Transgender Security Administration: Sexuality and Gender Issues Cause Confusion at TSA

Ashley Yang is a confused man/woman. He began life as a male, but has chosen to live life as a female. Ashley Yang takes female hormones, dresses like a woman, behaves like a woman, uses women's restrooms, etc. Yang, however, has not yet undergone gender reassignment, so Ashley is technically a male in the eyes of the Transportation Security Administration.

Ashley Yang's gender bending ways caused her problems in her job as a security checkpoint screener with the TSA at LAX. She applied for the job as a woman and was hired as a woman, but she informed the TSA of her gender history prior to a background check. (Yes, surprisingly, it appears the TSA actually does conduct background checks on at least some of the power-tripping, bumbling freaks they hire.)

The TSA offered Yang a chance to work with baggage, but Yang did not seem to be interested in the pirate's life of theft and freebooting that so many TSA baggage inspectors enjoy. Yang was interested in a different kind of booty and is more of a hands-on person. He/she probably joined the TSA with dreams of getting up close and personal with the endless stream of submissive airline passengers TSA victimizes on a daily basis.

Since the TSA considers Yang a male, they made him (an aspiring her) perform his/her job as a man. TSA management originally ordered Yang to dress as a man, wear a male hairstyle, use the men's restroom, etc. This man/woman was also ordered to pat-down only male passengers, and this is when the absurdities of TSA's intrusive pat-downs begin with regard to sexuality and gender issues.

Now, if you are a man, would you rather receive a pat-down from straight man or male who has made some rather serious and obvious commitments to live life like a woman? When that hand is sliding around your testicles and anus, do you want that to be the hand of a straight guy or someone who may have some unconventional and flexible ideas about sexuality and gender roles? Really, it is your genitals, so who do you want touching them? If you are a man, do you suppose you would be more comfortable being touched by a cross-dressing, hormone-altered man or a straight woman? Would you prefer to receive a pat-down from a gender-switching male or a lesbian? Forgive the assumption here, but if given options, being touched by a man who longs to be a woman would probably be very far down on most straight men's lists of pat-down preferences.

On the surface, it seems like the issues here are sexual preference and gender, but these are only minor complications caused by a much more serious problem. The TSA's pat-downs themselves are too sexual. When it matters whether a pat-down is being performed by a male or female, then the pat-down is too intrusive and sexually charged. It should not matter whether the hand in your crotch is a male or a female hand, because that hand should not be in your crotch in the first place.

By the way, if you are a man, and you actually do want a personal pat-down from Ashley Yang, you will not enjoy the pleasure of getting a federally sanctioned groping for free at LAX. You will have to track down Ashley Yang and ask him directly for a freelance pat-down. Ashley Yang was fired from the TSA for using the women's restroom at work, making him perhaps the most harmless person ever to be fired by the TSA. Normally, to get fired by the TSA, an agent has to do something big like steal from passengers, beat up a coworker, commit rape, kidnap someone, etc. Failure to stop bombs, weapons, and terrorists from getting onto airplanes are not always grounds for dismissal at the TSA. Competence and public safety is a lesser concern there. If a person wants to get fired by the TSA he/she had better be prepared to do something either really nasty or just use the wrong restroom.

Gay TSA Screeners and Same-Gender Pat-Downs: A Touch of Confusion

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The Transportation Security Administration proudly proclaims there is nothing sexual about their pat-downs, which happen to include significant contact with breasts, butts, inner thighs, and sometimes even genitals. The TSA claims to ensure the intrusive pat-downs are completely platonic by matching up the passengers with screeners of the same gender. This begs the question: What does the TSA do about the homosexual TSA screeners?

There are plenty of homosexual members of American society. They have jobs in every industry. Clearly homosexual people work for the government, and it just seems obvious that there must be some homosexual people working for the TSA. Are these homosexual TSA employees allowed to conduct pat-downs on airline passengers?

This is a legitimate question, because the TSA pat-downs do involve intimate contact. In fact, the contact during these pat-downs is so intimate that TSA screeners should be (and may be at some point in the future) tried for sexual assault. We have federal employees fondling people's genitals in airports all over the country right now. In almost any other situation, if one person fondles another person's genitals in an unwelcome fashion, the offender will get arrested.

The TSA seems to think it is important to gender-match passengers and the TSA screeners conducting the pat-downs; therefore, the TSA must see the obvious potential for a pat-down turning into a sexually charged encounter. Certainly, we can all see the potential problem with a heterosexual man patting down an attractive woman. Allowing a heterosexual man to rub his hands all over the breasts and crotch of a woman may very well take on an unwanted sexual element. The man may abuse the opportunity to get in a little extra touching for his own sexual gratification, and the woman will be left feeling understandably violated. This could also apply if a straight woman were to pat-down a male passenger.

Since the TSA seems to understand the pat-downs could become sexually charged, how is the TSA handling the issue of homosexual TSA screeners and homosexual airline passengers? If the pat-downs are too sexual for straight men to pat-down heterosexual women and vice versa, then the pat-downs must also be too sexual for other combinations where sexual tensions and attractions could exist. Here are a few examples.

• a heterosexual man pats down a gay man
• a gay man pats down a heterosexual man
• a gay man pats down a gay man
• a heterosexual woman pats down a lesbian
• a lesbian pats down a heterosexual woman
• a lesbian pats down a lesbian

In all of these scenarios, at least one person could be made to feel uncomfortable. In the scenarios where the TSA screener could potentially be sexually attracted to the passenger, there is a clear opportunity for sexual violations. What is the TSA doing to protect the employees and passengers from this?

It would not be fair to bar homosexuals from being TSA screeners; however, there are few scenarios where a homosexual TSA screener can conduct a pat-down on a passenger without creating some sort of potential for trouble. If a gay man pats down a heterosexual man, the heterosexual man may get violated. If a gay man pats down a gay passenger, the gay passenger may get violated. If a gay man pats-down a heterosexual woman, the woman may feel uncomfortable being touched by a man. It works the same way in reverse with lesbian TSA screeners.

Homosexuals cannot conduct pat-downs without upsetting just about every group of people. The only scenario that might work is to restrict gay men to conducting pat-downs on lesbian passengers. Perhaps the lesbian passengers could identify themselves as homosexuals and request gay male TSA screeners for their pat-downs. That way everything can remain platonic. Conversely, maybe the lesbian TSA screeners could be restricted to conducting pat-downs on only gay men who wish to declare their sexual orientation to the TSA. Maybe, to keep the confusion to a minimum, all of the homosexuals could wear inverted pink triangles on their shirts. That way, the screeners and the passengers could find an even greater sense of security in knowing the sexual orientation of everyone passing through the TSA checkpoints. Hopefully, by now, you are seeing how ridiculous this is.

If things are not ridiculous enough for you yet, ask yourself how the TSA should be handling transgender employees and transgender airline passengers. The issue gets even crazier when you consider that some TSA screeners and airline passengers may not be clearly classified as either male or female. Some people are going through gender changes that take years. Other people were born hermaphrodites and have no choice. Should people who are not obviously one gender or another be expected to choose a gender when approached by the TSA at an airport? This gender-bending stuff is going to get way too confusing, so let's just skip this and get back to the main issue: how the TSA addresses the concerns of homosexual screeners and passengers.

A fact of life is that some men are attracted to other men, and some women are attracted to other women. We cannot expect the homosexual men and women who work for the TSA to officially declare their sexuality and recuse themselves from same-gender pat-downs. We also cannot expect homosexual passengers to declare their sexuality to the TSA to avoid same-gender pat-downs.

By now, hopefully the absurdity of this article has exposed the true problem. The problem here is not gender or sexual orientation. The problem is the pat-downs. The pat-downs are far too intrusive, and they are violating common human dignity. The questions should not be about whether or not the TSA screeners might find the pat-downs sexually gratifying or whether or not the passengers might find the pat-downs to be sexual. The question should be this: Should government workers be permitted to stick their hands in the sexually sensitive areas of innocent people's bodies without probable cause?

People are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, etc. People just have different lifestyles. Even though these groups all have their differences, they are human beings and deserve basic human dignities. When a law-abiding citizen goes to the airport, that person deserves the respect of not being treated like a criminal. At the very least, people should be able to travel freely in America without the overwhelming fear of being molested by a government employee.