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The TSA: a binary body system in practice - Traveling While Trans: The False Promise of Better Treat
Back in 2012, I wrote about the problems I regularly encountered as a trans person when going through TSA security screening at airports.
Since that time, we’ve been promised, much has changed. The TSA has formally stated that it will not discriminate on the basis of gender identity. Passengers are to be screened based upon their gender presentation. Any pat-downs are to be conducted by TSA agents whose gender matches the passenger’s presented gender, no matter what gender marker is listed on the passenger’s government ID. The agents on the floor operating the body scanner now just see a body outline icon marked with any areas of “anomaly” on their screen, instead of an actual image of the details of the passenger’s anatomy, so privacy should be protected. The TSA has promised that the bad old days of trans people being harassed and humiliated by its agents are in the past, and we have reached the era of enlightenment.
That would be nice.
Unfortunately, what now happens in practice is another matter altogether. In my own experience, intrusive, frightening, and humiliating screenings continue unabated. To illustrate, I’ll relate what happened to me when I flew from Milwaukee to New York a couple of weeks ago. The short version is this: I was detained for almost an hour and subjected to multiple, increasingly-invasive pat-downs, as a result of the equipment used by the TSA, along with the (lack of) training by agents in the TSA’s stated trans policies. Eventually, as things escalated, even my daughter was taken aside for intensive screening, though she had set off no alarms–because an agent came to believe that she too was trans, and thus a suspicious traveler.
Let’s look at how this could come to happen.
Since that time, we’ve been promised, much has changed. The TSA has formally stated that it will not discriminate on the basis of gender identity. Passengers are to be screened based upon their gender presentation. Any pat-downs are to be conducted by TSA agents whose gender matches the passenger’s presented gender, no matter what gender marker is listed on the passenger’s government ID. The agents on the floor operating the body scanner now just see a body outline icon marked with any areas of “anomaly” on their screen, instead of an actual image of the details of the passenger’s anatomy, so privacy should be protected. The TSA has promised that the bad old days of trans people being harassed and humiliated by its agents are in the past, and we have reached the era of enlightenment.
That would be nice.
Unfortunately, what now happens in practice is another matter altogether. In my own experience, intrusive, frightening, and humiliating screenings continue unabated. To illustrate, I’ll relate what happened to me when I flew from Milwaukee to New York a couple of weeks ago. The short version is this: I was detained for almost an hour and subjected to multiple, increasingly-invasive pat-downs, as a result of the equipment used by the TSA, along with the (lack of) training by agents in the TSA’s stated trans policies. Eventually, as things escalated, even my daughter was taken aside for intensive screening, though she had set off no alarms–because an agent came to believe that she too was trans, and thus a suspicious traveler.
Let’s look at how this could come to happen.
- See more at: http://www.transadvocate.com/the-tsa-a-binary-body-system-in-practice_n_15540.htm#sthash.ffYF77YZ.dpuf
2 replies
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