Originally Posted by
mybodyismyown
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.
You're reading a lot more into my post than I ever intended, Summer, and bringing a lot more issue into play than I was addressing.
In my post, I never addressed the Constitutionality, effectiveness, or humiliation factor of the AIT scanners. I have pontificated at length on those issues in other threads, and my positions are fairly well known; for the record, I agree with you on those issues almost 100%.
Tristan's article was almost entirely about how angry and humiliated she was at being asked by a TSO whether she was male of female. She's physically female, but looks male by common US standards, she shouldn't be traumatized by this. It's like parents who choose neutral colors for all of their baby gear, then getting angry when someone asks if their baby is a boy or a girl. Babies have no visible gender-specific traits; of course people aren't going to know whether it's a boy or girl if everything you bought is yellow and beige! They're going to ask!
I don't see this issue as being specific to TSA. If you are physically one gender but dress and appear like the other, there are going to be times when this is going to cause awkwardness, such as using public restrooms, which are gender specific. At those times, you may have to state your physical gender for the record. People may ask you that question. If you know you're physically one gender but your appearance leads people to believe that you're the other,
you have to expect to hear that question numerous times in your life. The question itself is perfectly reasonable and should not upset you, unless it's posed in a confrontational, humiliating, or derogatory fashion.
The situation with the TSO that Tristan described in her article did not seem to fit those criteria. Sure, it's uncomfortable and annoying that the vaunted magic machine can't automagically tell whether it's scanning a male or female body, but no more so than the fact that it can't automagically tell whether that's your boarding pass and ID in your front pocket or a cache of PETN explosives. And the TSO, according to the article, did not ridicule her or raise her voice or cause a scene or attract unwarranted attention - the TSO, uncharacteristically, asked the question politely and with no fanfare. And Tristan hit the ceiling, merely because she had been asked the question.
Originally Posted by
mybodyismyown
In sum, the TSA's machine told Tristan Higgins that her body was unacceptable, therefore she was unacceptable.
Hogwash. It's a machine; it doesn't
think, it doesn't
feel, it doesn't pass
value judgements. It's a scanner that beeps and boops. It's a worthless piece of junk that is incapable of doing its intended job; those without ATR are a tremendous invasion of personal privacy and blatant violation of the 4th Amendment; the backscatter type are an obscene health and safety risk to the traveling public and airport personnel who work in proximity to them; and they're all some of the most expensive boondoggles in the history of our country. But they're still just dumb machines.
The machine didn't tell Tristan that her body was unacceptable, and in point of fact, neither did the TSO. The machine needs the input of the male/female buttons to filter out scan returns that are normal for male or female physical forms. TSOs push those buttons. This particular TSO had trouble differentiating Tristan's physical gender from visual observation alone, guessed wrong the first time, and asked (by Tristan's account, politely and professionally) for confirmation before the second scan so as to press the right button. Nobody refused to accept Tristan, her body, her physical gender, or her gender identity. Nobody attacked her, nobody ridiculed her, nobody humiliated her, and nobody drew unwarranted attention to her.
Her anger at what must be to her a very common and completely understandable question, posed in a polite manner without any apparent rancor or negativity, is illogical and silly.
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On another note, I had ACL repair surgery last year, as well. Fortunately, mine went swimmingly well and I only had to wear the brace for 5 weeks. I was on crutches for the first 2, then used a cane for the remainder, and for about 2 months after the brace came off. I limped for about 6 months.
I never had a single cruel or thoughtless remark directed at me in that entire time; most people were cheerfully encouraging, some were indifferent. If your friend made cruel and thoughtless remarks about such a painful and difficult injury, you need new friends. If strangers make cruel and thoughtless remarks, well... crutches have more than one use, ya know.
Whoops, sorry pal, I didn't mean to trip you, I'm a little handicapped these days, what with the brace on my leg and the crutches and all.
I hope you're fully recovered.