Gender segregated security at FRA today - is this common?
 

Flying EDI-FRA-YYZ today, I had to get from Z to B, which required passing through security just before the B20-63ish concourse. A woman and I took the fasttrack lane, which had us merge with a huge queue of people. As we're standing there one of the men in the queue politely told the woman that this lane was for men only. She and I both couldn't believe it, but a couple of men around the guy confirmed it, so she asked the security worker at the conveyor belt/machine if this was true and he said yes, this lane was for men and women had to go to a different queue. The reason I gather is that many of the pax going through security then were bound for Tehran, where of course this is more of a thing.

I haven't ever seen gender-segregated security in a Western airport and still find myself very surprised this happened. Is it common at FRA? And/or at other Western airports when a flight is bound for Iran (or someplace similar)? I have been to Iran and have no trouble at all respecting the gender segregation there, which is very different (in my view) from the segregation in places like Yemen. But it seems frankly crazy that passengers flying from Frankfurt to Toronto would have to go through gender segregated security lines in Frankfurt just because some people from Iran are also going through security at the same time.

My guess is that the airport (or airport security authority in Germany, I don't know what it's called) agreed to offer Tehran-bound flights segregated security, which is fine with me. That's totally different though than the airport requiring non-Tehran-bound-pax to also go through segregated security.

Edit: I'll add that the 'men only' line had only male staff working, 4 or 5 in total, whereas the 'female only' line had both male and female staff working.

I never experienced it in Germany (or Europe), only in islamic countries.

As a woman, I would feel that my life had slipped back 50 years. I'd be very bothered by this unless I received a compelling explanation.

Another reason could be that may the security point was only staffed with men. Normally security checkpoints are staffed with men and women. So in case of a secondary security check "pad down" it could cause issues if a man does this on a female passenger. And this has nothing to do with any religious rules.

This has nothing to do with misogyny, the simple reason is that security staff are not allowed to physically check passengers of the opposite sex. So if they are short of female security staff some lanes are designated male or female only.

I have never encountered this in other travels, and think I have been patted down by females (I am male), though maybe I am misremembering. Is the rule that in Germany (or the EU?) that nobody can pat someone down unless they are of the same gender, or that people being patted down have the right to ask for a same-gender person to do the pat down? Maybe that is a worldwide rule and I've never noticed. It seems a silly and backward rule for numerous reasons.

There was more than one woman working in the 'ladies only' line, but maybe only one was qualified to do the pat downs.

While gender segregated security lanes are not always in place, they exist. For the reason mentioned by oliver2002 . You have the right to be physically checked by someone of the same gender than you. You are not obliged to accept a check of a male security officed if you are a female passenger and vice versa. And the vast majority of female passengers want it this way. The xray scan can be operted by a male, but female security officers are still in the minority. If is quicker in this case to have gender separated lines, as two female officer working the check are quicker than a mixed line.

Sometimes you are asked if a check by someone of the opposite sex is okay, but this is rare.

I clearly recall experiencing exactly this at FRA some 40 years ago. It was explained that this allowed a woman to search women pax. It made sense at the time.