I'm flying out to San Francisco today from Washington, DC. Will be flying back too, so advice about those area-specific airports would be great. Trying to figure out if I can get away with wearing a binder through TSA. Has anyone been flagged in the body scanners? Most of the advice I found online was about packers, or MtF trans people, and neither of those apply to me. I generally get read as female, so could I just say it's basically a full length sports bra tank top kind of thing? I don't want to keep my parents waiting because of "my gender issues" as my mom put it once (she didn't mean any harm but like -_-). Wasn't sure if this was the right forum, so yeah.
Well, it's like a tank top/sports bra. There's no special metal in it or anything, so you should be fine. Have a safe flight!
Was thinking of the full body scanners. Metal detectors are alright lmao. For anyone looking for actual advice on the thread, I wore a bra through TSA and put the binder on after the checkpoint.
You should be fine wearing a binder, but if they do a pat down and ask you about it just tell them its a binder and offer to take it off to show them you're not consealing anything.
I wore a binder through the body scanners and they were pretty suspicious about it. They kept having me go through multiple times and finally when I was about to tell them it's nothing more than a spandex binder, they (fortunately) decided to let me through so I didn't have to explain. But yeah, if they give you any trouble, just tell them what you've got on.
I don't see why there should be a problem seeing it's just different kinds of fabric. Before being out I got stopped wearing a bra because it had metal linings and they searched me way too throughly because of it.. So yeah, it doesn't really matter how "normal" what you wear is...
They generally want to pat the area to make sure I'm not hiding anything, but I've been wearing it for about 10 years and the the TSA was only a bad once (and I fly at least 3-4 times a year and sometimes more). The not so good experience was this summer but I'm not sure what airport I was at.
Haven't had problems so far. I actually just flew out of Portland a few days ago and I had a binder and a Peecock (as well as a male ID). I did get patted down but it looks like it was because of my belt and a chain I was wearing. Last year I wore a binder and a small packer in with a female ID and it was the same case. I doubt you'll have problems. They may pat your chest but a lot of people wear compressive garments so it really shouldn't be a big deal. And if they think you're female, they'll probably just assume you're wearing a sports bra.
