Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a shame that the flight attendants are either 1) so scared of their management that they won't listen to people explaining the masks are filtered or 2) simply unable to understand that a non-standard mask could have a filtered exhale valve (which is much safer than a cloth mask for others, too). I had the exact same thing happen to me on 4 different flights, with the flight attendants becoming very aggressive. I…
Honestly, I was very surprised by the belligerence. My strategy for interacting with any authority with disproportionate power over me is to tend towards normalcy so I was pretty rapidly complying with the mask swap. A friend of mine postulated that they couldn't hear me through my mask, but as I took it off and was swapping I said "I'm complying, I'm complying, I'm not arguing" in a conciliatory tone, it didn't seem…
One gal even made me take off the mask and put on a surgical mask (which she gave me, she wouldn't let me wear my non-vented N95) in front of a security camera. That was pretty embarrassing, to be holding up the line, and felt like a scene out of a dystopian comedy.
I can only reason that it's for liability reasons, and the airlines don't want to be sued for someone getting infected.
But then again, people right behind me had cloth masks on with their noses exposed, who obviously didn't care, and they didn't get a second look. Neither did the airlines keep the middle seats free like they had promised too. Clown world.
Once I was on the flight I put my respirator on with a hoodie over it and slouched against the window, and they didn't bother me.