On the Invisibility of Trans People

"There will not be a situation that could cause embarrassment," she added.

-- an article on the new "see through your clothing" machines at Heathrow

Bordering on Insanity

You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there.

-- Grosse Pointe Blank

I've often spoken, in the past, about the little ways in which my experience with the Canada-US border is sometimes different from a lot of people that I know. I grew up in the border city of Sarnia.

I crossed the Canada-US border probably a coupl'a times a month for the first eighteen years of my life. Some of my friends have been confused when I tell them that. They ask, "why did you need to cross the border so often?" We didn't need to cross the border. We crossed the border because we didn't even think about it. Because the nifty fried chicken place was in Port Huron, Michigan. Because some weeks, eggs were cheaper at the Port Huron grocery store. Because there was a good comic book shop over there. Because certain medicines were over-the-counter there, but prescription-only here.

And it worked the other way, too. As a teen, I bused tables at a popular Chinese food restaurant near the border, and the Port Huronites would come across for dinner. (To this day, I still expect all Americans to have the Michigan accent, and am jarred when it's not true).

I have walked across the bridge several, and that part was kind of unusual. It took the US customs people a bit of time to figure out how to process pedestrians. But it was no big deal. People were sometimes turned back at the border but it seemed like a big game: "they turned one of our people back at the border today, so we'll turn one of their back today as well." Petty, but like an annoying family, in a way.

Officially, Port Huron and Sarnia were two different cities of different countries, but from our perspective, it was one big city with shops and restaurants on both sides of the river.

CTV reports that new, stricter border security has been implemented at the Sarnia-Port Huron border. Now, non-Canadian citizens will be fingerprinted and photographed. People refusing to be photographed and fingerprinted will be turned back at the border.

Now, I expect that the vast majority of Sarnians won't be affected by this. People who live in Sarnia are almost all Canadian citizens. Mostly of Irish decent. Sarnia is pretty homogeneous. But I think that things will be different, now. I don't think that the border will be as much of an afterthought that it was for Sarnians like me.

And I'm not saying that the US has no right. I am saying, though, that in recent months, for the first time in my life, crossing the border is something that I think about. And perhaps even avoid.