“Include me in searches for”

Content warning: Transphobia, bigotry

Sometime in the fall I decided to download Tinder.

I’d been repeatedly pressured by friends to do so, not that I blame them for it. As much as they insisted that I needed it, I didn’t want to download the app because, outside of the obvious issue of commodifying bodies and insecurities, I wasn’t comfortable with it.

Why?

I’m nonbinary and Tinder doesn’t really understand that; something with our opposing codes. Jokes aside, Tinder scares me. As with any sentient person, I’m nervous about having my body perceived and I’m suspicious of strangers – and as with any sentient  queer  person, I’m scared of being committedly, unequivocally, out to the faceless people of the internet. It’s not that I’m not proud, nor do I plan to recant who I am, but there are situations where being honest is worse. It’s unsafe.

In the period before I downloaded the app, I kept on seeing–not horror stories exactly–but dread stories about trans Tinder on my feed. I’d see two trans women coming out to straight men and being rejected (nice rejections hurt most because you’re forced to stomach it), a nonbinary biologist being misgendered, a gay trans man unmatching with cis bottoms because it made him dysphoric, straight men and cis people asking naive to intrusive questions about genitalia and sometimes displaying outright bigotry. I’d heard it all before, but the prospect of it happening to me this time made it seem like new.

I searched for other dating services, and I did find popular queer-safe dating apps, but the majority were founded for same-sex audiences (HER, Grindr, LGBTQutie) and one was for finding partners for a threesome. While I’m happy nonbinary people and trans people can be represented under a truthful label in a safe environment, I’m bi and not really looking for a threesome. Nor do I feel like opening multiple dating accounts like I’m some sort of Jekyll and Hyde.

I asked myself: how would I navigate this online landscape once I entered it?

I didn’t get that far.

I tried voicing my concern with my friends, but they repeatedly told me to download the app anyways. So eventually I did.

This is where I found the issue. It’ll seem small, but don’t dismiss it too early.

After I entered my contacts and my name, I was directed to the gender section. This is where “show my gender on my profile” is an  active  choice and “trans woman” and “trans man” require special labelling under the MORE button, but “cis woman” and “cis man” are unmarked— despite the fact they are all men and women.

After I hit continue, I saw the issue in question:

The same thing: “include me in searches for,” comes up when I select a binary trans identity, too.

I understood vaguely why it was asked, sex does matter… just, sex is very complicated and sometimes it matters less, or differently. The phrasing confused me, but I didn’t question it, until I tried to select both. It didn’t work. The question is either or, not and/or.

I didn’t understand why I couldn’t select both. To quote the email I sent to Tinder customer service:

“While having a profile of a nonbinary person of a sex the user is not attracted show up may spark brief confusion, it is not although the strictly straight/gay user is required to engage. Tinder is designed in a way that users’ free will is private and infinite; they are free to swipe left whenever they so desire.”

But, which category of people did I want to be found in? Who did I want finding me? The app asked me to pick.

When you’re trans, you don’t always know who will like you or what sexuality they will have — but all the same, you are repeatedly asked to appeal and cater to this mystery group. I know multiple non-passing trans men who are in gay relationships with men who believed themselves straight. Likewise, a number of passing trans men search exclusively for lesbians. In a number of nonbinary people’s cases, they’ve gone on androgenizing hormones. As a trans person, all you really know is who you like, who you’re searching for, and that’s what Tinder should be focusing on.

Ostensibly, the question is asked so the program can make better matches, but it ignores the environment of how trans people want to be found. The program should, at the bare minimum, let people appear in both groups.

I’d love to say I wrote my email to Tinder Customer Service because the matter is so plainly problematic it’s concerning that they haven’t fixed it. In honesty, it’s because in my dysphoric frenzy my internal bigot belittled me until I decided, somewhat vindictively, to take the implication seriously.

To quote Jacob Tobia from their memoir Sissy, a Coming-of-Gender Story : “ninety-eight percent of discrimination is not overt. Ninety-eight percent of discrimination is infuriatingly subtle… You feel it everywhere, but there is rarely any hard evidence.”

Asking “include me in searches for” is just a confusing bureaucratic work-around of “what’s in your pants;” and with the single selection limitation, it’s crossed with the leery challenge of what you think you can pull off. The issue is not with trans people in this case — that we still can’t fit into the boxes we asked for — the issue is that Tinder wants trans users but doesn’t care to understand trans desire. This isn’t news, since Tinder started off as a straight hookup site. They may have added gender options to be more inclusive, but in 2019, Pink News reported on Tinder’s endemic of banning trans people for no apparent reason.

I got a response back from Tinder Customer Service. It was automatic and thanked me for my contribution. Of course, I don’t expect my email will ever be considered by them, I just want to know that I did something for the community.

No system will ever be perfect. Everything will always be a mess. But there’s a difference between an inclusive mess and an exclusive one.

In case you’re wondering what a trans-inclusive mess looks like, the Aphrodite Project is a good example.

For a start, it asks for your gender identity without archiving trans ones, and it doesn’t leave cisgender as unmarked and obvious (Figure A). Immediately, it caters to the desires of the user and acknowledges nuance when it asks who you’re comfortable being matched with gender-wise. Furthermore, it gives restrictions on the sexuality the user wants their partners to have. This is key, because while a lot of trans people are attracted to men, they’d often prefer to date pan/bi men rather than straight ones.

In the end, I did not use Tinder nor do I think I ever will. I’m not a swipe-left or swipe-right kind of person, but all the same, I should have the opportunity to figure that out like everyone else.