Lesbian Couple Alleges Discrimination at Colombia Airport
A lesbian couple alleges security personnel at a Colombian airport wrongfully separated them last month before they boarded a flight to the U.S.
Ana Elena Leiderman told the Washington Blade during a telephone interview from Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 7 that an American Airlines ticket agent at the airport in the Colombian city of Medellín separated her from her wife, Verónica Botero, and their two small children as they tried to check-in to their Miami-bound flight on Dec. 13.
Leiderman said she insisted she wanted to go through the security screening with her wife and their children.
“She said, ‘oh no, for security purposes you stand over there,’” Leiderman told the Blade.
Leiderman said the ticket agent told her that she would have allowed her and Botero to go through security together if they had been a man and a woman.