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You're never going to believe this - I was standing next to this woman in line on Monday afternoon in the security line of the American Airlines terminal at Orlando International Airport.
Like her, I was traveling home to LA from Orlando on an American Airlines flight. Chances are good that we were probably slated to be on the same flight from MCO to LAX had this incident not occurred.
As an aside, I remember doing a double-take when I saw her because she's a very big person (i.e., tall with a large frame), but at the same time had long hair and feminine facial features, and was wearing traditionally female clothing. Catch was, she was on Grindr (a dating app for gay men, for those of you who are unaware), and that really tripped me out! But after a few seconds or so, I presumed she was transgender for that reason.
Although I did not personally witness the incident with this woman (I was in a separate yet parallel security line), I did experience a little run in with the same TSA officers on duty in that terminal at MCO at almost exactly the same time as this woman's incident.
The man standing directly in front of me in line was somewhere in the range of 75-80 years old, yet he still dutifully removed his shoes. For those of you who are unaware or don't travel by air frequently, travelers over the age of 70 or 75 - can't remember exactly what age - or who appear to be older than that age, do not have to remove their shoes at airport security. Perhaps this man was unaware of this regulation, but I'd like to think he was being an upstanding traveler and citizen.
As this man was removing his shoes (again, something that was unnecessary for this particular traveler), a loud, surly Puerto Rican-looking TSA officer comes over and shouts at the man to hurry along because he was taking too long to remove his shoes.
The man was cooperative and proceeded to hurry over the conveyor belt to drop off his belongings without uttering a word to the TSA officer (typical for someone of that generation - do as your told, be respectful, don't talk back to your elders or people in authority, etc.). However, the TSA officer proceeds to grab this man by the arm and escort him over to conveyor belt.
My stomach dropped. This man had done nothing wrong.
As the elderly man proceeds through the security line, I grab three bins and begin getting my laptop and liquids bag out of my backpack, and taking off my shoes. Now, mind you, I'm carrying a duffle bag as well, so it took me a few minutes to take off my shoes, remove everything from pockets, remove my laptop and liquids from my backpack and place everything on the conveyor belt.
As I was in the process of doing all of this, the same TSA officer comes over to me and literally grabs the last bin out of my hands, telling me, "You don't need this one," despite the fact I really did.
Before she was able to completely remove the bin from my hands, I snatched it back from her, and told her to back the **** off - I needed the bin, which is why I grabbed it in the first place.
After she walks away, I proceed to walk through the security checkpoint, shaking. On the other side, I approach a TSA officer and ask for the area supervisor, so I could report the TSA officer's actions.
Once I get a hold of the supervisor, I advise him of what happened. He was very grateful that I alerted him of the situation.
According to the supervisor, there were a bunch of new TSA agents who had just recently begun working at MCO. He knew who the agent I was referring to, and he advised me that she was part of the new batch. Still, he reiterated that her actions were unacceptable, despite the fact she was new, and that he was very grateful I advised him of the situation.
What I'm getting at is, there was a new batch of TSA officers working in the American Airlines terminal at MCO on Monday.
When someone is new on-the-job, as all of us who work know, there's a high level of ambiguity and unfamiliarity with regard to work-related tasks, proceedings, policies, etc., as there should be. Chances are, the officers that were involved in the incident with the transgender woman at the same terminal were new as well.
Does the potential that the officers involved in this incident may have been new employees excuse their actions and behavior? Absolutely not, but it perhaps offers some insight as to why the officers did what they did to this poor woman. They may have been completely unfamiliar with the proceedings surrounding how to process a transgender person through security checkpoints and reverted back to what they know to do.
You don't need a college degree to be a TSA officer - that's for sure!
Either that, or the supervisors and more senior officers fuses were strapped due to an incredibly high volume of travelers, which there was that particular day, in addition to training and supervising so many new employees. Therefore, they either didn't have the energy to process this traveler through security properly, or simply didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with monitoring all of the new hires around the clock, so incidents like this and mine slip through the cracks.
Furthermore, Florida is home to a lot of angry, bitter, surly, small-minded people and the standard of professionalism is very, very low there, so it doesn't surprise me that this incident occurred in Orlando. The TSA ***** that approached certainly epitomizes the Florida resident stereotype. Ugh!
I'm not justifying the actions of the TSA officers at the terminal, as I and others around me were also the victims of mistreatment by the same officers at the very same time - I'm just simply providing some context as to why this situation occurred and spiraled out of control.
But really though, something like this would ONLY happen in Florida. Gosh, what a wretched cesspool of humanity that place is! Yuck.
The TSA agent with the transgendered person followed the procedures correctly. It was the transgendered person who failed to prepare themselves for the written, documented procedures.
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They havent ever stopped ANYONE from bringing anything dangerous onto a plane @ those checkpoints (That I have heard) ...... THE TSA IS A JOKE!!!!
ANYONE WANTING TO BRING SOMETHING ISNT GOING TO BRING IT THRU TSA CHECKPOINTS!!
Actually, the TSA always finds forbidden items, even guns and knives, in people's bags quite often. Sometimes they were left in luggage intentionally, sometimes not.
How else would someone sneak something onto a plane, when you HAVE to go through TSA checkpoints?
But were they going to use it badly on the plane??
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