If you're forthright about the fact that you're going to make your being groped uncomfortable for them, I don't see the problem. They can always opt-out — by the time you're about to be groped, you cannot. You cannot revoke consent and leave without facing threats and intimidations that, according to TSA officials, probably won't amount to anything, but which will be used to try to scare you, which is an unacceptable bullying tactic.
There's no reason to assume that the TSA cares about the comfort of the masses, especially when opinion polls show that people don't give a shit and observing the media suggests that people only care about the bullshit reasons. There may be no moral superiority in making someone uncomfortable in exchange for making you uncomfortable, but it doesn't seem like assault since they can always turn it over to someone who doesn't mind, which is an option that you don't have. Trying to trick them into getting squicked or injured is probably wrong, but we're talking about a situation in which if you are wearing a tight skirt you can be required to go to a room and remove it for them to be groped more directly, and you cannot refuse consent to that at that point. Even if you go along with the scanners in the face of the threats of punishment to the contrary, they can still subject you to a pat-down which you cannot refuse. Responding to coercion by emphasizing uncomfortable elements seems reasonable to me. Why should you make things pleasant for the TSA, to concede to their implicit request that you not make it gross or sexual, when they will not respect your bodily integrity, gender identity, etc.? It seems to me that it takes an enormous amount of privilege to say that making someone uncomfortable who can opt-out is worse than making somebody uncomfortable who cannot, solely on the basis that one person is doing their job and that the other person is trying to exercise their right to free movement without having to sacrifice entirely other rights to bullying, intimidation and a government policy that is disproportionately uncomfortable for gender, sexual and religious power minorities.
Many TSA screeners are union (perhaps all of them are?) and it seems to me that the TSA is more likely to respond to union pressure than to what appears to them to be a small number of whiny people. Making union members uncomfortable with the screening process seems like a legitimate way to exert pressure on the TSA.
(I am speaking from personal experience that TSA screeners can refuse to pat one down and ask somebody else to do it. I don't have any reason to believe that that has changed.)
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There's no reason to assume that the TSA cares about the comfort of the masses, especially when opinion polls show that people don't give a shit and observing the media suggests that people only care about the bullshit reasons. There may be no moral superiority in making someone uncomfortable in exchange for making you uncomfortable, but it doesn't seem like assault since they can always turn it over to someone who doesn't mind, which is an option that you don't have. Trying to trick them into getting squicked or injured is probably wrong, but we're talking about a situation in which if you are wearing a tight skirt you can be required to go to a room and remove it for them to be groped more directly, and you cannot refuse consent to that at that point. Even if you go along with the scanners in the face of the threats of punishment to the contrary, they can still subject you to a pat-down which you cannot refuse. Responding to coercion by emphasizing uncomfortable elements seems reasonable to me. Why should you make things pleasant for the TSA, to concede to their implicit request that you not make it gross or sexual, when they will not respect your bodily integrity, gender identity, etc.? It seems to me that it takes an enormous amount of privilege to say that making someone uncomfortable who can opt-out is worse than making somebody uncomfortable who cannot, solely on the basis that one person is doing their job and that the other person is trying to exercise their right to free movement without having to sacrifice entirely other rights to bullying, intimidation and a government policy that is disproportionately uncomfortable for gender, sexual and religious power minorities.
Many TSA screeners are union (perhaps all of them are?) and it seems to me that the TSA is more likely to respond to union pressure than to what appears to them to be a small number of whiny people. Making union members uncomfortable with the screening process seems like a legitimate way to exert pressure on the TSA.
(I am speaking from personal experience that TSA screeners can refuse to pat one down and ask somebody else to do it. I don't have any reason to believe that that has changed.)