I don’t fly very often any longer. From 2006 to 2008 I flew weekly for work. It was awful, and mostly because of TSA in the post 9/11 age. Lines were long, tempers flared and everyone was scared.

Now I fly a couple times a year for business, usually for work meetings (I am a software developer and work from home). This past weekend my employer flew us into Chicago for a company dinner to celebrate a great year for the company and to welcome me to the team (I’ve been there since September) and honor a colleague who is celebrating five years with the company. It was a great time and they encouraged me to bring my wife, too so she got to meet everyone and we had a wonderful time visiting family in Chicago.

I live in the Nashville area and flew out of Nashville International Airport (BNA). 12 years ago it took about 45 minutes to clear TSA lines and be on your way to the terminal at BNA. Today it takes less than five. TSA agents and travelers are both a lot more experienced with the regulations and so there’s not as many scenes of people dumping stuff in the trash so they can get through the line without being arrested like there was in the previous decade.

People are also showing up at the airport in slip-on shoes, and already know to take off their jacket and belt before getting to the scanners. Expectations are well established and known and we just go about doing what needs to be done.

TSA agents are not well paid. If you think about the job they are tasked with doing, there is a lot of responsibility on them. I know stuff gets by them. It’s bound to happen. But I also know that they have to make judgement calls in some really weird or awkward situations and my experience this weekend made me proud of our TSA agents in both Nashville and Chicago.

I have multiple auto-immune disorders that range from annoying to actively trying to kill me. One of those is psoriasis, which is raging right now. I have very large areas on my torso and legs that are covered in thick, hard scales right now. I cannot take the normal biologics for psoriasis because I am on Kinaret for the AI disorder trying to kill me, and Kinaret doesn’t do much for psoriasis. You cannot typically mix any biologics, and Kinaret is especially known as incompatible with other biologics. So, the psoriasis rages and life goes on.

This would become an issue on Friday morning in Nashville as I went through the body scanner. The TSA Agent pulled me aside and politely asked me to raise my arms. I complied and he touched my stomach where the computer indicated an issue from the scan and felt the hard scales. The look on his face was that look you get when shit just got real. I knew he probably had no idea what he just touched so I lifted my shirt and explained that I was having a psoriasis outbreak. The look on his face was instant relief but sympathy at the same time. He asked if it was also on my leg and I affirmed and he patted the outside of my right leg to confirm and then he let me go.

I’m a middle-class late 40’s white man. There was every reason in the world for this guy to just ignore me and send me on my way if you believe in white privilege. The TSA Agent was a white male in his 30’s. He chose to do his job and physically check my leg after being presented with a medical condition as the explanation for the false-positive by the body scanner. It was not pleasant for either of us, but he had a duty to do it and I had a duty to not make a scene because he was doing his job correctly.

Fast forward to Saturday night and my wife and I are coming through TSA at Chicago Midway. I go through the body scanner and am pulled aside. A young lady is operating the scanner and a young man in his 20’s is doing the pat-downs. Knowing what is about to happen I immediately warn the guy about my psoriasis and lift my shirt to show him. He immediately calls for a supervisor to come over and check me out since he’s out of his comfort zone. I can tell he was really weirded out by the sight of the scaling and he apologizes and asks if it’s painful. I affirmed that it is and he said he didn’t want to cause me pain by touching it and that the supervisor would decide what to do. The supervisor arrives about 30 seconds later, a middle-aged man in his 50s, and the younger agent explains the situation and shows him the computer screen. I show the psoriasis on my stomach to the supervisor and he asks about my leg. I point to where the outbreak is (which matches the computer display perfectly) and he asks to pat me down. I agree politely and he firmly touches my stomach (I assume to get a reference of what the scales feel like versus what they look like) so when he touches my leg he knows what he’s touching. He checks both legs (I assume to confirm the computer didn’t miss anything) and then thanks me for my understanding before letting me go.

Medical conditions are often a trigger for people to feel self-conscious about their own body, or be weirded out by someone else’s body. Psoriasis is something that few people know anything about when they don’t have it and I’m sure that seeing my psoriasis is a very unpleasant experience for others. I’m very proud of all of the TSA agents I encountered on my trip because not once did I feel like I was being abused in any way despite the fact that the agents were definitely outside their comfort zone. They also remained vigilant and responsible despite being in an uncomfortable situation where they could have just nodded and sent me on my privileged way.

We haven’t had an act of terrorism in the skies of the USA in many years. I think a level of understanding and trust has evolved between TSA and passengers because even 18.5 years after 9/11 TSA is still taking our safety seriously.

Thank you, TSA.