(OPINION) TheBlaze – A video of a transgender woman is going viral after recalling a recent experience in an airport with the Transportation Security Administration.
Model and content creator Rosalynne Montoya recently shared an experience with social media users and insisted that TSA is transphobic. Montoya, according to Buzzfeed, is an Arizona-based, Hispanic, bisexual, nonbinary transgender woman. She was recently traveling from Phoenix to Los Angeles to visit her boyfriend.
When she arrived at the airport, Montoya said she was subjected to humiliating treatment at the hands of TSA. “Can we talk about how horrible it is to travel while being transgender sometimes?” Montoya asked in the now-viral video, which has been seen by at least 18 million people at the time of this reporting.
“I always have immense anxiety leading up to going through security. And this means that I totally recognize the privilege of having all of my documents correct. So, the gender marker on my license, for example, says ‘female.'” “But, going through the scanner, there’s a male scanner and a female scanner in the TSA checkpoint,” Montoya continued.
“And, looking at me, you know, I look like a woman and I am a woman. So, that’s great. I love having systemic privilege when I feel unsafe, which is in an airport. But, going through the scanner, I always have an ‘anomaly’ between my legs that sets off the alarm. And so [a female TSA agent] asked me if I had anything in my pants and I told her ‘No’ and she’s like, ‘Well, maybe it’s just like the metal on your shorts, so let’s scan you again.'” READ MORE
