On the heels of “Transparent” breaking ground by winning two Emmys, it’s clear that creator Jill Soloway’s statement, “We don’t have a trans tipping point yet. We have a trans civil rights problem,” is eminently true. Just one day after the Emmy awards, on Monday, Sept. 21, PUNY Entertainment executive producer Shadi Petosky (who was also a writer in “Transparent’s” Writing Workshop) had just finished celebrating her birthday with her mother in Orlando, Florida, when her trip home to Minneapolis took a troubling turn. As she went through airport security, the transgender television writer was stopped by a Transportation Security Administration agent, who, according to Petosky, called her penis “an anomaly,” and pulled her out of the security line for additional screening.
She faced even more confusion after getting through security, missing her original American Airlines flight and a subsequent one after American stalled on issuing her a boarding pass and even called the police to try to get her escorted out of the airport. Petosky live-tweeted the entire ordeal, which caused her to miss her flight and spend the night in Miami (her original flight route would have had her home Monday evening).
This is not an isolated incident; on Twitter, transgender people are sharing similar stories using the hashtag #TravelingWhileTrans. Earlier this year, the National Center for Transgender Equality jointed a lawsuit against the TSA over its use of body scanners. Petosky spoke with Salon from Miami about her airport ordeal and what she’d like to see from the TSA and airlines to provide fair and equal service for transgender passengers.