Wow! We can’t believe this actually happened!
An unidentified Australian man flew into Perth over the weekend, but when he picked up his luggage at baggage claim he found it had been, uh, modified.
Someone, presumably a Jetstar Airlines baggage handler, had covered his luggage in stickers to spell out the phrase “I AM GAY” (above)!
Whoa!!! What?! Who does that? First of all, it’s not even an insult (though we’re pretty sure it was ignorantly intended as one). Secondly, what an unfortunate and distasteful violation of a person’s privacy!
He tweeted a picture of the luggage and later posted a heartfelt blog about his experience rolling the luggage through the airport, the focus of everyone’s attention.
Regardless of the man’s sexual orientation — as it turns out, he’s straight — an attempt to publicly shame him on those grounds is so friggin’ uncool!
The airline hasn’t denied their involvement; in fact, they apologized. A Jetstar rep revealed:
“We are taking this matter very seriously and we have contacted the passenger to apologise for any distress caused,”
This is the unidentified father’s original tweet:
Utterly disgusted to find my luggage front and center on the @JetstarAirways luggage carousel looking like this. pic.twitter.com/ErU7LhRZDd
— Sleepysaurus Rex! (@aaronpp) October 13, 2013
Ugh! Who would do that?!
He also wrote this insightful blog post:
“I … thought I had thick enough skin to ignore the leering. … As I dragged the case through the terminal, I looked back at the people I had passed and they too looked at me differently. My luggage was a scarlet letter.
I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means that I’m not routinely subjected to prejudice. But for a few minutes I got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place. … I was degraded. I was shamed. I was humiliated.For me, this was only a few minutes of one day of my life. If what I felt for those few minutes is extrapolated out every day over a lifetime, then I can fully understand why our gay friends feel persecuted and why they have such high rates of suicide. It is unacceptable.”
Wow!! This dude certainly handled this unfortunate situation in the most mature and inspired way possible! Kudos to him!
Hopefully the airline throws him a bunch of free plane tickets for his troubles!
[Image via Twitter & Jetstar.]
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