A Texas mom traveling with her 16-month-old son and mother claims they were kicked off a flight after she mistakenly misgendered a flight attendant.
Jenna Longoria was boarding her United Airlines flight to Houston at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday when she accidentally addressed a crew member by the wrong pronoun.
"When [the flight attendant], who identifies as a woman, gave me our boarding passes, I said, 'Thank you, sir.' That is it. That is it," Longoria told The New York Post. "She got upset."
Longoria chronicled the incident in a series of Instagram videos.
"The flight attendant has denied access to us because she said that I made a derogatory comment about one of the flight attendants because I didn't use the right pronoun," she said, adding that she's "not very versed with pronouns."
While Longoria, her son and her mother were ultimately denied boarding, the plane took off with their luggage on board.
"They took our luggage on the plane, which has my thyroid medication, which I'll be very sick without. My mother's medication. They basically said, tough luck. And they won't tell me exactly what I said," Longoria explained in a video.
Longoria also shared another video of her talking with a United official, whom she identified to The Post as Gabriella. The airline employee told Longoria that she still had to get her crews together and "fact find," but that it was ultimately the captain's decision to deny boarding.
"I don't want to go verbal about what I thought I heard or what I said heard, but the captain denied you," the woman said. "And when the captain denies you, it's the end of the story."
When Longoria asked why she was denied boarding, the worker responded, "For what came out of your mouth."
Longoria tried explaining that she simply used the wrong pronoun. "I didn't know they or he or she," she insisted. But the airline worker said there was more to the "verbal confrontation," something which Longoria denies.
"There was some more that I heard that you had a conversation with inflight," the worker said.
In a statement to The Post, United said Longoria and her family were prohibited from boarding the plane "following a discussion about having too many carry-on items." Longoria told the outlet that is "an absolute lie."
Still shocked with everything that unfolded, Longoria said she was in mom mode and not thinking about anyone else's gender identity.
"I was holding my son. He was having a temper tantrum. I had the car seat on my back. I wasn't really focusing on anything except getting my son's car seat on the flight and getting him comfortable and safe," she said. "They're saying that it's a hate crime that I did, that I might not even be able to ever fly United."
"I don't know what to do. I don't know what my rights are here," she added.
United's statement didn't address the possibility of any future airline ban, The Post noted.
Longoria, her son and her mother ended up getting tickets for a flight on a different carrier and made it home later that day.