Don’t Hold Your Breath

Many of us dread flying because we have to go through TSA and there have been many horror stories that we have heard. Even experience trans travelers cringe when they get in line and those who have not had Gender Confirming Surgery (GCS) have apprehension when they go through the x-ray machine.

Well now the TSA is saying that they are more trans friendly.

TSA takes on issue of improving transgender screening
USA Today
By Bart Jansen,
February 27, 2018

WASHINGTON – The Transportation Security Administration has improved its screening for transgender travelers, but a 2015 survey found nearly half that flew during the previous year reported a negative experience, a congressional panel heard Tuesday.

The National Center for Transgender Equality surveyed 28,000 transgender adults and found 53% had flown in the previous year. Of those, 43% reported reporting a negative experience such as being patted down by an officer of the wrong gender or being loudly questioned about their body parts at a checkpoint.

“Some reported leaving the checkpoint in tears, while others fear that being outed to other travelers in the screening process could make them a target for other violence,” Harper Jean Tobin, the center’s policy director, told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on transportation security.

You can have all the training in the world but it is only a good as your frontline screeners, all it takes is one bad apple. All it takes is one bigot.

If they are truly serious about bring change they have to make sure they weed out those who do not take the training seriously. I have done a lot of training where the some of the staff were taking the training as joke. Some have been very hostile to the training. At a training for athletic trainers at the college some sat there arms crossed, manspreading  with a look on their like they just ate a lemon; they were shouting loud and clear… I don’t want to be here.

You want to bring about change to the TSA then they have to weed out those who will not follow the guideline to another position that doesn’t involve screening.