Held by the TSA because of an "anomaly" (my penis)

September 22, 2015 11:54 AM

Transgender woman live-tweets her expulsion from Orlando airport

Shadi Petosky, a transgender woman, was detained unexpectedly at the Orlando airport on Monday after the TSA allegedly decided that her genitalia didn't match up to their (mis)perceptions about gender. The TSA had yet to release a statement by the time that comedian Tig Notaro tweeted to her 39,000 followers to watch Petosky's tweets.

She has continued to tweet over the last day (@shadipetosky), and is currently in Miami. More coverage, conversation, and stories are at #travelingwhiletrans.

posted by WCWedin (64 comments total)

As with all things that involve the TSA, they claim followed their guidelines.

“Our officers are trained to properly screen members of the transgender community. TSA takes all potential civil rights violations very seriously and conducted a review of the incident. After examining closed circuit TV video and other available information, TSA has determined that the evidence shows our officers followed TSA’s strict guidelines. Supervisory personnel and a Passenger Support Specialist participated in the screening to ensure guidelines were met.”

One more drop in a very large bucket.
posted by cuscutis at 11:58 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

I heard about this from friends yesterday but didn't know how bad it was until now.
posted by I-baLL at 11:58 AM on September 22, 2015

A few resources, if this happens to you or someone you know:

Transgender Law Center
National Center for Transgender Equality
fly-right app
posted by gingerbeer at 12:01 PM on September 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

I read this yesterday. It was terrible.
posted by GuyZero at 12:05 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have no idea what the fuck these clowns thought they were doing or who they thought they were helping. Fire every last one of them.
posted by Artw at 12:05 PM on September 22, 2015 [12 favorites]

Holy shit. On top of her degrading treatment by the TSA, the airline and the police, American Airlines' press rep actually lied in interviews and said she was immediately rebooked on a flight to Minneapolis. Scumbags.
posted by zarq at 12:11 PM on September 22, 2015 [13 favorites]

I described what the flagging screen looked like to an artist. This is the anomaly.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:12 PM on September 22, 2015

I don't get it. She wasn't doing anything. Did the TSA think she was a male trying to diguise themselves as a female? 'Cause this sounds like amateur hour.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:13 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's not just TSA either, American Airlines has come into the fray and royally fucking up as well. Aside from the lecture an associate gave her about private screenings and generally shitty behavior on the transgender front they tweeted out last night that they had her re-booked on a flight leaving Miami, she's still in Miami (not sure if she had to sleep at the airport), and still hasn't received any direct contact from AA regarding getting a flight out, despite the fact that they told the AP they had her re-booked.

The dehumanization by the TSA was bad enough without all this other bullshit. I've been over here quietly fuming since yesterday.

edit: on preview, what zarq said
posted by nogoodverybad at 12:15 PM on September 22, 2015 [14 favorites]

It's not included in the Vox article but one of her tweets was a picture of an Orlando police officer who was being helpful. The officer was explaining to an American Airlines agent that he was not going to remove Petosky. It's sad that this officer's behavior is the exception and not the rule.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:15 PM on September 22, 2015 [43 favorites]

I have no idea what the fuck these clowns thought they were doing or who they thought they were helping.
...
I don't get it. She wasn't doing anything. Did the TSA think she was a male trying to diguise themselves as a female?

It's a distant second to how utterly dehumanized Petosky was, but this is part of what enrages me about this -- no one else is going to suffer for this. Some TSA agent will get a slap on the wrist, maybe, and some supervisor will get a letter in their file, but the vast majority of people who hear about this are going to parse and excuse and whittle away at it because the very idea of a woman with a penis is just "weird" to them. "Why didn't she just..." and "Well, but perhaps..." and "We don't know the whole story..." will bury this.

And it was all so incredibly fucking pointless that this happened to a person.
posted by Etrigan at 12:17 PM on September 22, 2015 [14 favorites]

I followed this in real time last night and was horrified.

My treatment at TSA checks has always been exemplary. I fail "the scan" they politely pull me aside and are nice as can be to me and they wave a bomb checking device "down there" and they apologize for it nicely and let me go on my way.
Other times they let me go through the pre-check line and skip "the scanner".

Her experience left me aghast.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:21 PM on September 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

I fail "the scan"

You should never fail the scan, though. The TSA should be able to be like, "yo, those are genitals" and send you on your way.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:24 PM on September 22, 2015 [29 favorites]

What in the helling fuck.
posted by rtha at 12:25 PM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wow. Shadi was my boss back in 2008 — one of the sharpest and most creative person I've ever worked with. There's a great podcast interview with her about her transition and other things from a few years back here. So sorry to hear she's had to go through this.
posted by localhuman at 12:32 PM on September 22, 2015 [8 favorites]

I described what the flagging screen looked like to an artist. This is the anomaly.

TSA has repeatedly claimed that this isn't an issue for trans passengers, while it continued to be an issue over and over again. They seem to think that there's some amount of training that will overcome bad tech and bad procedure. Having agents classify passengers as Blue or Pink as they go through the scanner is a recipe for trans and queer discrimination.

Also, I was visibly upset after a (very minorly disruptive) TSA screening a few weeks ago, and surprise surprise no TSA or airline agent asked me to leave the concourse.
posted by muddgirl at 12:32 PM on September 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

You should never fail the scan, though. The TSA should be able to be like, "yo, those are genitals" and send you on your way.

Ironically, I betcha if the millimeter wave scanners still showed the naked "porno-scanner" view that everyone initially freaked out about, the TSA agents would be able to *see* that they were genitals and no additional checks would be necessary.

It's interesting though -- I never realized that the scanners were gendered -- I guess it makes sense for the machines to try to average for "most females have two extra masses on their front upper chests" and "most males have an extra mass between their legs in front." It also puts some context into a tweet that I didn't understand yesterday about how the agents were demanding that Shadi "go through the machine as a man" (or somesuch) -- I thought they wanted her to change her clothes/take off her makeup or something ridiculous. I wonder if they were really just asking her to go through again but to have them press the "male-presenting" button that time (I get why she would have been uncomfortable with that request, and I don't think that playing games with people's gender identity should be part of TSA procedure).
posted by sparklemotion at 12:32 PM on September 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

I get the feeling the "explosives" check was their way of trying to cover their ass.

Yeah, that sounded like total b-s. If you test positive for explosives, they react very quickly. I watched some guy get yanked away from the baggage check area at Laguardia a few years ago when his carry on bag tested positive. Dude suddenly found himself surrounded and dragged away. They didn't give him time to argue.
posted by zarq at 12:34 PM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeah roomthreeseventeen, I shouldn't.

The TSA scanner thing needs to be programmed to know when a person is trans. /
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:34 PM on September 22, 2015

Oh and one other thing:

One time I went through and failed. They asked me I would go through again or be pat down. I went through again and my breasts failed the scan, so they patted me down based on the first scan. (Groin area, by a woman)

Again they were nice as hell and more apologetic than I needed, but it was interesting to see that I couldn't pass as male or female through their penis-boobie filters.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:40 PM on September 22, 2015 [25 favorites]

This is not a response to you, Annika Cicada. Just thought people might like to know this info:

The scanners do show non-metal medical implants, including breast implants, plastic shunts or PICC lines and various kinds of subcutaneous fillers. The TSA apparently asks people to remove prostheses when possible. And metal implants are nearly always detected.

It's been reported that the scanners also can't see inside body orifices, so for example, they can't tell if someone is wearing a tampon. Or has stuffed themselves with explosives. Which obviously limits the scan's effectiveness.
posted by zarq at 12:53 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

NOT HAPPY

Good god how demeaning.
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 12:55 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wait, they can still see your junk? This was seven years ago!
posted by Gungho at 1:09 PM on September 22, 2015

Wait, they can still see your junk? This was seven years ago!

No, they can't. Ironically, as pointed out earlier in this thread, the individual in question probably wouldn't have been stopped had the TSA been using the earlier version of the equipment.
posted by synthetik at 1:19 PM on September 22, 2015

Very seriously... What on earth are the machines able to detect successfully?
posted by samthemander at 1:22 PM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

The solution is not "too bad they can't see everyone's genitals"

It's "enforcing the gender binary doesn't make us any more secure"
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:23 PM on September 22, 2015 [35 favorites]

zarq: "I get the feeling the "explosives" check was their way of trying to cover their ass.

Yeah, that sounded like total b-s. If you test positive for explosives, they react very quickly. I watched some guy get yanked away from the baggage check area at Laguardia a few years ago when his carry on bag tested positive. Dude suddenly found himself surrounded and dragged away. They didn't give him time to argue."

I got publically frisked when my CPAP/BiPAP registered with explosives residue (never mind the fact I had all the paperwork for it, including a copy of the script) and stared out by a whole lot of people.

Of course, the second time they checked it, they had nothing, so sorry, please move along.

(Of course, Clarence, the extremely large, mustachio'd guard that frisked me could have at least offered me dinner afterwards, but no go there either.)
posted by Samizdata at 1:23 PM on September 22, 2015

I've also been pulled out for "explosives." Try explaining it's fertilizer residue from visiting sheep and alpaca farms, you're still going to get the polo + backpack looks 10 years old "explosives experts" called in. It's total bullshit. Or sheep shit, in my case.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:51 PM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Fucking infuriating. Unacceptable.
posted by Splunge at 1:52 PM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

I get pulled over at least a couple times a year for 'explosives'. (Having my hands and the surfaces and wheels of my wheelchair swabbed is part of the standard search, since I can't go through the machine.) Usually it just means a delay - they call over a supervisor and re-swab me. I've never had extra paperwork as a result. Sometimes, though not always, it gets me escorted to a private room for ... another patdown. Go figure.

But I definitely get the sense that those machines go off for no reason - and plausibly that they get used as cover for whatever stupid thing an individual TSA agent might want to justify.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 2:25 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

> You should never fail the scan, though. The TSA should be able to be like, "yo, those are genitals" and send you on your way.

Right?! I've never heard a decent explanation for why they need to know for security purposes what exactly is between your legs besides yep, there's gonna be some sort of genitals in that spot. There's an awful lot of size and shape variety among cis people -- unusually large or small penises, apron flap covering the mons -- I can't see how it would matter THAT much whether it's a penis or a vulva and whether that matches your outward gender presentation.

I mean, except for the fact that they consider trans people to be inherently suspicious. Sigh.
posted by desuetude at 3:03 PM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

The solution is: Dismantle the TSA. Bloated waste of taxpayer money.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:27 PM on September 22, 2015 [16 favorites]

Yes, the TSA (and Customs and Immigration) DO consider transfolk and non-gender-binary people intrinsically suspicious. Started when I was a wee baby butch dyke and no, it doesn't get better. After 35 years of travel by motorcycle, bicycle, car, truck, RV, train, plane, little and big booats and cruise ships, I am now shocked if all they want is to check my luggage. I have my US representative and senator's contact info on my phone and paper copy. I used have an immigration lawyer on retainer, if my job didn't have appropriate counsel.

Why in the world would a dangerous or fraudulent traveler try to make themselves MORE obvious by being visibly distinctive? Cite me ONE instance of trans person as terrorist. Just ONE.

And did you knew of all areas and persons within 100 miles of the US border/coast are subject to ICE/TSA search at any time? Including all electronic devices? As if local rent-a-cops aren't bad enough. Just let me come and go and pee, FFS.
posted by Dreidl at 5:02 PM on September 22, 2015 [6 favorites]

This is why too many people I know are afraid to fly.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:14 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

bile and syntax: "This is why too many people I know are afraid to fly."

And this is why I hate the world we are in, even though it seems to be getting better. I guess I was too full of myself when gay marriage became law. I was all, "Hey this is fucking great! What a wonderful life.!"

But no. But fucking no. So many people must be looking at gay marriage in the US and thinking, What about me? All you fuckers are happy, but I'm still in a hole. I'm still fucked. What about me? When do I get courthouse steps happy time? When do I get to be myself, without fear?

It's not right. It's not fair. It fucking sucks to think that even one person is living a frightening life like this. I can't express my frustration, my anger.

Fuck the TSA. Fuck people that don't care, because they don't hurt.

posted by Splunge at 6:25 PM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Very seriously... What on earth are the machines able to detect successfully?

So, I've worked with the various body scanner machines a bit (in 2011, but the hardware is expensive and many of the machines are still in use). Based on the description, and the gender selection functionality, this particular incident likely involved mm-wave radar machines. In which case, they are calibrated to the reflectivity of human skin, and they are supposed to detect things that do not share that reflectivity. So, for example, a ceramic knife taped to the skin - wouldn't be detected by a metal detector, but could be detected by a body scanner. Usual protocol in my experience is the machine alarms on the anomaly, and a security officer pats down the area and finds the object.

Of course, I went though wearing cufflinks, and the machine I was testing detected one cufflink but not the other. We were also advised that the machines were prone to false positives where the subject is sweating. So, I wasn't particularly impressed, given this was in Sydney, where we regularly have 35 degree days in summer. Also, the designers didn't actually think about the massive proportion of the population that may have prosthetics or semi-implanted medical devices. So officers have to be trained to deal with those situations where the scanner alarms on those, so they don't destroy someone's insulin pump or humiliate a person wearing prosthetic breasts.

They are also allegedly intended to detect lumps or bumps where they don't think lumps or bumps should be, based on an average of body shape for that gender (there is a pretty basic algorithm for generating what the machine considers an average, based on past passenger scans). So they will alarm on penises where they think that a penis should not be. The idea, as it was explained to me, was so that people couldn't beat the scanners by covering the contraband in something that resembles skin reflectivity, like certain silicones. Because the designers were sloppy and didn't even consider the trans situation.

Germany trialled the machines and decided they were too error prone. Other countries were too invested in the security theatre to do the same.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:35 PM on September 22, 2015 [20 favorites]

Very seriously... What on earth are the machines able to detect successfully?

Non-compliant passengers, mostly.

Back when they first rolled out the porno-scanners, my wife got "randomly" selected every time she flew. I hope someone is still enjoying the photo collections from those machines, at least.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:46 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thank you, his thoughts. That's interesting.
posted by samthemander at 7:30 PM on September 22, 2015

I have no idea what the fuck these clowns thought they were doing or who they thought they were helping. Fire every last one of them.

While Shadi Petosky has an especially appalling case, this statement can be said about every single thing the TSA has ever done in its misbegotten history.
posted by stevis23 at 7:38 PM on September 22, 2015

His thoughts were red thoughts: "Because the designers were sloppy and didn't even consider the trans situation. "

Or they considered it but thought the false positives were better than otherwise dealing with it. Obviously wrong of course especially considering it's all theater.
posted by Mitheral at 8:57 PM on September 22, 2015

Or they considered it but thought the false positives were better than otherwise dealing with it.

No, seriously. According the product reps I met, they hadn't thought about it.

Or at least, they showed no evidence of having thought about it, or being prepared to answer questions about the impacts on trans people, even though I met these people at a stakeholder meeting where they were expected to answer questions from concerned advocacy groups, including several trans groups.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:14 PM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

“The police at the TSA gate were awful. One was laughing at me” - Salon talks to the TV producer about her live-tweeted ordeal at the airport that started with "an anomaly"
posted by homunculus at 11:29 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was seeing retweets of fragments of this yesterday while dazedly skimming Twitter in the time between getting off one flight and onto another. It was kinda surreal, given how much fear I used to have around Flying While Trans.

Me, I've never had any problems with the scanner deciding my girlcock is an anomaly. I wonder why. It's not like I fly with everything tucked or anything.
posted by egypturnash at 12:17 AM on September 23, 2015

His thoughts were red thoughts: "they hadn't thought about it."

I sometimes marvel internally how Metafilter has changed how and when I think about these things. To me it's neon flashing light obvious that the current setup is going to be problematic. Yet I bet for a lot of my RL peers it isn't something they ever think about with the exception of the Olympian who has been in the news. The day to day nuts and bolts of what a trans person has to put up and cope with is not given a second thought.
posted by Mitheral at 12:40 AM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

The pornoscanner view still happens in a back room, folks. The back-room people then click on flag-areas for the staff back at the machine to inspect more closely. What you see is not al that the machine shows the TSA.

They're gendered so that female TSA staff are assigned the female views, so it is likely that a female officer was the one to flag this.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:46 AM on September 23, 2015

. Metal implants are nearly always detected.

Really? As far as I can tell no airport scan has ever picked up on the metal in my hand, they've certainly never said anything to me about it.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 3:48 AM on September 23, 2015

The pornoscanner view still happens in a back room, folks. The back-room people then click on flag-areas for the staff back at the machine to inspect more closely. What you see is not al that the machine shows the TSA.

That is not my understanding for full-body scanners installed in the United States. Any machines which show naked bodies to human agents were removed after Congress prohibited them in 2013. The image that agents see is computer-generated using Automatic Target Recognition software (cite).
posted by muddgirl at 6:08 AM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

The pornoscanner view still happens in a back room, folks.

It turns out that Orlando does use mm wave radar machines as I speculated above, according to Pro Publica. The threat detection in those is automated, so there's no back room staff. The monitor is bolted to the side of the machine; you can usually see it from where they pat you down.

My understanding is that the back room setup was with the backscatter x-ray scanners. Pro Publica has set up a nice comparison for disambiguation purposes.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:09 AM on September 23, 2015

However, that Pro Publica source is a bit dated.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:12 AM on September 23, 2015

I (cisgender) went through Orlando airport about a month ago and the TSA staff stood out as the most unprofessional, aggressive, and sarcastic I've seen, based on experiences in about 8 US airports and 3 Canadian airports with pre-screening facilities.
If a TSA transgender policy was going to fail anywhere, it would be at this airport.
posted by cardboard at 6:14 AM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hmm. I wonder if there's a way to collate trans experiences at various airports in searchable database. Maybe make an app where trans people can have it open on their phones and time how long it takes to get through scanning or something. Simple "happy" or "sad" faces with pre-made options on a pull down list to categorize the treatments. That would at least allow trans people to look at color scored maps of airports and get warnings to their phones when they are in a place that has enough bad reviews.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:20 AM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

The last time I went through one of these things it flagged on my underwires. I've also had to have my hair clips checked. Because I'm a middle aged white lady I was able to smile sheepishly and tell the agent what the voice their ear was going to have them check. I'm used to it because back in the day metal detectors set too high would also pick up underwires. (back then I smiled and said "it pinged on my underwire; shall I step behind the curtain so you can confirm?") I have to wonder how many times a day they get that one.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:42 AM on September 23, 2015

Here's a youtube video of a portion of her delay

Watch for where the cop makes a "crazy" sign with his finger.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:44 AM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I think that this alerting as a scan problem is not any humans fault - if machines are programmed to alert on odd bulges, then you kind of have to figure out how you want to handle genitals and secondary sex characteristics. But they need to have instructions on how to handle stuff better. It would be better still if they weren't scanning our bodies for weird bulges in the first place though, because "weird" is in the eye of the average and there's a lot of people who are going to come up oddly on that. Ladies with single mastectomies! Ladies with different body shapes!

And of course the cherry is that none of this makes us safer at all.
posted by corb at 10:09 AM on September 23, 2015

humans made the machines though.
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:15 AM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

More at it, in my opinion... humans wrote the laws and regulations that govern the TSA, and humans within the TSA rolled out these machines with so many problems.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:18 AM on September 23, 2015

the agents of KAOS: ". Metal implants are nearly always detected.

Really? As far as I can tell no airport scan has ever picked up on the metal in my hand, they've certainly never said anything to me about it."

Same for me. I have a rod and screws in my left leg and plates with screws in my skull. As far as I know they have never triggered a scanner. It's all titanium so that may be why. They are also MRI safe and so not ferro-magnetic.
posted by Splunge at 2:01 PM on September 23, 2015

But they need to have instructions on how to handle stuff better.

These machines have been around for years at this point. 4 or 5 years. These kinds of events happen all the damn time. The TSA have had more than enough experience to learn how to handle these issues better. They have had every opportunity to form policies and train staff to manage these situations.

They haven't done it. Part of it is incompetence - there are almost certainly perfunctory policies out there that staff haven't read or have forgotten. And management haven't insisted or made any effort to enforce those policies, or make better ones. Because they simply don't give a damn.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:45 PM on September 23, 2015

Really? As far as I can tell no airport scan has ever picked up on the metal in my hand, they've certainly never said anything to me about it.

IIRC, the mm wave machines are not intended or designed to detect internal implants. Neither could the xray backscatter machines. The TSA itself stated that.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:50 PM on September 23, 2015

Goddammit, Florida, get your shit together. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all your shit, so it's together.
posted by numaner at 11:49 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Goddammit, Florida, get your shit together. Get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all your shit, so it's together.

This is hardly a Florida-only thing, as pretty much any trans* or "gender non-conforming" traveler who has experienced the TSA will tell you (as they have in the comments just above). It has happened ever since the TSA was founded, and it'll keep happening until the anger and pressure forces a substantiative change.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 2:10 PM on September 24, 2015

Post transition (HRT, with female secondary sex characteristics) I've got through the following security lines without too much hassle:

Austin TSA 4 Times
Seattle TSA 4 Times
San Jose TSA 1 Time
Atlanta TSA 2 Times (international and national)
Heathrow Security 1 Time
US Customs 1 Time
UK Customs (Heathrow and Dover) 1 Time in each
FR Customs (Calais)1 Time

In my experience the worst was UK customs in Dover coming back from France.

I'm thinking that what trans people experience depends on the airport and region. I'd like there to be more understanding of the places where trans people are given harsher treatment and focus on those places to figure out what's broken. Blaming the whole TSA seems counterproductive because I've had some of the most understanding treatment I've gotten for being trans by the TSA in the places where I've traveled.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:30 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

To add to that though, I would like to have a better understanding how other stigmas (color, weight, passing privilege what else?) affect how a traveler is treated as well.
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:45 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Something about airport security seems to bring out all the worst biases in people about who they believe are 'respectable' citizens to speed through and not bother and who are 'suspicious' citizens that they need to be hard on. I wonder if it's the whole "trust your instincts" stuff, where they are basically being given permission to fuel their prejudice?
posted by corb at 11:54 AM on September 25, 2015