flying while transgender
 

I am a transgender woman, and planning to fly from Boston to Buffalo in November. This is my first flight since I publicly transitioned, I changed my legal name, and the name and gender marker have been updated on my driver's license which I will be traveling with.

I'm just not sure what to expect, I know many trans* folk fly each year without incident but after hearing the story of Shadi Petosky this past month, I am legitimately worried. Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

Welcome to FT.

If you have PreCheck, make sure you are not wearing anything metal that might set off the metal detector. I go through wearing only medically required items - eye glasses and wedding ring.

If you do not have PreCheck you will need to go through either a pat down by another female or go through the body scanner. The latter of which are notorious for giving false positives which will result in a cursory pat down. As such, make sure everything is out of your pockets and you are not wearing bulky clothing.

Anything you take off put into your carry on bag - not into the bowls that others maybe tempted by if for some reason you are held up or distracted.

All of the above really applies to all fliers which helps them avoid a secondary inspection.

You might read the second entry (April 27, 2014) on this blog:

https://takingsenseaway.wordpress.com/page/2/

The author is a female former TSO who opts out of the NoS and wanted to travel unharassed while 'packing'. You may find her post helpful. Keep in mind that your experience may differ from one airport to another or even from one checkpoint to another in the same airport. Do NOT expect consistency and you won't be disappointed.

It will likely depend on how far you've transitioned.

They don't care what the gender marker on any ID might be once you've past the TDC (I've been traveling with new name and corrected gender marker for a year, but they won't let me go on HRT until work and family know about the whole thing, and there has been 'complications' with that). I've had more 'issues' with the gender marker listing F but still appearing otherwise from airline staff then from security or immigration staff (mostly confusion between name on boarding pass/manifest and appearance - once they've seen passport/pass, there's no problem).

The "issue" with the mentioned case last month was that she had been taking HRT and presented at the checkpoint as female, then opted to use the body scanner. As she appeared to be female, the scanner operator selected the female option. However, since she had not had surgery, the scanner alarmed and things went down hill from there.

I've been on HRT for 18 months, full time since June, legal name / marker change in July. I'm non-op, so haven't had GRS nor do I intend to.

The thing to remember about the story from last month is it likely an isolated incident. Additionally, I think she declined requests I would consider reasonable, such as going back through the body scanner but with the 'male' button pushed instead, to see if the anomaly in the private parts disappears. ID documents, and any gender markers on them, should be irrelevant.

As a trans woman who opted out of having genital surgery, I'm always prepared for fun and games at security. However, it's only likely to present itself as an issue if you're selected for a body scan. I've only been through one once, and the TSA agent found the situation a whole lot more awkward than I did. She followed procedure perfectly, asking me what gender I was, and whether I wanted to be patted down by a male or female agent. Don't be offended if you're ever asked this...they're supposed to do this in case you might be genderqueer or somewhere in the middle of the spectrum (or even transitioning the other way). Confidence and courtesy is the key in these situations...not least because they're often prepared for confrontation themselves in these situations.

You should consider opting out of a body scan. If you do, you can decide whether or not to disclose your private history to the patting down agent or not.

It's not entirely clear whether this would work based on the scanner images I've seen, but I'm wondering if you could do the tuck/tuck & tape and avoid the issue of having a gender mismatch.

I usually wear long flowy skirts and layer, this generally eliminate the need to tuck because I find it super uncomfortable. What I've heard from other women who have tried tucking is that it still seems to alarm when going through the body scanner.

I'm thinking about signing up for pre check once I get my updated birth certificate - usually how long does a pre application take to process? The trip is not for another month and a half.

I did think about that, but I read somewhere on here that an earring triggered an anomaly, so I think it's way too sensitive.

IMO, this is probably the only situation where the NoS beats the gendered body scanner. I suspect a naked image of me would look largely unremarkable. Still, it'll be opt-outs with free massages for me whenever I'm directed away from a WMTD in future.

As an aside, might I suggest considering Global Entry rather than Pre-Check? There are greater advantages to it and it takes you one (small) further step away from having to deal with TSA.

TSA treatment is the same either way, since it's just an alternative way to qualify for pre-check on domestic or outbound flying.

It's definitely worth the extra $15 if you fly internationally at all. I mean, I'd pay $15 to miss just one bad line at immigration or customs (more likely both!) even if I only planned to fly internationally once in 5 years.

For 2-4x a year, it was worth it even before it came with pre-check, but it was no help with the TSA checkpoints back then.

One could presume pre would be slightly better in that scenario as a person has a better chance of WTMD which is not interested in "anomalies" but metal.

IMO Yes GE is most certainly worth it, even if only flying once a year overseas let alone the scores of time people like me use it each year.

Yes, regardless of whether applying directly to PreCheck or getting it via Global Entry, it sounds like it would be a win for the OP.

(Indeed, it's a huge win even without such deeply personal reasons to be concerned about privacy.)

I was thinking of that one small extra step being the application process itself. Even without the extra advantages GE brings over PreCheck, not having to go through TSA for the application is a benefit all by itself IMO.

Having not gone through their application process, I don't know if it's any better or worse than GE; my own experience applying for GE was very easy and the interview fairly nominal.