News
New TSA bill seeks to improve screening for trans passengers
Many face humiliating invasions of privacy at airports

Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) has introduced the Screening With Dignity Act. (Photo by Nymetsfan8790 via Creative Commons)
New legislation introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) seeks to improve the screening process for transgender passengers, who report a high level of invasive practices at security checkpoints.
The bill, known as the Screening With Dignity Act, would require the Transportation Security Administration to develop procedures to screen transgender passengers that take into consideration their particular needs.
The legislation would require that the TSA begin conducting in-person training of all officers on the screening procedures for transgender passengers and whenever possible with the participation of transgender rights groups.
Rice said in a statement she introduced the legislation because the transgender community “deserves to be treated with fairness and respect in all aspects of life, including travel.
“Maintaining high safety standards and screening all passengers with dignity should not be mutually exclusive,” Rice said. “It is clear that TSA needs to reassess its technological capabilities and improve its screening procedures to be more inclusive and ensure that no American is ever humiliated or discriminated against while going through security.”
Rice announced in a statement Monday she’d introduce legislation and a spokesperson confirmed the bill was introduced Tuesday.
In the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 43 percent of respondents reported having at least one problem related to being transgender in the past year.
One respondent is quoted as saying a TSA agent referred to him as “it” when he went through screening following gender reassignment surgery, then — after repeatedly being told he wasn’t a man — had to argue with TSA that a male employee needed to do the pat down after being informed a woman would be more appropriate.
Another respondent was quoted as saying TSA subjected them to a longer screening as TSA searched their bag, pulled out intimate items and called friends to look and laugh. The respondent reported having “to remove my wig to prove I was the same person” and being “humiliated.”
The Screening With Dignity Act would require TSA to conduct two studies within 180 days. The first would evaluate the cost and feasibility of retrofitting advanced imaging technology screening equipment, or developing new equipment, that would operate in a gender-neutral manner. The second study would assess the impact TSA’s screening has on self-identified transgender and gender-nonconforming passengers compared to other travelers.
Further, the bill would codify vital privacy and anti-discrimination rules for travelers on the basis of numerous characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
The legislation has 15 original co-sponsors and support from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Harper Jean Tobin, director of policy for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said the bill is a crucial step in alleviating the challenges transgender passengers face in TSA screenings.
“The TSA is broken, and it has been broken for all travelers for a long time,” Tobin said. “For many transgender people, every vacation or business trip begins with invasive body scans and humiliating pat-downs. No more empty promises – the TSA needs to make real changes to both the ineffective machines that cause so many false alarms and their training and procedures.”
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
Colombia
Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election
Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.
López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.
López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.
Runoff to take place June 21
Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.
Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
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