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Tinder’s Sexual Orientation Feature Still Overlooks Transgender Users 

Transgender profiles continue to be pulled from the site.

Tinder’s new sexual orientation feature not only wildly overlooks a growing portion of their user-ship, but forbids them from even using the app. I’m talking about an increasingly growing proportion of Tinder users that identify as transgender – specifically, transgender women.

Yesterday Tinder announced they’d partnered with LGBTQ activist group GLAAD to launch a sexual orientation feature that allows users to select up to three (out of a possible nine) orientations they can now add to their profiles. Users can now choose to present themselves as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, demisexual, pansexual, queer and questioning. The sexual orientation option accompanies over 37 gender options users can choose from.

The new feature both personalises user profiles and aggregates feeds to bump up profiles with similar orientations. Kudos to Tinder, this is a big win.

But while this is a monumental leap that undeniably enhances LGBTQI+ matching between users, it by no means renders Tinder LGBTQI+ friendly – well, not entirely, anyway. Let’s rewind to 2016, where we were bombarded with stories of transgender women having their profiles pulled from the app, each wrongly reported as being ‘fake’. I really want to say things have changed, but they haven’t.

So back in 2016 we remain.

Transgender users are still having their profiles unfairly pulled from the site and though it’s not entirely known whether ignorant and dimwit-ty users (i.e. those who are wrongfully reporting) are to blame, it’s by no means an entirely LGBTQI+ friendly space. There’s a fair way to go before the entirety of the population are accommodated.

One feasible measure could be a more stringent reporting process – but that doesn’t solve the issue of ignorance on behalf of those who are wrongfully reporting in the first place, does it?

Ugh, we’ve got a fair way to go.

Image Source: Tinder. 

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