misgendered anybody on purpose.
As for too many carry on items, there should be, if there aren’t already, exceptions for strollers and car seats for infants.
Ah JC is back. Always wanting accommodations for crotch goblins
“misgendering” is bullsh*t.
Some tranny freak in a FA uniform is butt-hurt because their voice doesn’t match their appearance, so a woman and her toddler have to bounce??
This LGBTQIA+$&@!! crap has gone too far.
Also, as usual, Gary sucks.
Scooter has turned UAL into a woke version of hell.
@Emid and Tda1986, thanks for catching the “not good at preferred pronouns” I missed on first read. Wow, that sounds like my racist Grandmother in the 60s and 70s complaining about the acceptability of names for ethnic groups changing.
Ida snapped his pronoun off and throat punched him in the Adam’s apple and say now your a woman . I’m so sick of the “I identify as” bull. But hey guess I identify as a real man should, my dog identifys as a professional non-bias ass licker, my job identifys as taxed slave labor, my truck identifies as mobile money pit, my weapons identify as wireless hole punching devices, and last but not least …. if you agree you identify as a normal human being … congrats heres a fking cookie …..but if you don’t agree then you identify as a disillusioned narcissistic fking bitchbaby….. don’t worrie though you can blog and whine about it some more and they also make euthanasia pills you can take with your estrogen/testosterone supplements. Then you can identify as a skeleton of the afterlife clan. Fk your feeling and get fked. But have a nice day ….
This is just sad, never flying United again
The real tragedy is bringing the screaming baby on board in the first place. That’s torture to a baby and everyone around them.
Sometimes ppl really want to be something they look nothing like, and don’t pass the the initial vibe check. Luckily, when I’ve gendered someone by their natural gender or the one they look most like, and been corrected, I’ve had a nice convo after.
But if you go down a Tiktok hole, there’s a plethora of videos of ppl going on a tangent for someone getting their pronouns wrong. If fact, someone does bait videos of them getting misgendered at restaurants and then they’re so rude to the servers for misgendering them *rolls eyes*
When will ppl stop looking for external validation from strangers?
No. I will NOT look for a name tag to find your preferred pronoun.
Misgendering (whatever the hell that is) is the new pushing people in front of trains.
So United has become a safe haven for the disturbed and confused.United gets big money for joining the prounoun club.
Obviously the prounouns flipped out and created this mess. The jokes on them. Their being used for one big ugly ritual.
I really have a hard time understanding why so many people care how other people identify their own gender. Unless you are a woman competing in a gendered sport against a person who went through puberty as a male or you are in a relationship with someone who comes out as transgender during the relationship, I cannot imagine a valid reason for anyone else to care. It would be like me refusing to call someone Bob because his birth certificate says Robert.
I also I find it concerning how many people seem to be hyper-focused on the genitalia of transgender people. I think “disturbed and confused” might be a more apt description for these people.
I am VERY glad to see the comments siding against that bigot. “not good at pronouns” Pronouns are easier than names. This should absolutely be enough to book a passenger as a passenger misgendering is creating a hostile and uncomfortable situation for a safety attendant, which is what flight crew are. Some people think people should suck up being misgendered for a few hours—no, YOU can put up with using someone’s preferred pronouns for a few hours especially when that person is responsible for saving your pathetic life if anything goes wrong.
Soooo, as soon as my little hands are wrapped around my first drink (Bloodymary), I will simply say “Thank YOU” to my flight attendant. When my flight attendant asked me if I would like another, I will say “why YES, Thank you”. What is down in peoples pants, is irrelevant to me! With a drink or 3 and music in my ears, I wont hear the screaming babies.
I’m pro no babies on flights. The potential for ruining an entire plane full of peoples trip isn’t fair to the full plane fare paying people.
If you look and dress like Butch Cassiddy (or a UA uniform) expect to be called Sir or Mr quite often.
Likewise, if you look and dress rather like Doris Day, expect to be called Miss or ma’am quite often.
Snowflakes and rose petals who can’t handle that simple concept need to find alternative employment with no customer contact.