Queer girl, 15, ‘traumatised’ after airport security made her strip to prove she’s female
Hurghada International Airport. (Mohamed El-Shahed/AFP/Getty Images)
A 15-year-old British girl with short hair has recalled her “traumatic” experience with airport security guards who forced her to strip to prove her gender.
Caitlyn Disley told the Daily Mail she was travelling with the family of her girlfriend, Liv, when she was forced to lift her bra to prove she was a girl, at Hurghada International airport in Egypt, a country where being LGBTQ+ is criminalised.
She said the only change in her appearance with the photo in her passport was that she had shorter hair, and had been left “embarrassed” by having to strip. “It was traumatising, I’ve never been put through anything like that before.”
Her father, Tom, said his daughter has always been a tomboy, and that the experience caused her distress.
Forced to pull shorts tight
Two male officials approached her at the airport and she had to “strip” in front of a nurse, he said.
The nurse, who was present because Liv’s mother had requested her presence, “asked Caitlyn to lift her sports bra and the message was conveyed that they needed to ‘look down there’,” Tom added.
“Liv’s mum said, ‘not a chance’, and they compromised by Caitlyn pulling her shorts tight to show she didn’t have male genitalia. Then they were allowed to go.
‘It’s been a horrible experience for Caitlyn and it has hit her more now that she is back home. She was able to put it to the back of her mind while they were away but there was the worry of it happening again on the way home.”
Tom has taken the incident to their local MP, culture secretary Lisa Nandy, and said he wanted to raise awareness so children travelling to Egypt wouldn’t face “humiliation like that”.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individual cases involving children but our staff stand ready to support British nationals overseas 24/7.”
Last year, a BBC World Service investigation, Queer Egypt Under Attack, detailed LGBTQ+ people’s “relentless courage” in the face of “relentless oppression”.
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