War on Terror's Biometrics Craze Affects Transgender People
Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 2:34 pm
Article: Alissa Bohling

Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming People Among First, Most Affected by War on Terror's Biometrics Craze

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1204/S00119/war-on-terrors-biometrics-craze-affects-transgender-people.htm

When Zev Al-Walid walks through an airport security scanner, he more or less willingly parts with his belt, his shoes and his pocket change, just like any other traveler. But by the time Walid - a man who was designated female at birth and later transitioned - is ready to reclaim his personal items, there's often an extra hurdle blocking the path to his gate.

Walid, who travels frequently to the United States and countries around the world from his home in Western Europe, remembers a particularly bad trip through a US airport's backscatter scanner machine.

"I wasn't really privy to what the picture looked like or anything," said Walid. "I could just hear the guy, in front of me, talking on the radio, presumably to the person looking at the image. And he was like, 'Yeah. No. He's right here. I'm telling you, he's a man. I'm looking right at him.'"

 I'm a bit concerned about my upcoming flight. I haven't flown since I started living full time and wonder if there will be issues.

I look and sound like a female but my ID has M because I haven't had GRS and the state of GA requires it. Then again if it did say F and the scanner saw M, what would happen then? The picture on my ID is my female appearance so that part should be OK and I have a legal female name now.

If they out me at the airport, it wouldn't be the end of the world but of course wouldn't be pleasant either. I would hope they have seen enough MTF to not flip out over this? I don't do well when people call me "him" etc, which hasn't happened in a LONG time. I would hope they know better than this...

Any advice for frequent fliers?

Whenever I walk through the airport body scanners (and I fly more than the average person I think), I always get an awkward pointed look from the TSA person sitting at the machine. More than half the time I am then "randomly selected" for additional searching.

I really hate it.

Quote from: Stephe on April 17, 2012, 10:59:13 PM
I'm a bit concerned about my upcoming flight. Any advice for frequent fliers?

Travel is a sort of speciality of mine...

There's a big difference between international and domestic security.
If you have an ID, then I highly recommend putting the same gender on the ID down when you get your tickets

If someone in security singles you out then shower them in kindness and cooporate. They are used to being treated like bad guys when really they are just doing their job. You would likely have to ask the same questions were you in their position.

Becoming evasive and nervous, hesitating to answer questions, that is exactly what they are trained to find.

If they ask "why does your ID say male" then just say "because I haven't yet gotten it changed to female." Its the truth, and vague. They will draw their own conclusion and move  to the  next person. Some of them are morons, but they do get the drift when an ID and ticket gender match, but not your name or appearance.

Now if ya say "thats none of your business" you can imagine youll stand a good chance of making it their business and being pulled aside.