Another trans woman recently missed her flight and was put through an embarrassing ordeal at the hands of TSA.
There has been a software upgrade on millimeter wave scanners and removal of x-ray backscatter scanners, which supposedly alleviated privacy concerns. And, yet, the scanner can still tell that a person who is dressed like a woman is not anatomically a woman. Furthermore, such flagging by the scanner leads to a hands-on screening that is so personal, it is unclear to the TSA what the gender of the agent should be.
This is a problem. And not just for trans folks.
We should all be able to have a reasonable expectation of privacy for ourselves and our children when we merely want to travel through a modern, convenient, and affordable mode of transportation.
This means, no machines that can see anatomy (or, euphemistically, "anomalies") under our clothes (which, as I have said many times, we wear in large part to cover said anatomy!).
This means, government employees can not touch our body without a legal search warrant.
(So much for the sensitivity of the New York Times. The headline for their article on this topic is, "T.S.A. Defends Treatment of Transgender Air Traveler." Mouthpiece for the powers-that-be much?)
