16-01-2019, 10:39 PM
I had a similar experience in the US going through security for a domestic flight. I'm a solid 38B and they stick out enough that at this point I feel more comfortable wearing a compression vest or sports bra under my shirts when out in public. I'd prefer to avoid unwanted attention, especially going through airport security. My local airport uses the body scanners more and more and I know it can literally detect whether you are wearing a bra, extra layers of fabric and yes even areas of extra tissue. The machine needs to be told the gender of the scanee so that it doesn't falsely flag a female as having potential contraband simply because it detected extra tissue or clothing. I believe this is how women can wear underwire bras and not be flagged for an additional search.
So I put my arms up for the scan and was instructed to exit for a pat-down. The TSA agent (these folks are NOT hired for their higher than average intelligence, sorry to say) acts all embarrassed and comes up to me obviously puzzled and basically asks me if I'm male or female. At this point I can see the screen he was looking at and it has areas around one breast and across part of the front of my chest and down the same side and part way across my low back as showing something 'unusual' that they needed to investigate. I was wearing jeans, what you would call trainers (but here in the US we STILL have to remove our shoes!), a short-sleeved collared shirt with buttons, and a tank-top compression vest which I was hoping would scan as an undershirt. Once I confirmed I was male, which I assume for him meant they put the correct gender into the computer before the scan, he did a very perfunctory pat-down, more like a slide down, of the front, sides and back of my trunk and finding nothing, I was free to go.
The funny part is it only flagged one breast as 'unusual' and they're not THAT different in size and there was nothing odd about the sides of my trunk or my low back. Oh well, guess the technology needs some work. This is an assumption, but I'm pretty sure the computer analyzing the scan is programmed to assume more clothing/tissue in certain areas based on the gender entered by the operator. I think we were both flagged for pat-downs because we both have 'extra' where many men don't . Not sure what they do for obese men at my airport as this part of the US is known for having higher than normal obesity rates. Maybe that's something they can enter before the scan as well, but not sure.
So I put my arms up for the scan and was instructed to exit for a pat-down. The TSA agent (these folks are NOT hired for their higher than average intelligence, sorry to say) acts all embarrassed and comes up to me obviously puzzled and basically asks me if I'm male or female. At this point I can see the screen he was looking at and it has areas around one breast and across part of the front of my chest and down the same side and part way across my low back as showing something 'unusual' that they needed to investigate. I was wearing jeans, what you would call trainers (but here in the US we STILL have to remove our shoes!), a short-sleeved collared shirt with buttons, and a tank-top compression vest which I was hoping would scan as an undershirt. Once I confirmed I was male, which I assume for him meant they put the correct gender into the computer before the scan, he did a very perfunctory pat-down, more like a slide down, of the front, sides and back of my trunk and finding nothing, I was free to go.
The funny part is it only flagged one breast as 'unusual' and they're not THAT different in size and there was nothing odd about the sides of my trunk or my low back. Oh well, guess the technology needs some work. This is an assumption, but I'm pretty sure the computer analyzing the scan is programmed to assume more clothing/tissue in certain areas based on the gender entered by the operator. I think we were both flagged for pat-downs because we both have 'extra' where many men don't . Not sure what they do for obese men at my airport as this part of the US is known for having higher than normal obesity rates. Maybe that's something they can enter before the scan as well, but not sure.