Quote from: Hannahh on July 28, 2014, 03:04:54 PM
Hi,
I would like to know your experience when you are in transition and take a national or/and international flight.
You live in girl mode (but not yet get srs/ffs) and your id/passport is in male gender with old picture like a boy.
How does this situation happen ? what difficulties do you have ? How do you resolve it ?
Hi Hannah, this is a small sample of one trip, but it's how it went for me. Earlier in April, my spouse and I traveled to Cancun from Philly. Same situation you described: dressed fem, no surgeries, my passport was 4 years old and I had short hair then - and a male gender marker to boot. My Driver's license is more recent, has longer hair but still male.
At the airline counter checking bags I gave both of our passports to the clerk. She checked us both in, gave us both a big smile and we headed up to security. At security, the TSA agent looked at my DL, verified my name and gave me my boarding pass back. My wife had 'Precheck' stamped on her pass - who knows why - but they allowed me to follow her and we skipped the lines.
We queued up for the Xray machine, where you have to stand with your hands up in the air. I got scanned and came out and the TSA agent told me to wait. Then she put me back in and rescanned me. I came out and she had a puzzled look on her face. I turned around and looked back at the scanner, and there's two icons on the machine, like the symbols for rest rooms. The women's one was illuminated and there was a big red X at my crotch. Aha! I turn back to the TSA and said "I'm transgender". Her eyes just glazed over, she waved me past and barked out "Next". And that was it. No other hassle on the way down. Going thru customs and immigration nobody said anything or looked funny. Happy to see our money I guess.
Coming back, same thing. Occasionally they'll do a double-check after looking at my passport, but I would stand confident and they would just say 'thank you M'aam' and send me on my way.
There's been suggestions made to have a letter from your therapist or doctor, which can be a good idea, but I didn't need one. I think the best suggestion to be confident and own it. Good luck.
