Well, I guess I knew it was going to happen sometime... unfortunately, it finally did happen last week.
I was passing through security at the departure gates at London Heathrow Terminal 5. I was wearing a knee length dress and calf boots, having come straight from a business meeting.
Security had shut off the arch-type metal detectors and were using full body scanners only. The scanners always make me nervous because of all the trans horror stories, but I've been through a dozen or so without any issue. I was confident it would be ok, but actually I was about to experience one of those horror stories first hand.
As I stepped out of the scanner, it buzzed and drew a big red 'alarm' circle over my genital area. The lady repeatedly asked me what I was hiding under my clothes. I kept telling her there was nothing. Two more security staff turned up. They confiscated my belongings and escorted me away to the other end of the terminal building where I was made to wait 20 minutes. I was separated from my passport, my phone, and even my shoes.
More people turned up and I was asked to remove my clothes, made to spread my legs, and had to submit to a security guard touching my genitals. I wasn't offered any preference for the gender of the guard performing the search.
I gave them fairly blunt ->-bleeped-<- about the need to fix the deficiencies in their scanner so it can tell the difference between a human body and a security threat. I told them it's humiliating, undignified, and only about one step away from a mandatory sexual assault. It's not like there is anything the passenger can do to avoid, prevent or fix the issue.
They didn't appreciate the ->-bleeped-<- and reacted quite badly. We got in a heated argument. After about ten minutes arguing, suddenly one of the guards just came around and said 'I can see your point.' I tried to help her understand how the process unfairly targets transgender people for invasive searches, and how that puts us in a position of being highly vulnerable. I asked her to put herself in my shoes. I think she finally got it.
We walked all the way back to the security station, where another guard had searched all my carry-on luggage in my absence (great). Apparently Heathrow has a requirement that if you set off the alarm on the scanner, they must manually search all of your bags... thanks BSA. I put all my belonging, clothes, toiletries and underwear back in my bag and left.
I went to the lounge and cried my eyes out. Then I rang my friend back home in Australia (where it was 3am) and cried some more over the phone.
Someone needs to fix these machines.
