TSA Groin Searches Menstruating Woman

this is the worst abuse I’ve read so far, this is beyond stupid. How any self respecting TSA agent could go through with this is beyond me completely, this saddens me to no end

but complaining on the internet is not very productive.

The ACLU is collecting reports of abusive TSA behavior at https://secure.aclu.org/site/SSurvey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=1440

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (http://www.nsvrc.org) has expressed concern about the impact of TSA searches. They can be contacted at resources@nsvrc.org.

You can also google to find contact info for local news media, if you want to draw attention to this problem.

The TSA is a government agency. You can and should complain to your elected representative.

I have respect for government and can appreciate how difficult it must be to work with thousands of passengers every day. With that said, I really believe TSA is out of control. This woman was subjected to an examination of her groin area simply because she was menstruating or would soon be menstruating. What kind of police state are we living in if woman are subjected to this kind of assault disguised as security? I have issues of my own around touching. I can’t imagine what it take for someone as strong as her to be reduced to tears.

I’m so sorry you had to go through this. It’s important to give warning to others when you’ve been through something you hope others can avoid. I understand the position of the site moderators as well, that the TSA shouldn’t be treated like kindergarteners who can’t learn to understand that one normal state of being a woman is being a menstruating one, and that they’re clearly going to have to learn to deal with this – just like they’re going to have to learn to deal with every other variation of ‘human being’ that isn’t Straight White Able-bodied Man. And that dealing with it shouldn’t involve mistreating every traveler who doesn’t fit that model.

So instead of doing either of these things – taking off your glad rag or proudly wearing it through the scanners (I don’t know how it’s possible to stop menstruating for the security process and start up on the other side, since what*ever* you use is going to be questionable, apparently) – I would like to remind people that it is their constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches or seizures, and that if you don’t agree that the original poster’s treatment at the hands of the TSA is acceptable, you can refuse it.

It is your right as a traveler to be treated only to security measures that are required and necessary – and the scanners and pat-downs as a primary security policy are not. If you’re going to carry anything through security, make it a voice-only recorder (they get shirty too about video and the battery life for any such device probably wouldn’t outlast the delay you may encounter anyway). Inform the security agents you encounter that you’re voice-recording the encounter for your safety and calmly agree to comply with any security measures that they are willing to be recorded as saying are mandatory and necessary, but refuse to allow them to touch you. It is a human right not to be touched by anyone you don’t want touching you. Remind them.

I honestly would have reached in and handed it to them, preferably soggy with its intended use. I understand that you appreciate their delicacy in doing their jobs, but their jobs are asking them to do something blatantly harmful and wrong. I hope you again find peace from the memories they dredged up for you.

Respectfully, IMO they’re not taking it seriously enough. I don’t mean the front-line employees we have to deal with at the airport; I mean the people at the top who :create: the policy. Could they somehow not anticipate that a certain percentage of the public would be menstruating? Or wearing an ostomy bag? Breast implants? Piercings? IUDs?

Of course security decision-makers could have anticipated these variations among human bodies — had the policy been rigorously researched, thought out, and articulated before rolling it out. Frankly, McDonald’s has superior management practices. In fact, there’s *no* data that supports their claim that these freakishly invasive practices result in superior safety outcomes. The fact is, for a variety of social, historical, anatomical and medical reasons, this practice is harder on women as a class than it is on men as a class. The fact is, there should be a higher burden -a MUCH higher burden- of evidence required before a policy is enacted that tramples so fundamentally on our human and civil rights. And that is why I would be confident that this policy would be thrown out when it is eventually argued before the Supreme Court — had the Court itself not been hijacked by the far right and by corporate interests. As it is right now, I’m not so sure, and that should scare us every bit as much as the porn/grope policy and the terrorism it purports to fight.

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Nice to see nobody cares about the constitution anymore. The terrorists have won.

This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE!!! Please tell us that this glad rags user REPORTED the TSA and filed a report with the FAA. This little entry above will not carry far enough to LET THE GOVERNMENT KNOW we will not take this SH%T anymore. This is close to being one of the most screwed up stories I’ve read so far. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE report this incident to the FAA!

That’s horrible! And horrible for your friend Jessie .

Why is there never any verifiable facts to go along with these stories? I don’t mean names and addresses. Just the name of the airport or the day and time. It is always a friend of a friend or some terrible story with no way to know if its true or not. We need to be curious folks.

I’m confused about this: isn’t cloth and hair invisible to the x-ray backscatter scans? That’s why they are sometimes called “naked scans”: they don’t show clothes. Aren’t the flannel glad rags cloth? Maybe this person went though a millimeter wave scanner, but from the wikipedia article, cloth is also supposed to be translucent in the millimeter wave scanner. I thought that was the point.

Despite my confusion, I strongly endorse the suggestion that we folks who don’t mind pat-downs wear glad rags through scanners, to help familiarize TSA employees with what they look like. And I don’t see any reason to restrict this suggestion to women: any man (who owns a pair of briefs, anyway) who can borrow glad rags to go through security could also help train TSA employees on what cloth rags look like.

This could happen regardless of brand of panty-liner. A friend and I were just discussing this the other day. I’m sad to see that my suspicions were correct- that they would be pulled for an embarrassing and unnecessary “pat down”. Gah.

I was talking about this with my spouse, brought out a glad rag to show him what I was talking about, and my initial confusion about the glad rags showing up on the naked scanners has been clarified. The scanners saw the metal snap. My spouse and I are not sure that lots of people going through scanners with metal snaps would result in anyone with glad rags being able to get through security without a genital patdown — with the fear of underwear bombers, small amounts of metal (that could conceivably by coiled up ignition wires, for example), might inevitably result in a patdown or even a strip search.

DONT tell people to go through the scanners. They are dangerous, as was explained via university studies done on the exposure to harmful xrays.

Pat-downs are suppose to be humiliating. Your trauma will convince you, and other women, they would rather go through the scanner. GREAT job, corporate Amerika!

It is better to suggest ‘no flying’ at all. Until enough people wake up the airline industry to take control of their own security measures. The US airline companies can OPT-OUT of the TSA and hire their own personel to assure their customer’s safety.

So DONT tell women to harm themselves…tell women to get smart, and petition the airline industry and BOYCOTT!

It’s just a step towards requiring the RFID implants. They will be able to wave you through if you have the chip, they will know everything about you and your whereabouts at all time. This is what its all about!! This is orchestrated to make us SCREAM FOR THEM TO COME UP WITH A NONE INVASIVE WAY OF SCREENING. The will keep offending and abusing until we can’t take it anymore. The RFID chip will be the solution, and the American People will willingly get implanted. It’s not about safety, it’s about getting us to comply to their control. Playing on our fears to achieve what they couldn’t otherwise.

I would have asked for a bucket and my bag so that I could empty the ostomy bag for them if they were so concerned and left it with them. I would have no problem with doing this in public if necessary. As for the pad I would have taken it off and given it to them.

Natural bodily functions don’t bother me, but as I’m an ex-nurse I can be quite bloody minded when I want to be and while certain things, like watching someone vomit, make others feel very sick they have no effect on me.

I am curious if she could tell us more exactly how the search came about.

Did she set off the metal detectors and then get offered a choice between the “enhanced pat-down” and the full-body scan?

Or maybe she was randomly chosen for higher security and chose the scan but then they couldn’t figure out what the pad was on the scan so needed to pat her down?

I guess when I read it again, it sounds more like the second scenario. Goodness! Did it not occur to the TSA that they would be dealing with REAL people with real situations and not just some cardboard cut-out idea they have of a terrorist?

Our family (with two young kids) is traveling next month and I am so not looking forward to it.

I am feeling very badly for all the thousands of people who have already had to serve as “guinea pigs” because the TSA didn’t do any testing of the new measures to figure out the way to do this humanely.

Please do not encourage women to go through the x-ray scanners. Independent medical experts have concerns about this. Remember we were told that dental x-rays were low dose and safe for routine screening, yet recently the ADA has changed recommendations away from routine screening to use tailored to the needs of the individual patient. This is because independent research has shown that dental x-rays are strongly correlated to an increased risk of thyroid cancer. Also a University of Washington study in 2004 found dental x-rays of pregnant women was correlated to low birth weight of babies.

http://thedailybite.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/experts-fear-airport-whole-body-scanners-risky-for-women-genetically-vulnerable-to-breast-cancer/
“Columbia University professor of radiation oncology and public health David J. Brenner, Ph.D., is uncomfortable with the mandatory scanning of untold thousands of pregnant women and children at airports every year. Brenner, an expert in low-dose radiation risk, embraces the ALARA principle that advocates use of radiation “As Low as Realistically Achievable.” Brenner notes that about 5 percent of the general population is radiosensitive, among them women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes, and individuals prone to ataxia telangiectasia, an inherited neurodegenerative disease that causes severe disability.”

I had wondered about the full body scanners and what ALL they could SEE and flash to a crowd of people standing around waiting for their turn to go through the same agonizing experience.
If this scan can show a fabric pad, what about a paper/plastic throw away (un)sanitary napkin? and then I wondered about Tampons? Can the scans show that? I would be mortified! I don’t go around announcing my personal womanly monthlky cycles, and I would NOT want that showing up on a large screen anywhere! and what would the TSA think if they SEE a reusable Mentrual Cup such at The Keeper? http://www.keeper.com/
I am horrified at the way several people with medical conditions (illiostomy bags, or other such things) have been treated. Those conditions in and of themselves must be hard enough to live with, but to have to have it broadcast and then treated poorly must be a degrading/humiliating experience. It is WRONG!
As a sexual abuse survivor, I have a lot of body issues, and would completely break down at being ‘assaulted’ while being groped/searched! I’m sure that I am not alone (sadly).
And as a mother of daughters I am now concerned for my young girls, and how they might be treated if they were to travel. I am afraid for them having to go through such a personal humiliating type of an experience, as a young woman, whether an abuse survivor or not!
THERE has GOT to be a BETTER way!!!!!!!!

I guess the best thing to do is to bring an extra and show it to them and say you are also wearing one. I agree with the nurse I’d take mine off and hand it to them if they are so concerned. I’m not all that shy. lol. I understand that not everyone feels this way. I am an abuse survivor but we all process things differently.

Only in the us of a. Glad I life on the otherside of the great atlantic