April 8, 2015
In
Transgender & Nonbinary
Tips for Air Traveling if You are Transgender
I’ve heard a lot of transgender and nonbinary folks say they are terrified to travel by plane for fear of what might happen when going through security. I decided to look into this and it turns out it isn’t as hard as you might have thought!
I recorded this video with the tips I discovered from the airport in Atlanta while on a recent trip . Enjoy!
Mentioned in the video:
https://www.tsa.gov/transgender-passengers
Additional resources:
http://transtravel.tumblr.com/
http://sebastianjay.com/
Janet
April 9, 2015 at 8:34 AMI also recently flew through Atlanta Hartsfield (ATL) to O’Hare (ORD), and back. I didn’t have any difficulty at either airport. I was presenting full femme, with ID that didn’t agree with my presentation. I didn’t even get a side glance. Both times, due possibly to my wheelchair use, I was directed to the full body scanner. Given the cold weather in Chicago at the time, I was wearing leggings under my skirt. I had to have a pat down of my lower legs, both times, possibly because of how the leggings appeared on the scanner. That was administered by a female agent, without any need for me to specifically request such.
My traveling companion, also a trans woman, likewise had no issues of any sort at either security checkpoint. Clearly, TSA has done a very good job training the agents about #girlslikeus. I assume that a trans male would be treated equally respectfully, but that is an assumption. Kudos to TSA for their greatly improved handling of trans people.
My Experience with TSA | Adventures Of An Aging Trans Woman
April 14, 2015 at 7:38 AM[…] case you might be facing that same concern in the near future, Dara Hoffman-Fox has shared a vlog on the topic with some good hints. I only saw her post after my trip, but I think it would have gone a long […]
Sherrie
December 28, 2015 at 3:24 PMI am male to female, but have not had my name or gender marker changed on my drivers license yet. In late July I flew from Reno, Nevada to Islip, NY, with 2 of my grown children, and my daughters husband. I had not problems with TSA or anyone on the airline. I also had no problems at Denver where we had a 2 hour layover. The agent at Enterprise car rental at the airport in Islip was very polite as well, and even offered us a free upgrade to an SUV when he noticed all the luggage we had.
Kenzi Connor
December 29, 2015 at 12:19 PMThanks for doing this! Any chance of getting either a transcript or a highlight of the points?
Dara Hoffman-Fox
December 30, 2015 at 9:29 AMAt the moment I’m unable to afford a transcriber 🙁
Jessica Alexander
December 30, 2015 at 12:36 AMTSA pre check is what you want to make things go smoothly. https://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck
Also, as of December 2015, you can no longer opt out of the body scanner.