TWIBS: TSA Says No More Trans Pat-Downs
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has, like most government agencies, complied with an executive order defining transgender people out of existence by disallowing trans officers from performing pat-downs. But don’t worry… trans employees can still get their bonuses! I guess!
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Another three letter agency has succumbed to executive mandated transphobia, and it might be one you weren’t expecting…
… just kidding, it’s the TSA! You must have known the TSA, who are well known as the most transphobic federal agency, were working on some way to give ground to the many executive orders demanding unabashed bigotry and discrimination that have been pushed through in the last couple weeks!
Per James Rosen at Newsmax, the TSA is officially barring transgender officers from conducting pat-downs on travelers. Newsmax obtained an internal “leadership talking points” memo about “transgender employees no longer performing pat-downs,” a policy change they say they must make to comply with Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which declared that the United States government only recognizes two sexes, male and female, and that they are immutable.
I know this is super not the point, but these guys have got to get better at naming their propaganda pieces. If you want people to latch on to your evil machinations and schemes, you need to give them names that are catchy and easy to remember. They’ve nailed the dishonesty angle, but nobody’s gonna hit the water cooler on Monday to yap about your latest fourteen-word executive order.
The TSA pat-downs memo explains that transgender officers won’t be able to perform pat-downs at all, but that they’re free to perform any other security procedure that their work certifications allow, and that this policy change won’t impact “their ability to be selected for supervisory positions or receive recognitions, bonuses, performance awards, promotions, or other increases in salary, benefits, or responsibilities.”
When Newsmax reached out to the TSA, they “confirmed the new policy without further comment.”
If I’m being honest… I’ve never been a big fan of the TSA. I’ve since nuked my Twitter account, but I spent most of 2021 heckling the TSA spokeswoman of the era about the ways in which they humiliate, harass and harm transgender travelers. One of my favorite spoken word pieces by Andrea Gibson, Your Life, makes explicit reference to the revolting gender x-ray machines you must suffer to travel by plane.
Flying While Trans is such a known nightmare that I can’t help but despise the security theater chucklefucks who make trans travelers’ lives hell, all while being comically, terrifyingly bad at the one thing they’re supposed to do: keep travelers safe.
There hasn't been a successful attack against commercial aviation in the U.S. in the 24 years since 9/11, and the TSA seems mostly to soak up taxpayer dollars and annoy every single person on earth who finds themselves unlucky enough to be subjected to an American airport.
I don’t know how many transgender people work for the TSA, but I think, rather than scrutinizing the TSA’s policies surrounding transgender employees, we should start moving towards abolishing this vestigial limb of George W. Bush’s immediately post-September 11th America, and find these trans TSA officers more supportive jobs.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
