We Asked Tinder, Grindr, and OkCupid How They Support Trans Users. Here’s What They Said.
Plus, a few tips on how you can help
One night last fall, I attended a local open mic event for slam poetry. One person’s first poem was about receiving an Instagram DM that said, “You are so handsome I almost forgot you were trans.”
He proceeded to speak about the struggles of finding love on dating apps and dealing with the fear that no one could ever love him due to his gender identity.
Not long after that night, I came across a Twitter thread by another transgender poet discussing dating. While some replies shared stories of relationship success, the majority of replies were heartbreaking and lacked hope.
Dating while transgender is not as simple as walking into a local bar and striking up a conversation. For many trans individuals, online dating is the best option, especially if they are early in their transitions and do not feel safe approaching people in real life.
I talked to Matt, a transmasculine nonbinary actor about their own dating experience. They’ve mostly used Tinder and Grindr but have also experimented with OkCupid. “I’ve experienced so much transphobia by people, and when it’s been reported, nothing has happened,” Matt says. People ask inappropriate questions in a first message, such as, “Do you really have a p**sy?” Matt has also been threatened with violence and comments like, “Trans people don’t belong here.” Matt expressed how frightening this was because “people on those apps know what you look like and how far away you are.”
Although many of the issues Matt faces are a matter of dating app users being ignorant and unkind, the apps themselves can play a role in creating a better environment for transgender users.
But is it a matter of simply allowing more gender identity options in their profile? I reached out to Grindr, Tinder, OkCupid, and Bumble to find out how they were helping transgender users of their apps.
When I reached out to Bumble for comment, the company pointed me to this blog post about its gender identity options. But even if another user can read information about a potential match’s identity, that does not solve the issue of…
