A decision by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to disallow the routine screening of travellers of the opposite sex is a bureaucratic solution to a non-existent problem.
The screening in question involves a quick search using a hand-held wand and occurs after the walk-through metal detector alarm is sounded. It is famously depicted in the film This Is Spinal Tap, in which the source of the alarm is revealed to be a foil-wrapped zucchini.
It is a standard form of search that occurs many thousands of times daily at airports across Canada. The wand is waved over various parts of the body, and may result in a belt buckle being removed. It is in no way intrusive. And, if they take offence at the procedure, feeling it an affront to their modesty, or worrying that security personnel are trying to get some giddies in the highly charged sexual atmosphere of airport security queues, people already can request that any search prompted by an alarm be conducted out of public view, where two officers of the same sex as the person being searched must attend.
A spokesperson for CATSA has defended the same-sex code as an enhancement to "customer service." But making a common security procedure into a gender issue places an unnecessary additional burden on security employees who have manifestly more important concerns. Customer service is better achieved by the serious business of keeping people with bombs in their briefs off airplanes.