Transgender Woman Harassed by TSA

The problem is when they said to go back as a Man, she is not a Man. and she shouldn't have to announce she is a trans-Woman just to fly.

We are all subjected to humiliation when flying these days, nobody gets a "buy" because they are in some special group.

If stuff shows up in a scan and they don't know what it is your going to get questioned, doesn't matter what it is.

With very little effort, my mother-in-law can be easily mistaken for a man (yes, she's a very butchy lesbian by society's definition) If any of the buttwipes shrugging their shoulders saying "Eh, treating her (woman in article) poorly because she's pre-op is NBD because TSA, duh" would dare say that if she (MIL) were to be told to "Wear a dress, make-up & go through again looking femmy or we're gonna have problems" would ever be OK, I wholly support YOU having a rough time because of how you dressed. I mean come on, if you can't be bothered to be concerned by someone else being treated badly because of external appearance, you should get the lion's share of piss-poor treatment too, because TSA, duh. Open season on y'all.

originally posted by: Darth_Prime
The problem is when they said to go back as a Man, she is not a Man. and she shouldn't have to announce she is a trans-Woman just to fly.

It's been a long day so I apologize for being blunt.... but.....

If you have a penis and testicles.... you ARE a man.

I am all for accommodating people and their specific needs... but an avacado is an avacado and not an orange.

Edit: I would also like to add that the TSA is entirely out of control.

a reply to: eluryh22

but an avacado is an avacado and not an orange.

Should the TSA have extra questions for an Avocado that paints itself orange and tries to pass itself off as an orange when it's really an avocado ? Something looks a little off, maybe out of shape, compared to a real orange, hmmm.
Could this avocado have a hidden agenda because it's in disguise ?
Nope it's all innocent, but they had to check it out anyway, carry on have a nice flight.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: cj6
With all due respect to this woman I can see how they were confused. To say she was harassed for being transgender is just ridiculous. It was nothing more than a misunderstanding. I'm really sick of people in the LGBT community trying so hard to make everything a civil rights issue.

guess you missed this part:

"At one point, she said, an agent told her to "get back in the machine as a man or it was going to be a problem."

How about if it was this said to a gay guy:

At one point, she said, an agent told her to "get back in the machine as a STRAIGHT man or it was going to be a problem."

yeah...didnt think so.

Is there an anatomical difference between a gay man and a straight man?

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

Is there an anatomical difference between a gay man and a straight man?

Well, the former have slightly limper wrists........

Ok, ok extremely poor joke but then this whole issue is kind of a joke. I feel sorry for the lady in question but i don't honestly blame the TSA here either. This was simply a reflection of modern life - "computer says no". This is an extreme example but it happens daily in all walks of life. We are so reliant on pre programmed technology that as soon as something deviates slightly from said programming there is an issue.

As a thought though, why did the TSA have to keep her for 40 minutes. Once the details had been established, couldn't they simply have walked her past the machine rather through it? Surely the machine is only there to detect potential threats. Therefore if no threat, no need to pass through machine.

I do not know how this was resolved financially (don't mean she should get compo) but the lady in question should not have incurred any costs for missing her flight and having to re book.

originally posted by: Blue_Jay33
We are all subjected to humiliation when flying these days, nobody gets a "buy" because they are in some special group.

Hiya,

Have some biometric experience and ...

You're right. No one gets a 'buy' (think it's bye? dunno) because they are in some special group. It's actually the opposite. Biometrics, the technology they're often using to do this, is sometimes flawed as a security mechanism due to the nature of how the maths works in the back end. A lot of systems work by 'training' which is the act of giving the 'scanner' a dataset (in this case people) along with a bunch of metadata attached to those people. Through the training the scanner 'learns' which metadata connects to which traits and can then identify those traits 'better' in the future.

This isn't the only way to do this type of thing, but it's a good example. So what happens when you put 5000 white people through a facial recognition system to set it up? The hardware ends up calibrated for that average. Say the system works by identifying various facial parts and the eyes and then does some comparisons based off this and uses gait and other factors to work out gender ... Then a black person walks in. Due to the person's skin tone and how the camera is set up the hardware can't detect a region of interest. The person is sent to another line. Chinese person? Its been identifying people by tracking their eyes and it can't identify the shape easily. Few seconds later: go to the next line. A woman enters in a suit, she's a body builder with a confident walk. It can't see female 'regions of interest' such as earrings and cleavage sooooo ... other queue. Fat man with a tight but open shirt comes in, those look like breasts. Clearly a woman. Hit the queue. The Dalai Lama enters, it sees the loose fitting robe and it doesn't even know where to start.

So now you have a queue occupied by minorities and outcasts with a constant stream of white people walking past them, and we think it's okay because the machine said so based on the rules and data we gave it. Obviously results may vary depending on the application, but even when the set up is made with the best of intentions it can have results which worry people. Say it's a self check in system at the front of an airport. The camera recalibrates based on the person's skin tone, but this takes a few seconds. As a user of the system you don't know this. What message does it send when it takes twice as long to process you? The airport decides its inefficient so they set up a 'dark skin line.' O.o

Things have improved dramatically and the biometric industry is always improving, but this stuff has and does happen. The answer isn't to make humans slave to machines its to make better machines that make life easier for humans. A scanner at an airport shouldn't be informing your reality, it should be the other way around.

How effective are these body scanners at $100,000-200,000 a pop? How fine is the detail on your private parts? Is it really not possible for someone to load up something nefarious is a private shaped package and get through? I think TSA is a joke, and like Burdman said, people should refuse to fly until we see some changes.

originally posted by: Darth_Prime
The problem is when they said to go back as a Man, she is not a Man. and she shouldn't have to announce she is a trans-Woman just to fly.

I've got news for you: A "Trans-Woman" is a Man trying to become a Woman; ergo, He is not a woman.

If the machine scans him and finds the junk he's packing, passing through as a supposed woman isn't going to fly (pardon the pun), and no, he shouldn't get any kind of special treatment just because he believes he was born in the wrong body.

originally posted by: Blue_Jay33
We are all subjected to humiliation when flying these days, nobody gets a "buy" because they are in some special group.

If stuff shows up in a scan and they don't know what it is your going to get questioned, doesn't matter what it is.

Yup, all of us are treated like criminals, well, except the criminals...and you're 1,000,000,000% correct - being in a specific group doesn't get one a 'pass', and if something shows up they can't explain, yup, sure as hell gonna get questioned over it.

Well stated.