Deaf Man Claims He Was Bullied By TSA Agents In Kentucky

A young deaf man traveling through the Louisville, Kentucky airport claims to have been bullied and discriminated against by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. The man who goes by the screen name “teaandtheatre” on his Tumblr blog. He wrote that the TSA agents called him a “fu**ing deafie” and took sealed candy he bought at the airport and ate the sweets after confiscating the sealed package, The Blaze reports. The TSA agents reportedly asked the deaf man if he would like to donate the candy to the USO, he agreed, only to see the allegedly laughing TSA agents eat his recent purchase.

The deaf man stated in his blog post that he was on his way home from the National Association for the Deaf’s biennial conference with friends when he was allegedly bullied by Kentucky TSA agents. The man claims the agents were laughing at the group which they assumed could not understand what they were saying. A female TSA agent allegedly made the profane comment while facing the deaf man, who easily read her lips. According to the blog post, the young deaf man later discovered that several other conference travelers had encountered the same type of discriminatory and unprofessional behavior by TSA agents at the Kentucky airport.

Blog Excerpts republished by Boing Boing:

“While I was going through the TSA, some of them started laughing in my direction. I thought it might’ve been someone behind me, but I found out otherwise. They went through my bag (for no reason), and found a couple bags of candy I brought. I was told I wasn’t allowed to fly with that (wtf? I’ve flown with food before.”

The deaf man reportedly did not expect the story to be so widely read and wrote the post primarily as a “heads up” to other deaf flyers. There has not yet been a response to a plethora of media inquiries about the alleged incident from the TSA.