Transgender advocates call out WestJet for forcing passengers to identify as male or female

Transgender advocates across Canada are calling out national airline WestJet for not allowing people to choose X as a gender, instead of male or female, when booking flights.

They say WestJet is violating their human rights.

"It is a legal gender marker in our laws, it's a violation of the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms]," said Iz Lloyd, a non-binary person from Halifax who was recently denied boarding a WestJet flight until they conceded to identifying as their sex assigned at birth.

Lloyd, who uses the pronoun they, said their passport has an X instead of male or female.

"It's forcing people to travel and break rules."

Upon initially booking a series of WestJet flights last week, Lloyd noticed only male or female options were provided under gender.

Lloyd picked one and assumed it could be simple to change at the airport, but quickly found out it would be anything but easy. WestJet staff would not let Lloyd board without using one of those two options. 

"They told me straight up that the reason I was being flagged was because I was trans. That was the only reason." 

Lloyd says one employee referred to them by the wrong gender multiple times and pushed back in an argumentative manner even after Lloyd supplied appropriate documents that listed their gender marker as X.

Lloyd phoned WestJet at the end the trip and was told there was nothing the airline could do aside from offering about 50 WestJet dollars.

WestJet told CBC via email Wednesday that several unexpected roadblocks with their third-party booking agencies delayed implementing the X marker.   

"At WestJet, it is our commitment to ensure our guests have an equitable travel experience and we owe a further explanation and apology regarding our progress on adding non-binary options to our booking and check-in systems," said Denise Kenny, a media representative for WestJet.

Air Canada allows the choice 'other' in addition to male and female on its booking site. Some trans advocates say they'd prefer to see X instead.

After doing some digging online Lloyd discovered WestJet had said in the past that gender is needed to determine weight and balance requirements on flights and that Transport Canada does not recognize X, which is not currently the case.