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Interesting experience yesterday morning!
We were entering the airport to leave Egypt after a Christmas/New Year break, and put the cases, bags, coats, keys, shoes, etc, on the baggage scanner belt and went through the body scanner, my wife first.
On the other side were a couple of officers doing routine quick pat-downs, one male and one female. I put my arms up and the guy started patting me but then stopped, stepped back and said something in Arabic to his colleague. At this point my wife tried to call me over because the guy operating the luggage scanner wanted her case opened and I had the key, but the two in front of me wouldn't let me pass. I still didn't know what was going on, but eventually the scanner guy came over as well. All this time, most of my stuff was still on the scanner belt so that had stopped and the queue was gettting longer....!
Then the 2 male officers said something to the female and she looked at me and jabbered in Arabic, but I thought I caught one English word, "woman" and a lightbulb started to go on in my head!I gave her a puzzled look and she said slowly "woomen?" , paused, "men?" so I said "man" and her face cleared at once and the male officer stepped forward and gave me a very perfunctory frisk, carefully avoiding the 'danger area' and quickly waved me through!
I wasn't wearing anything even androgenous, just trainers, beige coloured cargo trousers, and a long sleeve open neck shirt, but he must have realised what he had touched through my shirt and, given their paranoia about unrelated men and women touching each other, he must have feared that the Wrath of Allah and the revenge of all my male relatives was about to descend on him!!
Interestingly we had to go through another security check and frisk, an hour later, to get to the departure gate, and no problems at all this time.
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Pansy
With you often going to,Egypt I wondered if that would ever happen to you
And now it did
X
Julie
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Thanks Pansy for sharing that great experience. I think it's so interesting and fun to share those everyday experiences as they come up.
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(08-01-2019, 07:47 AM)Pansy-Mae Wrote: Interesting experience yesterday morning!
We were entering the airport to leave Egypt after a Christmas/New Year break, and put the cases, bags, coats, keys, shoes, etc, on the baggage scanner belt and went through the body scanner, my wife first.
On the other side were a couple of officers doing routine quick pat-downs, one male and one female. I put my arms up and the guy started patting me but then stopped, stepped back and said something in Arabic to his colleague. At this point my wife tried to call me over because the guy operating the luggage scanner wanted her case opened and I had the key, but the two in front of me wouldn't let me pass. I still didn't know what was going on, but eventually the scanner guy came over as well. All this time, most of my stuff was still on the scanner belt so that had stopped and the queue was gettting longer....!
Then the 2 male officers said something to the female and she looked at me and jabbered in Arabic, but I thought I caught one English word, "woman" and a lightbulb started to go on in my head!I gave her a puzzled look and she said slowly "woomen?" , paused, "men?" so I said "man" and her face cleared at once and the male officer stepped forward and gave me a very perfunctory frisk, carefully avoiding the 'danger area' and quickly waved me through!
I wasn't wearing anything even androgenous, just trainers, beige coloured cargo trousers, and a long sleeve open neck shirt, but he must have realised what he had touched through my shirt and, given their paranoia about unrelated men and women touching each other, he must have feared that the Wrath of Allah and the revenge of all my male relatives was about to descend on him!!
Interestingly we had to go through another security check and frisk, an hour later, to get to the departure gate, and no problems at all this time.
How did you present yourself generally in Egypt, and what was the response?
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(10-01-2019, 11:50 PM)caultron Wrote: How did you present yourself generally in Egypt, and what was the response?
Presented as male ( as I do at home apart from round the house) - Shorts or trousers, shirt, hat, trainers/flip flops. No reaction in anyway.
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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.
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Lately when i fly to europe, I just go as Jannet on my "Him" passport. I never get patted down by males ( even if the connecting flight is in the US )
Although I am sure having both secondary sex attributes confuses the body scanner.
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(17-01-2019, 01:15 AM)jannet.duff Wrote: Lately when i fly to europe, I just go as Jannet on my "Him" passport. I never get patted down by males ( even if the connecting flight is in the US )
Although I am sure having both secondary sex attributes confuses the body scanner.
Hence the smoke rolling out of machine, and the embarrassed look of both male and female security agents??? LOL
