Officials eventually cleared Petosky to cross the security checkpoint, leaving her to rebook her travel arrangements. I like tons of people with my body.
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TSA sent a statement to transgender activist Jenny Boylan, who recently appeared on an episode of “I Am Cait”, and acknowledged the agency’s awareness of Petosky’s plight. Then again later, “I don’t want my #1 Google results to be about genitals or a pic of me crying but that ship seems to have sailed”. A similar scenario often unfolds for transgender men who have breasts, Richards said.
And so began a 40-minute ordeal in which she was detained in a private room with a police officer guarding the door, searched twice, and missed her American Airlines flight. She was still stuck on a layover in Miami almost a day after the incident, waiting for a connecting flight to Minneapolis, while she reflected on the larger issue facing transgender passengers. American Airlines employees told her she should “just ask for a private screening” next time.
A transgender woman brought thousands of social media followers into her embarrassing experience navigating security at Orlando global Airport – a problem occasionally faced by traveling trans men and women. But Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had other plans including incessantly asking which sex she is.
‘Supervisory personnel and a Passenger Support Specialist participated in the screening to ensure guidelines were met’.
The agent then apparently told Petosky to make a choice as to whether she a man or a woman so the scanner could be programmed correctly.
TSA Spokesman Mike England told the Daily Mail Online: ‘Our officers are trained to properly screen members of the transgender community.
Petosky didn’t lose her sense of humor at the airport:But she was frustrated. The National Center for Transgender Equality has long provided guidance for transgender people about how to handle these situations, noting that they have the right to a pat-down from an agent of the same gender in a private screening area with a witness of their choosing.
TSA has been under the scrutiny of many groups including conservatives who say they are inept at doing their jobs.
According to NBC News, after the writer and producer explained she is a woman, but has an atrophied penis under the hood, the agent told her she could be scanned as a man or would be searched, she claims.
At least two additional TSA supervisors were called to the scene, the agency said.
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Petosky said on Twitter that she hopes her story is used to change how transgender people are treated – regardless of their appearance.
