travel

When the TSA announced a new line of body scanners that were supposedly less-invasive, gender-nonconforming folks excitedly packed their bags.

But when a traveler prepares to be scanned, security staff must press one of two buttons: "blue" for "men" and "pink" for "women."

When I heard that Southwest had done something appalling, my first thought was, "Again?"

I understand being firmly rooted in your own sexuality and there is certainly a limit to how comfortable I am being touched by people I’m not having sex with. But that isn’t what this is about. This is about making a joke at the expense of a real group of people. They could have just stopped at the erotic showering and I would have been convinced of the worthwhileness of their product, even if I don’t have the resources to even have time to go to the website, such is the non-existence of my "World Travel Discretionary Spending Fund" for the third quarter of 2011. But instead they chose body shaming. Which is important to me, since I am a fat dude and my days of body shame are behind me. I’m not willing to be told I’m less and then shell out money to prove anyone wrong about that.

If this is how people in other countries see American women, how does it effect the way we are treated while abroad?