The BeyHive worked together to get queer Beyoncé fan Jon Hetherington to a new concert date after he was forced to miss his Renaissance Tour concert due to the airline he was flying refusing to let him bring his wheelchair on board, saying it was “four inches too big.” LGBTQNation reports that Hetherington was boarding his Alaska Airlines from Eugene, Oregon to Seattle, Washington when he found out his electric wheelchair was four inches too big to fit in the door.
Hetherington says that the staff were kind to him and tried to be as accommodating as possible, offering him a ticket to another flight on a plane that his wheelchair would fit on, but that flight would arrive too late for him to make the concert. Following this incident, Hetherington posted a video on TikTok voicing his frustrations about the ableism he faces due to being a disabled individual in a wheelchair. “You just roll with the punches because you’re going to be excluded, so just deal with it. But that’s life ,and I’ve gotten used to it, and I’m just demoralized and angry and frustrated and sad,” Hetherington says in the video.
As a queer, Black man, this concert was important for Hetherington. Beyoncé has been vocal in her support of Black, LGBTQ+ individuals—such as in her touching tribute to O’Shae Sibley and her featuring of multiple Black, trans women on her tour. It is easy to see why Black, queer people love and feel supported by Beyoncé and find family and community within the BeyHive.
So when fans caught wind of this incident, they banded together to get the attention of Beyoncé herself. And the BeyHive was successful in their endeavors—Hetherington was flown out by Beyoncé’s team to her Texas show and given a VIP ticket plus the opportunity to meet both Beyoncé and her mother, Tina Knowles. Hetherington posted on Instagram afterwards that his victory was, “For those who are becoming in a time that has yet to exist.”
Disability rights in the United States are still lacking severely. Similar to Hetherington’s case, disabled people have continually brought up concerns over airplane accommodations for the disabled. In 2021, author Rebekah Taussig wrote in her Time Magazine article “The Disempowering Experience of Flying as a Disabled Person” about feeling stripped of her autonomy as a wheelchair user when she had to be rolled down the aisle by airport attendants and the discomfort of having to watch her wheelchair be handled carelessly by airlines. It is experiences like Hetherington’s and Taussig’s that discourage and limit disabled individuals from traveling. Disabled individuals are legally protected under the Air Carrier Access Act, but it is clear that airlines still have a long way to go in accommodating those with disabilities.
Photo courtesy of social media
