Carry On (Music for Cisnormative Airports)

Shadi Petosky, a writer & producer, wrote about the ordeal over her anatomical “anomaly” as it happened, saying she missed her American Airlines flight on Monday due to the incident. “I stepped into the full body scanner, the TSA agent looked at me & pressed the F button, The scanner picked up an ‘anomaly’ in my crotch area. I said, I’m transgender. That’s my penis, Petosky recalled. “The TSA officer then said something like, ‘If you are a man, then go back in the machine and we’ll run you as a man.'” “Told by the agent that she needed to be run as a man or a woman, Petosky said she replied, “I’m transgender. I am a woman, but I have an atrophied penis" trying to make it kind of not a big deal.
The TSA officer replied, “If you don’t want to be run as a man, we’ll have to search you. Are you a man or a woman?”
Then he asked her whether she wanted a male or female agent to search her body.
Cisnormative prejudice carries on…

Mixed & selected by Ace Beaty, recorded on April 8th, 2026.