For years, Silvera says, she has traveled with both of her passports—her Italian one, which is older and lists her gender as male, as well as her Argentinian one, which is newer and lists her gender as female—as well as an official Argentinian affidavit validating her gender transition, including her name change and gender marker update. The reason why is totally bureaucratic: It can be difficult to update Italian identification documents. Silvera says that the last time she attempted to update her passport at the Italian consulate in Edinburgh, she was "laughed at." Argentina's process for updating passports is much simpler, so Silvera travels with that as well, to act as supportive documentation for the apparent discrepancy on her Italian passport, which should still be valid.Read more: When You Are Trans and Undocumented, Few People Can Help
Mina Tolu is a communications officer at Transgender Europe, a trans rights organization based in Berlin that ambitiously envisions a Europe free of anti-trans discrimination. "It is wholly nonsensical that a trans person needs to continuously prove their gender identity," Tolu said in an interview with Broadly. "What Silvera has experienced in this incident is unfortunately still a very common reality for trans persons when accessing goods and services."Tolu explains that governmental recognition of the identities of transgender people is linked directly to their ability to access and benefit from their rights as citizens. "A lack of these procedures [for updating an old passport] leads to trans people being denied basic rights," Tolu says. "In the European Union, trans people are protected under the Goods & Services Directive. Yet still ignorance, ridicule, and fraud remain common themes faced by trans people."TGEU advocates for governmental recognition of gender identity based upon self-determination. It is much simpler to transition legally in Argentina because the country allows for self-identification for gender in legal documents. "Unfortunately, in Italy, as in many other countries, this is not the same," Tolu explains. "Until October 2015 trans persons in Italy had to provide proof of sterilization to change their documents."Silvera's story is one of many "traveling while trans" nightmares come to life, in which trans people are quickly and casually stripped of their rights—and in this case citizenship—by airport security personnel.Because of Air Transat's refusal to allow Silvera's travel, she says that she has missed out on a wedding she was going to attend with her partner. In the days since, Silvera has posted on Twitter, communicating the inevitable distress of having her rights so easily revoked. She has not responded to Broadly's request for comment, but earlier today, she wrote: "It's hard to be motivated to go for a run when a major incident triggered depression & dysphoria, & you don't want to be seen in public."It is the mission of all of us at Air Transat to offer our passengers the best possible service in every aspect of their journey. I assure you that Air Transat does not have—nor tolerates—any policies or procedures that are based on discriminatory practices. Canadian immigration law places the burden on air carriers to enforce entry requirements and to ensure that passengers are in possession of proper travel documentation to this end. Therefore, Air Transat has no choice but to comply with all procedures to ensure that passengers have the required documents to enter the destination country. The decision that was taken and explained to Ms Silvera was validated by the Canadian High Commission. The above notwithstanding, we apologise to Ms Silvera for any inconvenience. As a gesture of [sic] and while it remains the passenger's sole responsibility to ensure compliance with requirements of the destination country, we intend to process the full refund of her reservation.