New App for Reporting Discrimination to TSA: FlyRights

The Sikh Coalition launched a free mobile phone app that makes it easier to file complaints with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The new app – called FlyRights – allows anyone to file complaints in just a couple of minutes, as soon as they leave airport security. FlyRights makes the process very user-friendly by automatically populating things like your name, contact information and the airport you are in, and will automatically submit your complaint to the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security. You can also choose to have the complaint shared with the Sikh Coalition, which is working to track all kinds of TSA civil rights complaints. While developed in response to the difficulties Sikhs often face at the airports, FlyRights allows anyone with an iPhone or Android phone to file a complaint of discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or disability.

NCTE commends the Sikh Coalition for developing this app and we encourage transgender travelers, and anyone who experiences disrespect or mistreatment because they are perceived as gender non-conforming, to use this app to file complaints with TSA/DHS. If you file a complaint, be sure to indicate that it concerns gender discrimination. And share this app with family and friends so everyone knows it’s available.

TSA recently put up a webpage with information for transgender travelers, and has begun to incorporate respect for transgender people into employee training – but there is still a ways to go, and some problems will continue as long as TSA relies on invasive screening procedures. NCTE plans to put out a new resource on airport security in the coming weeks.