This note is meant to logically look at air travel while dressed and should not be taken as a put down to either those who have or those that have not traveled “pretty”. The outcome of posting this is hoped to be to encourage others to consider traveling en femme.

A quick perusal of the “Special events and occasions” forum will find a number of our sisters who describe their adventures while dressed in the friendly skies. I have recently joined this club. I recently had a discussion with a sister about my experiences which got me thinking about why it has been as easy as it has been for me and apparently others that have described their experiences here.

Let’s first look at the numbers. There are a lot of TG/CD/TS people traveling. In 2008 about 810,000,000 passengers traveled in the US. If half of them are male and 3% are TG/CD/TS (the middle of the ranges I see quoted), then about 24,000,000 trips are taken by us each year or about 65,000 per day. If 2% of us travel dressed, then there are over 1,000 of us in the skies each day. Of course, I have no way to estimate what proportion of us who actually do travel dressed but 2% may be low as I suspect that the proportion of pre-op TS traveling dressed is much higher. Obviously some of us don’t need to prosthetics when we travel and maybe should be included in these numbers. The bottom line though is that there are a significant number of males presenting as female traveling each day.

The travel environment presents a challenge to analyze. On the one hand, the airport and airplane is a closed environment. Once you are in it, you really can’t get out unless you want to miss your flight or risk going to prison if you disrupt the flight. There are lots of people around you which increases the chances of your being read but most of these people are worried about getting to their gate on time and then they work hard to overcome their boredom by interacting with family members or reading a book. In other words, they are focused on their business and not others. So there are lots of people who could cause a problem but probably won’t notice if they even cared.

As a backdrop to the herding of the masses, the environment is protected by a group of people (TSA) whose job is to insure your safety. They are also a group who are trained to follow the rules. In many (if not all) airports also are protected by an additional police type force (in Connecticut, Bradley airport is manned by the state police) whose job is to insure safe travel. Lastly, we know there are an increased number of air marshals actually on the flights. As you all know, the laws of this country do not make it illegal for us to wear the clothing of our choice. Similarly, the TSA rules explicitly allow the use of prosthetic devices including breast forms. So this group of people who are trained to follow the rules, be polite and professional are not going to single a TG/CD/TS out unless there is real cause to do so. (Make sure you don't wear that underwire bra so they have no excuse to pat you down.)

Lastly, there is the flight crew. Again, they are there to make the flight a safe environment while keeping the passengers comfortable. Their other job is to get people in and off quickly. They have no reason to disrupt this process because someone is wearing clothes that don’t match what they think is the person’s “real” gender. Also, they often have no free time for them to do more than serve refreshments and their other duties and with most flights being full these days, the other passengers keep them busy.

Lastly, consider the experience of these air travel personnel. This analysis started with an estimate that there are about 1000 of us traveling pretty every day in the US of A. This means that on average two of us go through each airport dressed each day and that one in every 30 commercial flights has a dressed TG/CD/TS person on it. All of this means that the people who are employed to make our travel safe and enjoyable will encounter us routinely and they have learned to at least tolerate us and many of them (especially flight attendants) have learned to understand if not appreciate our situation.

So is flying pretty really such a brave thing to do? Of course, we all have to overcome our own fear which does take some bravery but compare flying pretty to going out on the town. Many of us hit the town by going to night clubs which usually involve people who have had too much to drink, walking at night on city streets without a lot of security in place, etc. We also go to numerous places during the day and night where we would have to rely on the generosity of strangers if we were involved in a dangerous situation. As I described above, air travel occurs in an environment which is designed to be safe for all involved. So to all of those who are comfortable going out dressed, I encourage you to consider flying dressed on your next flight. You will have an enjoyable time and it gives you yet another venue for showing off your good looks. I know that it has been more fun traveling dressed than not. I hope to see you all the next time I fly.

If you made it this far, thanks. Please share your thoughts.

Leann