Traveling by air while trans

When Shadi Petosky entered into TSA screening to take to the air at Orlando International Airport Sept. 21, she did so with the presumption she had a terrorist body – whether she knew it or not.

She may have never been singled out in exactly that way before, or talked to in the way she had been talked to by a TSA agent in that way before, but that didn’t mean her body wasn’t a terrorist body.

“Male bombers may dress as females in order to discourage scrutiny,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a security advisory in 2003. In countries where women wear niqabs and burqas – such as in the Middle East – male suicide bombers have dressed in these and have hidden improvised explosive devises (IEDs). They have discouraged scrutiny in order to take lives and cause terror.

The DHS threat in that advisory was worded much more broadly so that trans women who live in America – the vast majority who don’t dress in niqabs and burqas – quietly had their bodies defined as terrorist bodies. And, when trans people fly, the DHS mindset changed from one of discouraged scrutiny to heightened scrutiny.

The DHS advisory has long since been identified as outdated and obsolete, but in the sense of the mindset that trans people are inherently threatening it hasn’t. Secure Flight added gender to the list of identifying characteristics air travelers need to provide to airlines when buying a ticket, ostensively to be used as a tool to help make sure that people who have similar names to those on the U.S. no fly list aren’t inadvertently denied the ability to fly. But, it also inadvertently reinforces western societal gender expression norms.

Transgender people’s gender markers on their state identification cards don’t always match their expressed gender. Without invasive genital surgeries that are often beyond many transgender people’s economic reach – and often unwanted because these are so invasive – many can’t change the gender markers on their IDs. Someone with an M on their presented identification card who presents as female, and vice versa, can raise a red flag.

Addressing the gender marker issue on official ID cards, the Department of State changed their passport issuance rules in 2009. Under the changed rules, a transgender person can obtain a passport and/or a passport card that matches their gender identities without invasive surgeries. This addresses the TSA secure gender matching issue regarding gender identity and expressed gender.

But gender markers don’t address bodies.

On Christmas Day, 2009, Umar Abdulmutallab, who’s better known now to most Americans as the Underwear Bomber, boarded a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Mich. He turned what’s between the legs of all air travelers in the U.S. to a TSA concern.

Now one’s “junk” isn’t off limits.

And, that mattered when Shadi Petosky entered into TSA screening to take to the air at Orlando International Airport Sept 21.

Electronic scanners, while not seeing the full anatomy of people anymore as they did in 2010 when first introduced, are set to check stereotypical male and female bodies: the software literally has a pink button for females and a blue button for males on a touch screen. Since trans bodies don’t always align to the standard sex norms, a trans body’s groin area can read as an anomaly.

And that’s not even including prosthetics, such as binders, breast forms and hair pieces. These too can identify a trans body as a body that may be a terrorist body.

There are aggressive full body searches that can be opted for as either an alternative for the electronic body scan, or required if the electronic body scan shows up with an anomaly that indicates an air traveler should be treated with heightened scrutiny. But once this occurs, a trans traveler inevitably needs to out themself to the TSA agents. Often, the reaction of these agents isn’t culturally sensitive. That’s also what Shadi Petosky experienced.

Without a doubt, we want as safe an airline experience as possible; we don’t want another 9/11 or a bomb going off mid-flight.

But somehow, there must be a way to do this without the presumption that trans people are male bombers dressing as females in order to discourage scrutiny, or at least in a way that’s more culturally sensitive.