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I can't say I agree with body scanners or TSA pat downs, I've only been through one. What I can say is this, yes they talk about you, at that moment and maybe for that shift, possibly even after they get home. Then they forget about you and go about the next day's work. How do I know this? Simple. I used to work in the E.R. where we would see dozens of different people a shift. Some were very unique and we'd talk about them to others. Sometimes to poke fun, other times to learn about what makes them tick, so to speak. One particular pt. was a very large transgender lady. I had the oppertunity to take care of her on a couple of occasions and was given information about her as a person. She was frequent to our Hospital and was always treated with respect. How does this relate to the TSA? They see so many people a day, you have to be so unique before they'll remember you. Otherwise, it's only last for a day or two then you are replaced by someone else. It really is that simple. Do some take it to extremes, yes they do and they should be re-educated on how to be professional and to treat people with dignity, but remember they work for the federal government, enough said. So don't let flying and the TSA scare you, they like that it gives them power. When I was scanned I was wearing a sports bra and my nipple rings, I got an additional pat down, then sent on my way, no big deal. Another tip, do not make eye contact, if you do, look serious, it works for me

My Journey into Gender Fluidity I'm trying to trace my journey into what is now my gender fluid identity. I'm thinking that maybe writing a blog and asking for responses might illuminate both my own and other people's journeys into questioning our assumed gender. I'm going to start by posting an altered version of my New Member intro - just to set the scene of where I find myself at my current age of sixty four years. As I said there, I don't feel "old" and yet I am also quite comfortable with my age. I'm far more at one with myself now than I was when I was thirty. I think I have a far greater understanding of myself and my gender identity now than I did even when I was fifty. That's not to say that there aren't still some puzzles to be solved and I'm hoping that writing a history of my gender ambivalence might move me a little towards greater clarity. I want to say clearly that my gender identity causes me no distress. I'm biologically male and, on the whole I'm relatively comfortable with my male body. However, I have an identification with both genders and also with something (I'm unclear just what it is!) that is outside the gender binary. For many years I have identified more with my feminine psychological aspects than with my masculine ones. Ever since I was a young adult I have preferred the social company of women over that of men. However, over the last ten years I have become increasingly conscious that I also have a female (as opposed to feminine) aspect that has lain dormant for most of my life and who increasingly demands recognition. As a teenager and as a young man, while heterosexual in my own attractions, I always found it difficult to believe that women would find me sexually attractive. I always found it difficult to enact the male behaviours that many straight women (apparently) do find attractive. I suspect now that I had some gender ambivalence from quite an early age, though I did not see it that way at the time. These days, my gender identification is very fluid - it can move from male to female and back and rest anywhere along the connecting line and can do so in a matter of days, hours or even minutes. I regard myself as lucky to have an ambivalent gender identity and I celebrate it. If I had been biologically female then my life would have been different but, that said, I do not wish to transition. I have total support and great respect for those who do transition but that is not my pathway. I very much prefer to use the acronymn "LGBTIQ" rather than "LGBT" as I feel that neither "trans" nor "trans*" describe my identity. "Androgyne"has some resonance for me but "gender fluid" comes nearer than any other identification I have yet come across. My main outward expression of my female persona is to cross dress in private. So I am a "cross dresser" in some respect but then, once I put on "female" clothes I have entered my female identity so it could be said that I am no longer "cross dressed". I talked about this in my post in the "Why do I cross dress?" thread in the MtF Cross Dressers' Discusion Forum. This is part of what I wish to explore in this blog and, since my earliest memories of gender ambivalence involved cross dressing of sorts, that is where I'll start my exploration. Till next post.......