Avenger of the Week | Robina Asti, Oldest Active Pilot and Flight Instructor

Robina Asti is 99 and wants to be in The Guinness Book of World Records as both the oldest active pilot and oldest flight instructor, and we hope she makes it. She’s already known in legal and LGBTQ circles for her groundbreaking challenge to Social Security to pay widows’ benefits to transgender women.

Asti has had an amazing life so far, and her enthusiasm is renewed daily. “99 is just a number,” she says. “When I wake in the morning I think, ‘great, I have another day.’”

A World War II Navy fighter pilot and a commercial pilot who also had a career in finance, Asti was a husband and parent to three children in the mid-70s when she made the decision to transition. She divorced and was later legally recognized as a woman on her passport, driver’s license, and Social Security card.

In 2004, she married again to her long time sweetheart, artist Norwood Patton. She applied for widows’ Social Security benefits when he passed away in 2012, but she was denied because ‘the marriage did not meet the requirement’. After Lambda Legal appealed the decision, Social Security settled the matter in 2014 and began awarding survivor benefits to transgender spouses.

Asti says she doesn’t want to be in The Guinness Book of World Records for herself. She wants to inspire those who come after her to fly for as long as they can. “Every time I take off — throttle pull in, power full on — I'm listening to that engine, because it's whispering to me sweet little lullabies,” she says, “and I can sense it's going to take off the ground, and that is a feeling that I'm always wanting to feel. Nothing like doing it.”

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Robina Asti is @GenderAvenger’s #AvengerOfTheWeek. At 99, she’s the oldest active pilot, flight instructor, and Guinness Book hopeful who also won widows’ Social Security benefits for transgender women. “99 is just a number,” she says. #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avenger-of-the-week-robina-asti