Transgender TSA screeners are now barred from performing pat downs on passengers under a new directive implementing a Trump administration executive order.
Transgender TSA Officers No Longer Permitted To Pat Down Passengers
As noted by View From The Wing, the TSA has updated its policy this week concerning transgender screeners:
In compliance with Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, published January 20, 2025, TSA has rescinded a policy from 2021 regarding transitioning and transgender officers. Male Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat down procedures on male passengers and female Transportation Security Officers will conduct pat down procedures on female passengers.
Did you know that you have always been able to request a different transportation security officer (TSO) if you were uncomfortable with the one assigned to pat you down? That policy remains in effect…at least for now. Going forward, biological males will pat down males and biological females will pat down females (to the extent, I suppose, that can be determined…).
I don’t know that I’ve ever been patted down by a trans agent…certainly not that I can recall.
Nor do I care.
While I realize this is red meat in the culture wars, I’m just not that concerned whether the person who pats me down is male or female, gay or straight, trans or cis, tall or short, slim or fat, beautiful or ugly…this isn’t a dating game, it’s a process to get through to the secure side of the airport as quickly and efficiently as possible.
And there have been bad apples among all groups, like a cabal of TSA agents in Denver (DEN) who targeted “hot” passengers for secondary screening. Those screeners should be fired and be disqualified from federal government work for the rest of their lives. The standard should be simple: professional and courteous conduct that effectively assesses risk while interacting with every passenger with dignity. Can’t be polite? You’re unfit to be a TSO.
At the risk of wading into political waters, the transgender sports concerns strike me as very reasonable, so it’s not like I’m somehow oblivious to more tangible impracticalities with such folks…but this TSA issue strikes me as a silly distraction.
Instead of focusing on who screens who at the TSA, the TSA should do a better job of screening itself…and maybe DOGE should focus on some of the lucrative contracts for new screening machinery that is slower and less efficient than what it is replacing. That’s where the focus should be…
image: TSA
Historical records, at various times, show that great empires do not perish due to external attacks from other empires. It is usually a case of self-inflicted decline, a decline created by their own leaders. This happened with the Middle Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the Hoehzollern Empire, Mussolini’s improvised empire, even the Nazi Empire itself, which made mistakes after mistakes, and above all, the case of the Roman Empire, and its delirious and insane emperors. It seems that the turn has come for the American Empire, under Trup, the idiot himself in command of a great empire, which is being destroyed not by the Chinese or Russian opposition, but by the delirious initiatives of Trump himself. I think it is a ridiculous way to decline, but the Americans chose an idiot to govern…
F’n clown, yea that’s exactly what’s happening.
Look around buddy, the public loves what is being accomplished. Hated of Trump is the only reason the few left complaining have. People want government accountability, people don’t want freajs in public or chicks with d#cks in their kids sports. People want wars to end in the Middle East and Ukraine, people don’t want our money sent there to be wasted on more needless death and destruction.
People want illegal criminals out of our neighborhoods, people don’t want tax dollars going to feeding & housing them. Should I go on?
You need to read the room and see 80% of what Trump has done in a month is favorable to 80% of the public, even if they don’t like his methods.
It truly is a Golden Age in America!
Dave, go kiss Elon and Donald’s Nazi ass.
Surely that government thinks about doing what is best for the people, not for them…
F’n idiot clown!
Says the guy who is probably here illegally with a name like that. We don’t say it as much as we did 8 years ago, but go back to where you came from!
Only that kind of response is expected from a racist idiot…
I hope you get cured of your illness some day. Good luck!
I love the use of percentages that are a sort of finger in the air thrown out to be actual statistics. Kind of like Trump calling his crowds the biggest ever seen. Sorry, 80% of Americans do not support 80% of Trump’s actions. People support change, yes. People support better governance, yes. People do not support burning down the house and defying a basic respect of the Constitution.
The trans thing is so laughable. Such a touch point for the conspiracy bored idiots who crave a bit of drama. It affects about what percentage of the population? 1%. This is nothing more than a distraction over 1% of the population in the country – with an even smaller percentage in government jobs or ever interacting with you. This is hardly some victory of social justice. It’s a distraction for the idiots who can’t see what’s really happening: hands in the cookie jar.
Trump isn’t in charge. He was taking orders from a 4 year old in his own office. What a total beta cuck. A 4 year old told him to shut his mouth and he did it like a submissive little dog.
Shouldn’t trans gender TSA agents at least be allowed to pat down trans gender passengers? The whole order just shows Trumps dislike (should I say hate?) for people who are different from the white, male, european template. 1 1/2 months down, 46 1/2 months to go. I cannot wait.
You mean like Kash, Pam, Linda and Tulsi? And Scott Bessent is a bone smuggler.
Us men don’t understand though what it’s like for a woman.
I wouldn’t want a biological male disguised as a woman patting down my daughter. It’s a violation of consent as the recipient is under the impression they are being patted down by a woman. Saying you won’t even notice without asking if they are trans does not imply consent.
@staradmiral … +1 .
Would you have an issue with a trans man patting your daughter down, since in your eyes they are actually women? Also, did you miss the part where you can ask for a different person to pat you down?
“Trans men” are female.
“Trans women” are male.
This is self-explanatory.
Tell us how you have never interacted with a trans person in your life without telling us…
Funny this comes from a man that just wanted to grab women by the pu$$y.
Yes, but now with no USAID how will people know which gender they are?!
Certainly we’re living through some strange times, largely characterised by these smoke and mirrors.
I fear the actions already taken (and what’s to follow) that aren’t generating endless clickbait headlines will have the most lasting and significant impact on everyone. An impact that will gradually reveal itself over time, and by then, the damage will be done. The comment earlier about the (well documented) fall of The Roman Empire has great merit, imo.
To put this in the context of a comment on a travel blog, I’m reminded of when Australia abruptly shut down Qantas and Jetstar indefinitely due to COVID. Contracted staff were laid off without ceremony, pilots were offered early retirements, and mandatory unpaid leave was imposed on everyone else. When the industry eventually started to recover, the challenge of rebuilding was incredibly difficult—and unprecedented.
This scenario serves as a prescient metaphor that remains at the forefront of my mind as I observe similar developments in the USA.
Good luck, everyone! 🙂
Say the “guy” living in a sh#thole country that allowed terrorists to take over. You people never learned from Charlie Hebdo.
Pay your fair share to NATO or defend yourself the next time you surrender before the first shot is fired. The French are pure p#ssies!
Yes Dave, let’s boycott the french fries, like when France voted against the US invasion of Iraq.
President Trump, sign the law changing the name to “freedom fries”!! And we don’t want gays, blacks or foreigners doing our fries, 80% of Americans think this way.
It is essential to make America great again.
And 100% of the illegal Hispanic criminals here have names like yours. Facts matter!
And yes, we can clean our own toilets pal!
You should start by cleaning your mouth and ass.
For a guy that claims to love everything that is being accomplished your comments make it clear that you are extremely upset. This website and the comments above are clearly triggering significant negative feelings for you. Have you considered limiting the information that you are consuming so that you will not feel such an obvious need to spend an excessive amount of your time expressing your rage and frustration to strangers on someone else’s website? If you start with controlling your obsession with commenting then next you could begin trying to control your emotions.
Oh thank goodness. The price of eggs will surely go down now!
There should be complete professionalism so any TSA personnel can pat down anyone. Professionalism is doing an excellent job even when nobody is looking.
The fact that they have men TSA pat down men and women TSA pat down women shows that there is a shortfall of professionalism. It also assumes that women TSA are never lesbian because a lesbian TSA patting down a woman is like a sex maniac man patting down a woman.
The best compromise is that any TSA personnel will pat down any passenger but due to historical and social norms, there is one exception and that a passenger can request a TSA personnel to be of a specified gender or at least look like the specified gender.
Trump does seem obsessed with alienating,marginalizing,transgenders.Maybe he got burned by some trannies back in his studio 54 days.The whole Village People thing with him is also from that era.His buddy Musk has a trans daughter.At the end of the day,Trump isn’t a warmonger, that’s good,Hope he stays that way.
Yet another example that white, American men are on pace to decline even faster than they did the last 50+ years. Enjoy your tiny dick swinging contest fellas.
Wrote Boris Badenov the pathetic troll,a vulgar idiot unqualified for a respectable job,washes Natasha’s dirty underwear by hand,or else!LOL
Okay…so then who pats down transgender passengers? This administration is obsessed with other people’sn and children’s*, genitals and has made a huge fuss about pronouns despite few of them knowing what that part of speech actually does. So if a trans person is getting a patdown does a person of the trans person’s biological sex do the patdown? Does TSA rely on what the trans person identifies as? Or…? How does TSA ascertain if someone is a man or a woman based strictly on appearance. Lots of straight, female body builders have masculine features. Is TSA going to insist they’re actually men and have one grab her by her pussy then just say, “Trump told us to!”?
How does this make sense when they say there are only two genders?
I can’t help but wonder, do TSA agents actually like doing pat downs? My assumption is, no.
I can’t recall seeing a transgender person on a TSA staff, but maybe there will be more in the future because of this.
You might have – you just didn’t notice they were trans.
Very few trans people “pass” convincingly. Humans learn to visually discern the difference between male and female in infancy, and we’re really good at it. Its fanciful to believe that most people can’t tell, because most people can.
Stop calling it the “Trump administration”. It is the musk administration. Elons son told trump to shut up and that he’s not the real president, then wiped a booger on his desk, and trump just sat there and ate sh!t like there was nothing he could do.
Obviously the kid learned who is really in charge from his dad, kids have no filter.
If I worked for the TSA, I would immediately claim to be trans. I would be free from frisking/pat down duty.
Once again, Americans have been suckered in to a combined media/political show. Pressing the “trans” button triggers an astounding amount of commentary and reaction.
For those presenting themselves as supportive of deregulation, keeping the government out of personal lives, why is there such a migraine-inducing obsession with trans people. We are talking about a tiny segment of the population with an extraordinarily disproportionate amount of drama and paranoia. A lot of chatter of bathrooms; not much talk about economic catastrophe.
It harkens back to the early 80s. “If someone with AIDS walks barefoot and has a scrape on their foot, and my child is also walking barefoot…” Umm. That’s not how it works. It’s all Anita Bryant era insanity that homosexuality is contagious, that HIV is transmitted by thinking about it, or that gay and lesbian people are automatically attracted to anyone they see, particularly children.
One day… I hope soon… we can just stop worrying about trans people and keep our eyes on our own papers. It sounds miserable to be one gender but trapped in the wrong body. And I don’t see why that is MY problem. I cannot fathom what it would like to be trans, but I don’t see why it has to be the source of so much airtime and paranoia.
My goal is to get through TSA screening as swiftly as possible without being insulted, frisked, our having someone shout in my face. The gender, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity of those involved are immaterial.
Perhaps someone would care to address the TSA’s failure rate at catching firearms. That seems like a far more pressing issue.
you can always get one of those youtube TSA AMSR pat downs*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyI-r6by478&t=48s
*Post made as a joke only
Dear oh dear. The deranged behaviour of Criminal Trump strikes again. From across the sea, I can’t help but laugh at the ship of fools that was once a respectable place to live.
Males doing pat-downs of males, and females doing pat-downs of females seems like a perfectly reasonable and proportionate approach to efficiently managing the large numbers of travelers going through screenings every day. Transgender TSA agents are not “barred from performing pat downs on passengers” as you write, they simply have to perform pat downs on passengers of the same sex, just like everyone else.
If the number of transgender TSA agents is as small as many suggest, and they are as professional as you suggest, this should not be a problem for them. It is also a proportionate measure considering the fact that one transgender TSA agent may impact several passengers over the course of a shift.
You are entitled to not care about who pats you down, but a lot of people who travel every day are not comfortable being touched by strangers of the opposite sex. This is especially true for women who disproportionately experience unwanted touching, harassment, and worse, from men. Additionally, it is becoming increasingly apparent that some of the people who identify as transgender are in fact men indulging a sexual fetish; women should not be required to participate in someone’s fetish without consent. You cannot give away their right to consent and is not the place of the state to take it away either.
I’m not sure how many travelers are aware that they are able to request an alternate TSA agent but considering the awkwardness of the situation and the power imbalance that exists during the security screening, I don’t think it’s reasonable to put the onus on the passenger in this situation. I can very well imagine that a situation like that could be very traumatic for a woman who has experienced prior assault or trauma (and I am quite certain there are greater number of such women than there are trans-identifying males, sadly).
I never want my daughters to be forced to submit to a pat down by a male (regardless of how he identifies) without their free and express consent, and I would not want to be forced to have a female stranger pat me down without my consent.
I don’t see how the presence of other challenges and “bad apples” within the TSA are relevant, when such a simple and proportionate solution exists.
** I intend no disrespect to transgender people, and I have great compassion for people with gender dysphoria who require medical supervision to avoid harming themselves. It is a shame that the same term “transgender” is used to apply to so many people who clearly are not similarly situated.
Mountain. Molehill.
Here’s what is more of a mountain than all the scaremongering about transgender individuals:
The TSA haraSSSSment gropes are the worst of the “by-hand” body searches at regular screening checkpoints. They are just as ridiculous regardless of a screener’s sexual orientation and sex categorization. [In many such cases, they even are doing diaper massages on babies, and that I take issue with too since it has nothing to do with machine alarms being set off.]
I have been through thousands of airport screenings and can’t think of a single screener interaction of mine with a screener who was obviously transgender; and if a screener is, it’s pretty much going to be no better or worse for the passenger.