I am in the utmost disagreement with your post, WillCAD. And I'm surprised to hear you defend the TSA's unconscionable and pointless obsession with figuring out what our bodies look like under our clothes. There are millions of people out there whose bodies don't conform to the TSA's regulations in all sorts of ways. It's disgusting and unforgivable that the TSA has decided to pass judgment on whether our bodies are acceptable.

This really has nothing to do with gender presentation. The problem is that the TSA forces innocent travelers into machines that pass judgment on whether our bodies are acceptable or not. Human bodies come in many shapes, sizes, and variations, and people with non-normative bodies often do not display their differences openly. The TSA’s pathetic charade of security focuses on non-normative bodies and "outs" people whose body differences can be otherwise shielded by clothing. Humiliating passengers because they have mastectomies, ambiguous genitalia, non-normative gender presentation, tumors, or implanted medical devices does not prevent terrorism!

TSA apologists repeatedly claimed that having screeners examine nude images of passengers in the body scanner viewing rooms was kosher because, “We all have the same parts.” No, we do not. We absolutely do NOT all have the same parts. The TSA intentionally exposes and shames people who, for a multitude of reasons, have bodies that do not conform to the TSA’s standards. I know a wonderful woman with a prosthetic leg who abandoned her lucrative consulting career because she could not tolerate letting strangers physically assault her multiple times per week.

I recently tore my ACL and have had to wear a knee brace for the past six months. I’ve been intensely stung by a huge number of thoughtless and cruel remarks from strangers and friends about my injury. If I could have waved a magic wand and made the brace invisible I would have jumped at the chance. All difference and disability is socially stigmatized. People with non-normative bodies are marginalized, pitied, and even blamed for their conditions. The way TSA mistreats disabled travelers surely places the agency on the wrong side of the Americans with Disabilities Act; the TSA has shirked its responsibilities under ADA as under so many other laws.

In sum, the TSA's machine told Tristan Higgins that her body was unacceptable, therefore she was unacceptable.