Olivia said she is used to people questioning her appearance — and even her right to exist — because she is transgender. Showing her naked body to TSA officers, however, was a level of invasiveness.
This story was co-published with the Miami Herald.
Olivia stepped into a full-body scanner at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
When she stepped out, a female Transportation Security Administration officer approached. On the scanner’s screen was an outline of a human body with the groin highlighted. The officer told Olivia that because of something the scanner had detected, a pat-down would be necessary.
As a transgender woman, Olivia, 36, had faced additional TSA scrutiny before. On those occasions, a manual search at the checkpoint had been enough to assure TSA officers that there wasn’t a weapon or explosive hidden in her undergarments.
This encounter with the TSA went very differently.
After patting down Olivia and testing her hands for explosive residue, the officer said that she still couldn’t clear Olivia to board her flight and that a further search would be required.
Olivia was led to a private room where, she said, the officer patted her down again, running her hands down Olivia’s legs and over her groin.
“I told her: ‘If the issue is what you are feeling, let me tell you what this is. It is my penis,’” said Olivia, who agreed to be interviewed only if she were identified by her middle name because she fears people will treat her differently if they know she is transgender.
Soon after, three other TSA officers, all of them women and at least one of them a supervisor, entered the room, Olivia said.
TSA rules require that passengers be searched by officers of the same gender as they present. But, according to Olivia, the TSA supervisor told her that she would have to be patted down by a male officer.
