A transgender woman has revealed the ways the TSA - and society in general - can improve after she revealed she was stopped and questioned by airport staff while going through security.
Rosalynne Montoya - a trans Latinx model and activist - revealed that she often feels immense anxiety when flying due to the security checks in airports.
Addressing her 480,000+ TikTok followers in a video posted on March 20, Montoya shared a story about how her body sets off the gendered body scanners.
She started her story by saying: "Can we talk about how horrible it is to travel while being transgender sometimes? I always have immense anxiety leading up to going through security.
"And this means that I totally recognize the privilege of having all of my documents correct. So, the gender marker on my license, for example, says female."
Montoya then told her followers: "Going through the scanner, there's a male scanner and a female scanner in the TSA checkpoint – and, looking at me, you know, I look like a woman and I am a woman.
"But, going through the scanner, I always have an 'anomaly' between my legs that sets off the alarm."
After setting off the scanner twice, Montoya told the TSA agent that she was trans and just asked to be patted down.
"And her solution was, 'Do you want to be scanned as a man instead?' I didn't. But, I ended up doing it and then my boobs set off the scanner because, of course.
"So, I tried to make a joke out of it. I was like, 'Oh yeah, there's a lot of plastic in there! It's fine.' So then she was like, 'OK, well we have to pat you down. Do you want a man to do it?' I said, 'NO! Absolutely not.'"
After sharing her story on the social media platform, the video has since amassed over 19.4 million views.
Now, Montoya has posted a second video on the matter, revealing how the TSA can do better.
In the video, she says: "I have received the same question over and over again; 'How can we do better?'
"The true problem is a systemic problem. There is transphobia rooted into every single system of power in this nation.
"So the root solution is simply believing transgender people when they tell you who they are.
"We should stop enforcing gender roles and forcing people to try to fit into these boxes that no one truly fits into.
"Transgender people shouldn't be expected to assimilate into cis-normative standards of image.
"Because not all of us want to transition or go on hormones or have surgery and that's valid. But those of us who do want to should be able to access it easily and affordably.
"It should also be easier for transgender people to change their gender marker and names on all of their legal documents.
"TSA needs to remove the gendered settings from its scanners, and they should also believe me when I tell them that I am a trans woman and that I don't want to be pat down by a man or scanned as a man because I'm not one."
Louder for the people at the back! Let's hope we see a change soon.
