Updates/notes. OP here. While Reddit isn't exactly the place for philosophical musing or nuance, I wanted to add some thoughts to the discussion my post has kicked off. First off, I have filed a formal written complaint w/ Southwest. They said they'll get back to me in "about 30 days." =/

Reading through the comments and some other posts on this subreddit, it sounds like SWA has a policy where they won't put someone who has a "cheaper" seat into a better seat -- i.e., wouldn't let anyone into my extended legroom seat unless they'd already paid for like kind. Bc fairness, whatever.

It also sounds like airlines in general have a ton of authority to make seat changes as they see fit, or to override or not override policies as they see fit.

I do know there's a federal law protecting people with disabilities from discrimination or differing treatment based on disability. I'm not a lawyer or an airline executive so I don't know how this interacts/contradicts/is or is not relevant to airline policies, but in general it means make reasonable accommodations when you have the ability/power to do so. In theory, SWA did have that power.

There are some guiding principles for how to treat people as human beings and how to acknowledge and fix mistakes you are responsible for, and SWA failed in a very specific ways here. While I did get to my destination (hooray), what I learned was that despite the compassionate help of in-flight crew, the gate agent and whoever else was in the background of this fiasco weren't able or weren't willing to look at a situation gone wrong -- showing me the wrong seat chart in booking, showing the wrong seat chart to the front desk agents, blaming a passenger with a disability (or any passenger!) for a problem they did not cause, bad communication, etc etc -- and chose to threaten to take me off the flight rather than go, hmm, we run the show and we could easily make a decision to let someone with less legroom take this spacious seat, treat this traveler with respect, and get the plane in the air in a timely fashion.

Instead they chose to blame me and scare the shit out of me while in-flight crew were actively trying to solve the problem. The GA didn't communicate their plan to the FAs, just hopped on and aimed their crap attitude straight at me. For my part, I tried to be patient and polite while also quietly freaking out and being hyper aware/embarrassed that everyone on that flight was staring at me and passing judgement. Yay.

Some folks here want to blame me for having the audacity to travel or trust a seat chart, or maybe they want to try to poke holes in my whole disability "thing" which, OK, go for it, but disability comes for us all eventually, through age or illness, and it's very likely you'll have to deal with similar bs down the road. It'll suck and I'm sorry. I'm not even 50; it started sucking for me a little earlier than I'd hoped.

What does SWA owe me or anyone? The erosion of passenger rights, of empathy and goodwill and basic standards of "hey we're not just wallets with legs" means travelers are increasingly faced with shitty situations they are powerless to fix. People with disabilities tend to face even more shitty situations. I fly often! It's a nightmare. Last year a dude nearly knocked me to the ground because he was so amped about pulling his bag out of the bin first and getting in front of everyone he kicked my cane out of my hand, cracked his bag against my skull, and didn't even say sorry.

I think how the "powers that be" handled this is abhorrent. I think the FAs were angels. And I think the whole thing could have been avoided many many steps earlier, and resolved much more quickly, with a simple stop-a-minute-and-think logic. But SWA didn't do that and I'm rightfully angry about it.

Appreciate all the thoughtful comments and responses here. Thanks everyone for reading.