Obviously as I'm already decades postop this doesn't affect me personally, but it occurred to me that it might be something to think about if you are planning on flying overseas for your SRS.

In the UK they have recently started using scanners that "electronically undress" passengers before they are allowed to board an aircraft. The idea is that an observer from the security services can then see if there are any bulges where they shouldn't be, or other "discrepancies".

It occurs to me that this is pretty well 100% GUARRANTEED to result in any pre-op or non-op transperson being grossly embarrassed and inconvenienced. It may even out you to all your fellow passengers.

The basic attitude of airlines is that no excuse is allowable. ALL passengers must be scanned. Already this has resulted in people being turned away as this story shows http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7358967/Muslim-woman-barred-from-flight-after-refusing-body-scan.html and although we may be tempted to the view that someone from an islamic nation who refuses to be scanned may be suspicious the reality is that it could also affect someone with legitimate medical reasons, like for example being a pre-op transsexual.

Just something to ponder when you choose your surgeon I think...

To let the airlines and governments implementing these procedures is a greater injustice to our society than if we were scanned.  We are giving up our liberty and hence allowing others to control us for a little security.  More deaths occur from road accidents, diseases and starvation just to name a few, than terrorism has ever achieved.  As Benjamin Franklin once said "Those who Sacrifice Liberty for Security Deserve Neither". 

Kind regards
Sarah B

It just goes to show how backwards this world is, if 99% of people have to suffer or be put out just for that possible 1% then it really does just scream 'the easy way'. I think it's guilt on part of the governments they know they are doing wrong and that it's only a matter of time before the populations wise up to it and rebel. Oh that's right we won't be able to because they saw it coming and put us tightly under their thumb squarely in the corner. Fear equals control.
Wow I'm (still) cynical!!?!!! Can't blame me.

I don't like it.  I think the erosion of personal privacy in the last 10 years is horrendous.  What we have managed to accept would have been unbelievable 20 years ago when I worked on several panels to assure privacy in the then-new internet age.

I sympathize with those deeply offended by this.  But personally I have nothing to hide.  I am a woman with a mostly male body.  So what?

- Kate

You should at least be able to "Strike a pose" 

But seriously, the airport scanner machines have been a bother on my mind since I first heard about them 

or a few winks as you go through!! lol!

I thought the ghost porn machines (that's what I call them) only showed the results to another person in another room, who isn't looking at you directly, and that other ppl, ie, fellow passengers, can't see the "ghost porn" being provided for security. And, the person looking at the ghost porn security doesn't actually see you in person?

Not that I'm saying the ghost porn machines and virtual strip searches are a-ok, or anything like that. Who wants to be virtually stripped every time they fly? Of course you're gonna feel violated, anyone is.

I just thought that the results aren't viewed in for all fellow passengers and airport employees to see. Also, wouldn't they be able to tell the difference between a trans-girl and someone with a bomb in their pants via color classification (different types of materials who up different on the IR receiver, metal, organic, chemicals, etc - like in regular baggage scanners). Also, don't they make it so that distinguishing features of a person won't show up? (Thus, you look like ghost porn)

Again, I'm not justifying their existence and saying they are great or anything, I'm just asking questions. Also, I wouldn't want people to get over paranoid and forgo SRS surgery due to these machines.

My personal opinion about these machines is that they aren't going to stop someone who is determined to blow up a plane, hi-jack it, smuggle drugs in, or any of those things. A body scanner won't stop someone who's determined, and they will likely find a way around it. The machine seems more like smoke and mirrors than a solution. Kinda like putting a bunch of locks on your door -- if someone wants to break in, 5 locks on your door isn't going to stop them any more than one lock. There's always the window, anyway.

I found this on the Manchester Airport's website, which shows the airports point of view and a video about it. I figured it would be fair to see what the airport says, I guess. Not that what one says and what actually is happening are always the same... but, to give a fair shake on the issue, anyway. I guess it's the journalist in me to try to see all points of a story.

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf/Content/X-Ray-Scanners-Public-Information

(At the very bottom it has a one-linger about "what if I'm trandgender")

on the surface this does seem a bigg issues but i only recently flew and returned from thailand, i went through the whole heathrow scanner, additional security checks and they were nothing but verry respectful to me and kept all the right pronouns.

they also supplied a female officer for the pat down. at first this story bothered me too as they installed them just as i was leaving but as far as the u.k goes i wouldnt worry for more then 1.2seconds over it.

Gothique is correct - your fellow passengers don't get to see the images... but what they do get to see is you instantly being surrounded by a bunch of security guards who would then presumably start waiving detectors around your crotch area, or escorting you off to be strip searched, and that in itself is likely to be quite embarrassing enough.

I just recall that back when I was pre-op and travelling for my surgery the last thing I wanted was to draw any attention to myself! So I simply feel that these horrid machines will make life much more difficult for many innocent people than the maybe 1 in 1000,000 who really is a terrorist.

Thank god I'm not taking a plane as a pre-op .

i tot we have a choice between ghost porn machine and body search?

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,70133.40.html

At the risk of being controversial and possibly having my post moved to another section the reason for this is a silly knee jerk reaction so that Obama can avoid having to deal with the issues.

9/11 could have been an enormous embarrassment to Bush. But he quickly found an excuse to invade Afghanistan. Sadly, for him, it quickly turned into an utter flop, so he sent the troops to Iraq to utterly destroy the place. All done to assuage the hurt feelings of Americans who, for the most part, see the world in terms of good guys and bad, with Americans as the good.

Obama was faced with the so called Xmas bomber recently. He can't invade anywhere since the US military doesn't seem to understand the difference between power and authority.

An no-one in the US wants to address the problems that have cause the ill feeling among so many in the Islamic as well as much of the non-Islamic world.

So, until the US wakes up, everyone is going to have put up with increasing intrusions into our private lives. Scanners, internet and telephone tapping, accumulation of endless records, (I know I'm on a few not least because I had the temerity to be involved in some left wing politics in the 70s and because I have Muslim relatives and friends), restrictions on free speech, individual liberty and democracy.

But hey, if you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't object!!


Edit: Silly mistype. I wrote  with Americans as the bad. When I should have written  with Americans as the good.
Corrected.

better this than blow up

Quote from: Myself on March 06, 2010, 06:19:26 AM
better this than blow up

Well of course as a postop I have the luxury of not being directly affected but even so I'm not entirely convinced by that equation.

It seems to me that when the privacy and freedoms of ordinary innocent people must be routinely infringed just to stop the occasional mad terrorist then true civilistation, as my generation knew it, has ended.

Quote from: spacial on March 06, 2010, 05:59:25 AM
But hey, if you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't object!!

If only it were that simple!

He can't invade anywhere since the US military doesn't seem to understand the difference between power and authority it turned out we were already there.

FIFY

Quote from: rejennyrated on March 06, 2010, 12:04:35 PM
.If only it were that simple!

If only.

But I hope you realised I was being flippant! 

Shame this thread was posted on this board and not General Discussions. There are a number of issue which would be interesting to discuss.

I realize everyone is different, and I respect that, but as for me, I am proud of who I am, I am not embarrassed by my body, and if confronted I will firmly and nicely say so.   

OK, here is something to ponder, you have the same odds of being killed in a terrorist attack as dying in an avalanche, 0.0001%.  Seems like a hella lot of money being spent, and a lot of freedom relinquished for something is not exactly a real threat, at least to Americans, in America.

And these machines are not very good yet.  But don't you think they are going to get much, much, better?  And the odds of having some minimum wage clown with a McJob making fun of you (or storing and distributing the scans) is a lot more than 0.0001%.  You can bet on that. 

Quote from: milktea on March 06, 2010, 12:09:21 AM
i tot we have a choice between ghost porn machine and body search?

Not in the UK. At the moment, the government directive states simply one have to go through it if they were to fly. No alternative allowed / offered.