Trans woman details the difficult reality of navigating airport security

As part of their journey to live their most authentic selves, transgender men and women often face a number of challenges along the way. Today, violence against the trans community remains at an all-time high and mundane tasks like going to the grocery store can become life threatening. As the trans community continues to fight for equality, a trans woman is making waves on social media after detailing the difficult process of going through airport security.

In the clip, Rose Montoya opens up about her experience of being a trans woman and going through the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) rules and practices at the airport. “Can we talk about how horrible it is to travel while being trans sometimes?” Rose says in the clip.

“I always have immense anxiety leading up to going through airport security. This being said I totally recognise the privilege of having all my documents be correct. The gender marker on my licence for example says female,” Rose explains in the video clip.

She adds: “But going through the scanner, there’s a male scanner and female scanner for the TSA checkpoint. And looking at me, I look like a woman and I am a woman, so that’s great. I love having cis assuming privilege when I feel unsafe such as in an airport.”

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However, an issue arises when Rose goes through the security scanner. “Going through the scanner I always have an anomaly between my legs that sets off the alarm. So she asked me if I had anything in my pants and I said no. So she said maybe it’s just the metal buttons on your shorts so let’s scan you again.”

After explaining to the security officer that she is a trans woman, Rose suggested that they simply pat her down instead. “Her solution was to ask me if I want to be scanned as a man instead. I didn’t, but I ended up doing it… and my boobs set it off,” Rose says.

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Embarrassed, Rose tried to make a joke of the situation by saying, “Don’t worry, there’s just a lot of plastic in there, it’s fine.” The woman then insisted someone would have to pat Rose down and asked her if she preferred that a man did that, to which she responded “Absolutely not.”

Rose’s experience has sparked an important conversation with regards to transgender men and women and their experience at airport security. “We need to change how the scanners function and educate TSA about trans people,” Rose says.

Image courtesy: TikTok