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U.S. Airlines to Offer New Gender Options for Non-Binary Passengers
Air travelers who want to will soon be able to choose a gender option other than "male" or "female" when buying their tickets.
The new "undisclosed" or "unspecified" options are meant to make things easier for travelers and airlines as a growing number of local, state and national governments issue identification documents with alternative gender choices, according to Airlines for America, a trade group that represents many major United States carriers.
"U.S. airlines value a culture of diversity and inclusion, both in the workplace and for our passengers," the group said in a statement.
The Transportation Security Administration requires that travelers have gender markers associated with their tickets that match the identification documents they present at agency checkpoints. The new standard will make it easier for passengers who are gender nonconforming to travel with documents that more accurately represent their identities.
Delta Air Lines, which left the Airlines for America trade group in 2015, will also offer the new options.
If you're even flying at all, I'd suggest picking "Undisclosed" or "Unspecified" simply as a way to mess with the TSA.
Also at The Daily Beast, MarketWatch, and USA Today.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday February 18 2019, @01:31PM (10 children)
It had no value before either: The only people who gain any value from knowing what kind of genitals you have are those that are considering interacting with them, i.e. potential sex partners and your doctor. It tells you absolutely nothing when making the decision about whether you should be allowed to board a plane.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:12PM (4 children)
It does if they still do the women and children first thing in the event of an emergency that anyone actually survives. That's pretty fucking narrow as a reason though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday February 18 2019, @04:23PM (3 children)
That concept hasn't really been part of any kind of professional rescuing operations for the better part of a century. Instead, the pros look for 2 things, in order:
1. Can a rescue be attempted without a high chance of adding would-be-rescuers to the list of victims? If not, the right thing for rescuers to do is not attempt a rescue. Failing to do so can lead to depressing Darwin Awards [darwinawards.com].
2. What difference will the rescue make in terms of whether the victim you're trying to help will survive? The "tri" in triage comes from dividing victims into 3 categories, and rescuing them in this order: Those that will die without prompt help but will survive with help, those that are hurt but won't die if they have to wait a while, and those that are dead no matter what the rescuers do. That's not precisely what they do now because triage has become more sophisticated, but it's still the basic framework.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @04:42PM (2 children)
You're correct on most of that with the stipulation that professional rescuers are several orders of magnitude less cowardly than your average human being. What they consider acceptable risk is not what most people would if it were their own lives on the rescuer end of the line. They would never have taken up their profession to begin with were they inclined otherwise.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 18 2019, @05:36PM (1 child)
My main source on how emergency response actually works is my sister, who started out as an EMT and now is an ER doc. It was also part of my much lower-level training in basic wilderness medicine back when I was responsible for leading backcountry trips with kids - you always check for the risk to yourself before just going in. For example, if someone was just electrocuted by a downed high-voltage electrical wire, your first goal is to talk to the power company, not to charge in to perform CPR.
It's not cowardice to evaluate a situation, decide you have about a very low chance of even getting to the victims to do anything useful before succumbing yourself, and make the rational decision that going after the victims would be a bad move. As the saying goes, discretion is the better part of valor.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @06:03PM
You're coming at it from the perspective of someone who isn't letting fear make their decisions though. This is not the norm among humans.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Funny) by fakefuck39 on Monday February 18 2019, @03:22PM (4 children)
look at the keyboard expert over here. you are absolutely correct - gender is not used to determine if you can board the plane, nor is that the reason they ask for it. hey buddy - how many international flights have you taken? do you even have a passport?
gender, your place of employment, your address, as well as the other privacy-invading information they ask, are not used for boarding the plane. it's used to verify the person on the passport is the person holding the passport. the passport - something you should look into getting, uniquely identifies a person. that person can then be looked up in databases with information used to for boarding the plane. information that is completely useless if the passport and the passenger do not match.
now that we've established what gender is for at the airport, and that you are an ignorant idiot spouting your dumb little theories - let me ask you. would gender be more helpful in its purpose if we had more gender categories? absolutely, so this is a very good idea. put down you're a hydrogen atom, as long as you do it in all aspects of your life in that database - employment history, rent applications, bank loans. there may be may be more than one Thexalon Faggot out there, but only one that identifies as a transgender platypus. This helps more accurately ensure you are the person handing border patrol your passport, if you ever get one. This is not a system that can be gamed by trolls either, since if you identify as a gay platypus on your passport but identify as "old unattractive loser incel" on you bank account, you'll be denied boarding.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 18 2019, @04:43PM (2 children)
I have traveled internationally. So has all of my immediate family. At least where I've traveled, they're looking for a few things on your passport:
1. Are you who you say you are? That's where the photo comes in, along with any other government-issued ID you might be carrying. They're also looking for signs that you respond readily to the name on the passport, anything you sign matches up, and that you aren't acting nervous. If you're named Mary but have sideburns and a mustache in your passport photo, the person holding that passport needs think they're named "Mary" and either have sideburns and a mustache or look like they can grow one.
2. Are you allowed to enter the country you're traveling to? That's not affected by your gender or physical sex in any way.
What they don't do without a damn good reason is grope your crotch to ensure that your genitals match what your passport says you should have. That makes "M" or "F" a less useful data point than height or weight.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday February 19 2019, @04:52AM
I thought crutch groping was now common before boarding a flight? Haven't traveled internationally in a long time.
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday February 19 2019, @09:15PM
way to miss the entire point there retard. the point is whether or not more gender categories would be helpful to match the person to the passport. the whole point is that if it didn't say "M" or "F" but instead said "transgender M" it would be more useful to identify you. Like when they pull up your mortgage info and it says "M" but on your passport it says "transgender M." That little computer they have, if you've ever been to secondary inspection, has a bunch of personal info on it - height, weight, eye color, place of employment, the highschool you went to, your bank information. They match that info to what is on your passport, and match it against your replies to their questions.
If you'd like the experience of secondary, tell them "on a tropical island fucking your father in his loose asshole" when they ask you where you've been upon reentry. I do that when I have a couple of hours to kill and am dying of boredom.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @09:36PM
BZZT! Wrong. The MAC (and Real Soon Now™ IPv6) address on your government implanted tracking beacon uniquely identifies you.
I find your lack of faith in our governmental identification implants disturbing.