Miss Major, Trans Rights Trailblazer, Issues Dire Warning After Airport Incident

The 78-year-old Stonewall veteran said she was initially turned away while trying to board a domestic flight.

Miss Major // Quinn Dombrowski // Wikimedia Commons

In a series of Facebook videos posted last week, Stonewall veteran and trans rights revolutionary Miss Major Griffin-Gracy said her state-issued ID with an “X” gender marker was rejected by officials at an Arkansas airport. She said she was eventually able to board her scheduled flight to North Carolina, but only because she had her passport with her, which designates the 78-year-old woman a “male.”

“The only reason that I got on the plane was because I happened to have my passport with me and my passport is ‘male,’” she said. “Looking like this—male.”

As per current laws and TSA policies, a passport is not required to board domestic flights. But, Major warns, her “way of expressing gender” resulted in increased scrutiny.

Megan Bailey, spokesperson for the ACLU of Arkansas, told Erin in the Morning she could not speak to the specifics of Miss Major’s experience, but emphasized that IDs and passports with an “X” gender marker should be accepted for both domestic and international travel.

“That is clear under federal policy. The U.S. State Department explicitly states that passports with an ‘X’ marker remain valid,” Bailey said. “We stand with Miss Major and everyone facing these unnecessary barriers. Everyone deserves dignity, safety, and recognition, no matter their gender identity.”

A spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the agency “investigated the alleged incident at Clinton National Airport for the morning of the date in question and determined the interaction described did not occur with TSA. Additionally, TSA is fully complying with the White House Executive Order entitled ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’”

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that all newly-issued passports should reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth, among other far-reaching anti-trans measures. It’s caused chaos and confusion across the country as travelers scramble to ascertain state IDs that fit the administration’s stringent standards. Many trans people are being forced to use IDs that do not align with their gender identity and/or gender expression.

Such policies are also widely impacting married women—regardless of sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender assigned at birth—due to snafus caused by the changing of their last name, which has hindered some from obtaining REAL IDs or voting.

As per the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website’s handy, if not Kafkaesque, countdown clock, which is timed down to the second, U.S. travelers will need to have a “REAL ID” to board domestic flights and access certain federal facilities, starting on May 7.

“Visit your state’s driver’s licensing agency website to find out exactly what documentation is required to obtain a REAL ID,” the DHS website says. “At a minimum, you must provide documentation showing: 1) Full Legal Name; 2) Date of Birth; 3) Social Security Number; 4) Two Proofs of Address of Principal Residence; and 5) Lawful Status.”

Certain states may impose further requirements as well. CBS reported that millions of Americans still lack REAL IDs as the May 7 deadline fast approaches.

Meanwhile, on April 25, just one day after Miss Major posted about her airport experience, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in a federal district court, denouncing the passport policy as “discriminatory” and seeking injunctive relief for trans and nonbinary plaintiffs.

“The State Department’s refusal to provide transgender people with passports matching their lived sex, consistent with their gender identity, is a stigmatizing refusal to acknowledge their gender that deprives them of equal dignity,” the complaint says. “Having to use identity documents that do not align with their gender identity is also dangerous and can result in discrimination and violence against transgender people.”

Even after the May 7 deadline, IDs with an “X” gender marker should in theory remain valid under current federal standards. The ACLU of Arkansas recommends printing and carrying information from the State Department’s website affirming such policies.

Miss Major, meanwhile, used her experience to call on all trans people to be prepared for similar barriers upon traveling and to resist Trump’s increasingly dire attacks on the LGBTQ community.

“We, the people, have got to stop him now,” Major said. “Please pay attention to me. Stand up and fight his f***ing ass.”