The mother of a transgender teenager has filed a lawsuit against the Transporation Security Administration (TSA) claiming security officers at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) demanded her daughter be subjected to a genital examination in order to board their flight to New York.
Kimberly Erway has filed the suit in federal court on behalf of her daughter Jamii who was only 15 years old at the time of the incident in 2019. The lawsuit claims the officers violated Jamii’s Fourth Amendment rights, as well as state laws and TSA’s own policies.
The officers allegedly detained Jamii after she passed through a body scanner which produced a ‘false positive’ for a possible concealed weapon. The ‘false positive’ was in fact Jamii’s genitalia that she was born with.
Jamii was asked to subject herself to an intimate physical examination in a private room. The lawsuit claims the officers “advised Jamii that she was not free to leave until she submitted to such a search.”
Mother and daughter refused to consent to the search which resulted in law enforcement being called and triggering Jamii to suffer from “panic, anxiety, fear, racing heart, (and) shortness of breath.”
In the end, Kimberley rented a car and drove the 600-mile journey to New York rather than let her daughter be subjected to a genital examination. The lawsuit claims Jamii has been able to get on a plane ever since because of the “recurring emotional distress” that the incident has caused.
The ‘false positive’ result was due to the way that advanced body scanners “auto-detect potential threats” by using software that looks at the anatomy of men and women differently. When someone walks into the body scanner, the TSA officers have to press a ‘male’ or ‘female’ button based on how the passenger presents themself.
When the scanner detects anatomy that it doesn’t think should be there, the software thinks there might be a concealed weapon and direct officers to conduct a physical search.
“Additional screening is conducted to determine whether a prohibited item is present,” the TSA’s website explains.
Transgender passengers may, however, refused to go through the body scanner and can request a pat-down search instead. Paty-down searches are conducted by an officer of the same gender as the how the passenger presents themself.
“TSA recognizes the concerns that some members of the transgender community may have with certain security screening procedures at the nation’s security checkpoints,” the agency says on its website.
“TSA is committed to ensuring all travelers are treated with respect and courtesy. Screening is conducted without regard to a person’s race, color, sex, gender identity, national origin, religion or disability.”
In Jamii’s case, the lawsuit claims she told the operator she was transgender but officers refused to do the scan again.
Outrageous!!! The TSA should just take women’s word that it’s their pecker down there and not a gun, bomb or drugs. #BelieveAllWomen
Government should not be able to search anyone for any reason more than a pat down. Government forcing a person to expose themselves is a form of rape. Any agent, officer, or jailer who forces someone to is a rapist. Conservatives are stupid if they support government agents forcing people to expose themselves. Nothing should scare them more in the world than government taking their sons and daughters and doing this. Conservatives are stupid for supporting the police and leftist law enforcement.
Transgenders constantly make false claims and persecute straight white Christians because we don’t bow down to them. This is one case that is legitimate, however. If someone is transgender, pressing the button is not unreasonable.
Government should not be stopping or arresting people for possessing drugs. All drug laws violate personal freedom for one’s body. Conservative law says government shouldn’t be telling us what we can and can’t do to our own bodies. Conservatives are foolish if they support the enforcement of leftist drug laws. As for weapons, obvious ones are picked up by metal detectors and scanners. However, if someone with malicious intent wanted to get a weapon past, they can do so through other people they can pay who work at the airport or a bunch of different ways. TSA is security theatre.