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Bianka Rodríguez arrived at 4 p.m. at the Salvadoran airport Óscar Arnulfo Romero on August 14. She had enough time to register her documents and board a flight that would connect her in Madrid, before continuing on to Denmark for the World Pride and Euro Games, an event that brought together more than 200 LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders between the second and third weeks of August.  

However, Rodríguez, a well-known trans activist from El Salvador, was unable to board the plane, despite meeting the airline's flight requirements: a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine and a negative PCR test. She also had a letter from the event organizers, due to the current immigration restrictions in that country. 

The activist not only missed her attendance at the World Pride and Euro Games, but also her participation in a forum on forced displacement of LGBTIQ+ people, a central theme she works on in El Salvador and for which work, in 2019, she was recognized with the Nansen Regional Award for the Americas, awarded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 

In an interview with Agencia Presentes, Rodríguez recounted that, in a matter of 50 minutes, she checked in and checked her luggage with Iberia, and a staff member who assisted her at the airline counter initially approved her trip. However, after 10 minutes, she told her that she needed to discuss “a situation” with the manager. 

And then the decision changed: Rodríguez couldn't travel because she had received her second dose of the vaccine 10 days prior, and since she had a layover in Madrid, the requirement, according to the collaborator, was that 14 days had passed. The activist explained that she would be in transit in Madrid, would not leave the airport at any point, and showed, once again, the official invitation letter to Denmark. 

Activist Erick Iván Ortiz, who was with Bianka at the time, was also invited to the World Pride and Euro Games. Although he had already checked in with the airline and had all his travel documents in order, the Iberia employee claimed that Ortiz did not meet the travel requirements either. He had received his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine less than 10 days prior. 

The activists called the airline, where they were informed that there was no problem with their landing in Madrid because they were in transit. They explained this to the staff member, but she refused to assist them further, claiming she would begin boarding passengers at the gate. She indicated that all she could do was document that Rodríguez and Ortiz had arrived at the airport but were unable to travel due to non-compliance with travel regulations. 

They also demanded to speak with the manager. He asked them the reason for their trip and decided they could travel, but without luggage. They objected because the trip would mean being away from El Salvador for approximately 20 days. The Iberia employee then asked them to send their documents to an email address to verify their claims. They waited 40 minutes and received no response.

transphobic society 

During this conversation, the manager consistently disrespected Rodríguez's gender identity and expression. He made them wait another five minutes and then told them they hadn't received a response regarding their travel authorization. He then informed them that they had to go to the boarding gate and, finally, told them he was trying to prevent their deportation from Madrid because they weren't complying with biosecurity measures. The operations center didn't provide a prompt response, but Rodríguez was fed up with the mistreatment and decided to leave. 

Outside the airport, he received a phone call from Ortiz, who told him they had let him board and that it had all been “a mistake,” but that he had one minute to catch his flight. This was impossible, as it would mean going through health checks again.  

 “For me, when the manager addressed me as 'el' and when I never received an answer, it was a stressful, transphobic moment. There is no other explanation than that it wasn't until I voluntarily left that they allowed the other person to board the plane,” Rodríguez reports.  

On August 17, Ortiz denounced the incident on his Twitter account. He recounted that, just minutes after Rodríguez left the airport, Iberia notified him that he could board the plane because they saw he was carrying the invitation letter to Denmark. “And when I arrived in Madrid, I saw rainbow flags with the @Iberia logo. Shameless,” the activist wrote. 

The day after missing her flight, Rodríguez contacted the airline, which told her she had to pay $700 to travel that same day or the next. She refused.

According to Roberto Zapata of the organization Amate El Salvador, multinational companies like Iberia want to portray themselves as open about sexual diversity, but transphobia and discrimination against vulnerable groups still exist in society. In this regard, Zapata considers the actions taken by Rodríguez and Ortiz on their social media to be very important.  

“In this case, we were only able to find out because it happened to two visible human rights defenders, but otherwise it would probably have remained anonymous, as is the case with the vast majority of these cases, which we only know about within a group of friends or a little within the LGBTI community, but not the general population,” he argues.

Agencia Presentes attempted to contact Iberia spokespeople to learn their position on this incident, which was denounced by activists and condemned by the Salvadoran LGBTIQ+ community. At the time of publication, there was no response.