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A woman was reduced to tears after being detained at airport because she’s transgender

Lilah Gibney
Lilah Gibney Photo: Screenshot/Twitter

A video of a transgender woman who was detained at an airport allegedly because of her transgender status has gone viral.

Lilah Gibney tweeted a video she made after she was released from detention at an unknown airport.

Related: TSA is pressuring trans people into showing their genitals before they can board a plane

“It’s so fucked up that trans people have to literally go through that,” Gibney said.

“I know it’s so f**king dramatic to cry over a f**king airport, but like it’s so annoying literally trans people have to go through this and get detained. I just can’t.”

In a reply to a stranger on Twitter telling her that she was not detained because she’s trans, she explained more.

“It was me getting pulled into a room and waiting for 5 diff[erent] rounds of security guards to come in to ask questions/pat me down/scan me with x rays & more,” Gibney wrote. “By my f**king self. Tell me when you’re discriminated against or shut the f**k up.”

A ProPublica review found that of the around 300 civil rights complaints filed against the TSA between 2016 and 2019, 5% were from transgender people, about five times more than the estimated percentage of the population that is trans.

Full-body scanners are particularly problematic, as they can flag transgender travelers for additional scrutiny if their bodies don’t look like cisgender people’s.

Gibney’s video has been viewed almost one million times.

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