A day after many across the nation celebrated Trans Remembrance Day, one dating app is moving in the direction of being more representative of this community.
Grindr, the dating and social networking app originally geared towards gay men, has revealed that they will be including identifying options for trans and gender non-conforming users.
Users now have the freedom to customize their profiles to include terms such as “trans man,” “woman,” “cis man,” “non-binary,” “non-conforming” and “queer.” The app has also offered the option to select your gender pronouns and identify with your own language, if none of the terms seem like the perfect fit.
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Peter Sloterdyk, Grindr’s vice president of marketing, relayed how the recently announced updates are a part of the company’s mission to highlight “the diversity of their user base.”
“Grindr takes our role as global leaders very seriously and strives to make every user feel welcome, safe and understood,” he said in an email to HuffPost. “We have a daily responsibility to grow with and learn from our users, including everyone in our growing and evolving LGBTQ community.”
The company has taken another step forward in being more inclusive by also including a Gender Help Center on the app to help users know the proper way to have dialogue with transgender and gender nonconforming people.
Director of Grindr for Equality Jack Harrison-Quintana told HuffPost that this new addition takes the pressure off trans people to educate the general public.
“One thing we heard over and over again from trans people using Grindr was that they felt unwelcome as other users would often only want to ask them about what it means to be trans or approached without knowing how to speak respectfully about trans issues,” Harrison-Quintana said. “That’s why we created written resources linked from the gender identity fields in the profile to answer users’ questions and decrease that burden on trans people.”
It is unclear if Grindr will allow users to filter trans and gender nonconforming people when searching for dates. At the time of publication Grindr has not yet responded for comment.
