Every online dating app has its weak spot(s), but Tinder’s is pretty glaring: as of now, the app caters exclusively to cisgender users, allowing the option of “male” or “female” only. Seeing as Tinder pulls most of its information from Facebook, this has been incredibly frustrating for transgender would-be users. Mark Zuckerberg’s social media monster site currently gives users the option of a glorious 71(!) gender options.
Tinder CEO Sean Rad hasn’t been ignoring the call for his app to be more inclusive. Yesterday, he announced plans to make Tinder more friendly to those who don’t identify as just male or female. “There’s a transgender community on Tinder and for a long time we haven’t done enough to give them a good experience,” Rad said. “It’s harder for them to get what they are looking for. We have to modify our experience to address that.” While he didn’t go into specifics about what the changes would be, he said we’ll find out for ourselves as soon as next month. “It’s not only good for the Tinder community, but it’s the right thing to do for the world,” he added.
The announcement comes on the anniversary of a PR crisis for Tinder. In June 2015 it was revealed that transgender users were being booted from the app for no reason other than expressing their true gender identity. “Nothing like getting banned from Tinder because dudes are reporting you for being transgender,” wrote one annoyed user on Twitter. Props to Tinder for finally answering the call for equality, and upholding modern society’s gender-neutral right to hit up random hookup candidates online.
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Text Hannah Ongley
Image via Flickr