‘Heartstopper,’ ‘Fire Island,’ and ‘Bros’ – Washington Blade
The State Department last month announced that it will allow Americans to use the neutral “X” gender marker on passports, if they are nonbinary. The new change on transgender passports was also paired with other changes in travel for trans people as well.
Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is implementing four more major reforms.
The first reform is to change enhanced screening technology to not target trans Americans with bodies and clothing pieces that stray from the norm. This means that if a transgender man is wearing a binder, that he will not be unfairly targeted. While DHS is taking a step in the right direction, it has yet to be seen if they will live up to their promise. Sometimes, security teams override new protocol in order to be as radical as possible in their attempt to safeguard a scene.
DHS is also “expanding airline partnerships to enhance the overall travel experience” of trans and nonbinary people. This means that DHS will talk to airlines such as Jet Blue and United to make sure that travelers can use “X” in their booking systems.
Thirdly, DHS is removing gender standards when evaluating a traveler’s identity. They will take into account “X.”
Lastly, DHS is updating TSA PreCheck to account for the “X” marker.
While these reforms are a step in the right direction, there is one more thing that DHS and the White House need to do. They need to train airport personnel in gender sensitivity training.
Gender sensitivity training would involve coaching TSA agents in how to speak to trans and nonbinary people when they are scanned, searched, checked, and potentially questioned. Agents will learn about pronouns, and how to address trans people in person without being offensive.
Every trans guy I know has had a horror story about TSA lines and airport security. We both give each other a mutual look and mutter the same complaints over and over, knowing very well that our hands will be shaking and sweating for all the right reasons, except TSA will interpret our righteous nervousness as a red flag.
Despite these new reforms from DHS and the White House, if DHS does not teach TSA agents how to appropriately search and talk to trans people, our experience might still be miserable at the airport.
During one body scan, I had to confess to a TSA agent that I was a trans man, to which he confronted me and asked “so you’re a girl?” At other points in time, I’ve also had to beg TSA officers to let a woman pat me down, instead of a male agent, because I’m more comfortable in that kind of scenario. Some of these female TSA agents couldn’t understand why a man wanted a woman to pat him down, and some of these female agents even refused. DHS needs to come up with protocol for which kinds of agents will pat down trans and nonbinary people. We should have a choice in who pats us down. These interactions all took several minutes at a time and caught the attention of many passersby, further adding discomfort to the situation.
In order for the Biden administration to fully accommodate trans people in airports, they have to not only implement the X marker, which they did, but also change the way TSA touches and searches trans people.
Doing so will make our lived experience better.
Isaac Amend (he/him/his) is a transgender man and young professional in the D.C. area. He was featured on National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ in 2017 as a student at Yale University. Amend is also on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Find him on Instagram @isaacamend.