Lindsey Deaton

Lindsey Deaton is a transgendered woman commuting regularly between Los Angeles and Cincinnati.

Checking in and getting through airport security can be a challenge for many travelers. But for some of us, it's traumatic. It outs us. In public. In front of strangers.

In many circumstances, Transportation Security Administration screening procedures require strangers to touch us. To touch me.

In 2010, the TSA adopted two controversial procedures for primary screening of passengers – body-scanning machines and full-body pat-downs. The Washington Post reported that year that there were "high-profile acts of civil disobedience" in response to the new procedures, including software programmer John Tyner's unforgettable warning to a TSA official that "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." Unfortunately, the TSA is touching my junk almost every time I travel.

Exiting the magnetic scanner July 1 in LAX Terminal 3, I was stopped by a female TSA agent. Looking back at the display, I saw the crotch area on the screen was lit yellow. Immediately I told the agent I am transgender and asked if she was trained to deal with transgender people. She said, ‘"yes," then asked if I wanted "a man to screen me."

"No! I'm a girl," I shouted. "And I want to be screened privately."

Two female TSA agents led me to a private room. I lifted my white sleeveless dress, pulled my panties down and showed them I was carrying nothing. They turned away flinching and instructed me to stand still. One the agents ran her hands up to the top of my legs, touching my tucked penis. I cried and shook through the whole experience.

Afterwards, I wanted to document the experience. A TSA lead agent came in and said, "You can't take pictures, sir." I screamed back at him, "She! She! She!" Writing down what happened, I posted it to my Facebook page. During the hour I waited, I was inundated with support. My friends had no idea that transgender people are regularly subjected to this invasive screening every time we travel.

Apprehensive about my return trip, I entered the TSA magnetic scanner in Denver and was stopped. Another yellow box. I told the agent, "I’m transgender." She offered to rescan me as a male, and I passed. It turned out that rescan was not sufficient. Since I presented female, I had to be privately screened.

The lead TSA agent and screener took me to a private room. Crying hard while the screener slid her hands all the way up my legs, touching my penis under my shorts, I told these agents that their policy requires transgender people to out themselves. They said "no, but you must submit to the private screening every time if you present yourself in a gender with genitals that don't match." There was no compassion or understanding of the trauma I was being subjected to by strangers touching me. The next day I wrote to the TSA Office of the Administrator/Chief of Staff reporting my experiences and immediately received a reply assigning my complaints/experiences to the appropriate offices.

This week getting ready for a flight to Cincinnati, I discovered that Frontier Airlines does not use TSA pre-check. I called the TSA in Washington D.C. and explained my predicament. I received a return phone call from the TSA manager at LAX Terminal 3 offering to meet me and walk through the screening process with me. She met me in front of security, walked with me as I approached the scanner and waited on the other side while I went through it. I did not set off an "alarm" and everything went smoothly. This time.

We all want the travel experience to be a safe one. Right now it’s not. For some of us, it’s traumatic. The TSA needs comprehensive transgender cultural competency training.