Nina Arsenault and Lexi Sanfino
Whipping off your shirt and strutting down the aisle of a plane topless is definitely a creative way to deal with harassment in the air, especially when it’s the flight attendants making your flight uncomfortable.
The Toronto Star reported Monday that two transgender artists were treated rudely by cabin crew who made inappropriate remarks to the pair about their bodies, followed by even more disturbing comments by law enforcement once the plane landed.
Lexi Sanfino and Nina Arsenault were on a WestJet flight to Edmonton Thursday night when the flight attendant reportedly told the pair, “You guys have to teach us how to do our makeup.”
And if it wasn’t already clear that the flight attendant had a strong curiosity about Arsenault and Sanfino’s sexuality, they added: “You know, because you used to be guys, right?”
While this line of intrusive, inappropriate questioning is — unfortunately — not exactly rare for trans people, Sanfino’s response certainly was. She decided to meet the unwanted curiosity with a topless walk through the plane.
“She walked down the aisle with quite a bit of grace and flamboyance and had her arms out,” Arsenault told the Star. “And then the flight attendants came and covered her up, saying ‘Think about the children!’ ”
The two Toronto artists were arrested by Alberta RCMP officers upon landing — Sanfino for causing a disturbance, and Arsenault when she refused to stop filming the arrest on her camera.
Arsenault and Sanfino said they were taken to an RCMP holding cell, where Arsenault claims an officer took her camera and deleted photos and a video of the arrest, which is of course illegal for a police officer to do. (It’s also illegal to be arrested simply for photographing/recording police, but whatever.)
But here’s where things got even more ugly:
“They were addressing us by male pronouns,” said Arsenault. “I was like, “OK dude, I understand that legally it says ‘M’ on our passports, but we present as women. . . . Everyone knows I’ve had a lot of surgical procedures to feminize myself.”
“They said, ‘Just so you know, we might have to put you two in the male prison.’ ”
Regarding the alleged comment, Sanfino said, “All I kept thinking is they are threatening me with one hell of a good time.”Arsenault alleges an officer questioned her about her operations.
“He said, ‘So have you had the final sex change surgery? Do you have the original parts down there? Did you get something new?’ I said, ‘I don’t think that has anything to do with my arrest.’
Haha, you two broads are actually dudes so we’ll throw you in prison with other dudes who will rape you, haha. Because nothing is funnier than jokes about prison rape.
I literally can’t stop LOLing at how the RCMP officer punk’d Arsenault and Sanfino. Criminals, amiright?
Of course, their only crime was being transgender among people who are stupid, childish and have no sense of professional decorum. Maybe none of this weird shit would have happened if people would just learn to deal with their own discomfort about transgender people, you know, on their own. Just fucking get over it.
“Hey, cool” is an ongoing series in which The Albatross reveals how fucking gross and awful law enforcement officials can treat their fellow human beings. Stay tuned; there’s plenty more to come!
[photo: Facebook]