A Mississippi school district is refusing to let a transgender girl wear a dress and heeled shoes with her graduation cap and gown for high school graduation this weekend, her family says in a federal lawsuit against the district.
The lawsuit filed Thursday demands that the Harrison County School District allow the 17-year-old to wear what she wants as she and her classmates graduate from Harrison Central High School on Saturday.
The teenager is listed in court documents by her initials, L.B. The lawsuit said L.B. had worn dresses to classes and to extracurricular events throughout high school, including to a prom last year.
The Harrison Central principal, Kelly Fuller, told L.B. and her parents May 9 that the school on the Mississippi Gulf Coast would make L.B. follow a dress code requiring male students to wear white shirts, black slacks and black shoes for graduation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the family. The dress code says girls are to wear white dresses.
Fuller said the request to meet with L.B. about the dress code was prompted by Harrison County School District Superintendent Mitchell King, who had called to ask what transgender students were wearing to graduation, according to the lawsuit.
King told the teenager’s mother in a phone call that L.B. “needs to wear pants, socks, and shoes like a boy,” and King repeatedly misgendered L.B. as a boy, the ACLU said in a news release.
U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden scheduled a Friday hearing on the family’s request for temporary restraining order against the school district.
Wynn Clark, attorney for the Harrison County School Board, declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday.
“I have not read the entirety of their complaint,” Clark told The Associated Press.
The AP left phone messages Thursday for Fuller and King about the lawsuit, which says L.B. should not face discriminatory and unequal treatment.
“My graduation is supposed to be a moment of pride and celebration and school officials want to turn it into a moment of humiliation and shame,” L.B. said in the news release. “The clothing I’ve chosen is fully appropriate for the ceremony and the superintendent’s objections to it are entirely unfair to myself, my family and all transgender students like me. I have the right to celebrate my graduation as who I am, not who anyone else wants me to be.”
The lawsuit said L.B. “has lived every aspect of her high school career as a girl.”
“L.B. should be focused on celebrating this important milestone alongside her peers; however, this targeted attack by the leaders of the Harrison County School District seeks to strip her of her right to celebrate this occasion as her true self,” said McKenna Raney-Gray, staff attorney for the ACLU of Mississippi.
Aaron and Lacey Jennen’s roots in Arkansas run deep. They’ve spent their entire lives there, attended the flagship state university, and are raising a family. So they’re heartbroken at the prospect of perhaps having to move to one of an ever-dwindling number of states where gender-affirming health care for their transgender teenage daughter, Sabrina, is not threatened.
“We were like, ‘OK, if we can just get Sabrina to 18 … we can put all this horrible stuff behind us,’” Aaron Jennen said, “and unfortunately that’s not been the case, as you’ve seen a proliferation of anti-trans legislation here in Arkansas and across the country.”
At least 17 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, though judges have temporarily blocked their enforcement in some, including Arkansas. An Associated Press analysis found that often those bills sprang not from grassroots or constituent demand, but from the pens of a handful of conservative interest groups.
Many of the proposals, as introduced or passed, are identical or very similar to some model legislation, the AP found. Those ready-made bills have been used in statehouses for decades, often with criticisms of carpetbagging by out-of-state interests. In the case of restrictions on gender-affirming care for youths, they allow a handful of far-right groups to spread a false narrative based on distorted science, critics say.
“These are solutions from outside our state looking to solve nonexistent problems inside our state,” said Aaron Jennen. “For whatever reason, they have the ear of legislatures in states like Arkansas, and the legislators will generally defer to and only listen to those individuals.”
The AP obtained the texts of more than 130 bills in 40 state legislatures from Plural, a public policy software company, and analyzed them for similarities to model bills peddled by the conservative groups Do No Harm, which also criticizes efforts to diversify staffing in medicine, and the Family Research Council, which has long been involved in abortion restrictions.
One of the clearest examples is in Montana, where nearly all the language in at least one bill can be found in Do No Harm’s model. Publicly available emails from December show the Republican sponsor, Sen. John Fuller, tweaked the model before introducing it weeks later. Democrats criticized his efforts.
“This is not a Montana issue; it is an issue pushed by well-funded national groups,” Democratic Sen. Janet Ellis said during debate in February.
Republicans pushed back.
“Someone mentioned this is not a Montana solution. And I can tell you that I won my election on this issue,” said Republican Sen. Barry Usher, who ran unopposed in the general election after winning his contested primary.
The Montana bill passed in March with much of Do No Harm’s model language intact and has been signed into law.
Do No Harm’s model and the 2021 Arkansas bill endorsed as a model by the Family Research Council also have many similarities, including the assertion — rebutted by major medical organizations — that the risks of gender-affirming care outweigh its benefits.
Republicans’ recent focus on legislation to restrict aspects of transgender life is largely a strategy of using social “wedge issues” — in the past, abortion or same-sex marriage — to motivate their voting base, political observers say. And it does appear to resonate; a Pew Research Center survey a year ago found broad support among Republicans, but not Democrats, for restrictions on medical care for gender transitions.
“These organizations are not introducing this model legislation to make legislators’ jobs easier, to support kids in their constituencies. They’re introducing this model legislation to gain wealth, to gain eyes, to gain power, and to gain access,” said Heron Greenesmith, a senior research analyst who monitors anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric for Political Research Associates, a liberal think tank.
Such bills often distort valid science that supports gender-affirming care for youths, said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual. Do No Harm cites the manual in its model bill.
“These bills are not at all interested in patient care,” Drescher said. “These bills are designed to inflame.”
It’s problematic “any time policymakers are cherry-picking isolated studies or scientific research that arrives upon a different conclusion than the rest of the community or that relies upon studies without having that expertise,” said Marty P. Jordan, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University. “It’s problematic for the individuals that the legislation could impact. It’s problematic for the larger public, and problematic for democracy writ large.”
Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University, said: “If it’s a good bill, no one should be shy about where they got it because that’s the federal system working correctly.”
Do No Harm launched last year with an initial critical focus on the role of race in medical education and hiring, and the Virginia-based nonprofit has registered lobbyists in at least four states. People associated with it have testified in statehouses around the U.S.
When asked about Do No Harm’s legislative activity, founder and chair Dr. Stanley Goldfarb responded in an email: “Do No Harm works to protect children from extreme gender ideology through original research, coalition-building, testimonials from parents and patients who’ve lived through deeply troubling experiences, and advocacy for the rigorous, apolitical study of gender dysphoria.”
The Family Research Council, an advocacy group that opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights, has been behind what it calls the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act, or SAFE Act. Among other things, it falsely asserts that “‘gender transition’ is an experiment.”
A leader of the Family Research Council declined to directly answer several questions about its model bill, including where it had been used and which legislators it had worked with, but said, “What should be an issue debated in the scientific community now has to be dealt with through legislation.”
“The SAFE Act gives minors a chance to experience development before imposing lifelong chemical and surgical procedures that increasingly show evidence of psychological and physiological harm and completed suicide after the transition,” Jennifer Bauwens, the organization’s director of family studies, said in an email.
In Arkansas, Sabrina Jennen — who will turn 18 in July — continues to receive gender-affirming health care while her family’s suit winds through the courts.
“For these outside groups to carry more weight than the people these legislators were elected to represent is very upsetting,” Aaron Jennen said. “They didn’t listen to us before, but now they have to listen to us because we filed a lawsuit and went to court.”
Nearly three quarters of trans people in the UK have faced verbal abuse in the last year, shocking new figures from a leading LGBTQ+ charity have revealed.
Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity, has shared new data which highlights the raft of vile abuse both LGBTQ+, and non-LGBTQ+, young people face in the wake of rising homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.
The figures are part of a new report by the charity called Positive Futures, set to be published on 1 June, which examines the experiences of LGBTQ+ young adults in the UK.
The report will cover a range of topics including wellbeing, home life, school and work, as well as taking into account intersectional identities such as faith, race and disability.
Carried out by market researcher Cibyl on behalf of Just Like Us, the study surveyed 3,695 adults aged 18 to 25.
‘Devastating’
The research found in the past year 61 per cent of LGBTQ+ young adults have experienced verbal abuse.
Within these figures, a staggering 72 per cent of trans young adults faced verbal abuse in that time frame.
After trans people, non-binary (70 per cent) asexual (68 per cent) young adults were then the most likely to report verbal abuse in the last 12 months.
The research also found nearly half (47 per cent) of non-LGBTQ+ young adults have also faced anti-LGBT+ verbal abuse during the previous 12 months, despite not being queer.
Amy Ashenden, interim CEO of Just Like Us, said it is “devastating” to see a majority of trans young people have faced verbal abuse and it is a “sign of the often terrifyingly transphobic times we are living in here in the UK”.
“The levels of abuse faced by LGBT+ young adults are completely unacceptable,” she said.
“It’s hard to believe that in 2023, LGBT+ young people are still being subjected to verbal abuse and violence, and that anti-LGBT+ attacks are so prevalent that they are even being directed at non-LGBT+ young people.”
‘Vital’ we take LGBTQ+ inclusion ‘seriously’
The Just Like Us research also found that when it comes to physical abuse, both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ young people face similar levels (25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively).
However, when examined in terms of identity these results shot up for those who are lesbian (30 per cent), asexual (32 per cent) and gay men (31 per cent).
LGBTQ+ young adults were significantly more likely than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts to say the physical abuse they experienced was sexual abuse (50 per cent opposed to 30 per cent).
Within this, young lesbians were the most likely to have faced sexual abuse (57 per cent) whilst asexual young people were the group with the highest likelihood of experiencing domestic abuse (44 per cent).
“It is absolutely vital that we start taking LGBT+ inclusion seriously, and that schools all over the UK give young people positive messages about LGBT+ identities, otherwise I fear that these figures will only increase,” Ashenden added.
“A great place to start for schools UK-wide is signing up for School Diversity Week, so that teachers can access our free and easy-to-use resources and let all of their pupils know that being LGBT+ is something to be celebrated and proud of.”
Penguin Random House, authors, parents and a free speech group filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a Florida school district for removing 10 books related to race and the LGBTQ community after a high school teacher complained.
In addition to the publishing house, PEN America, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression in literature, five authors whose books have been removed from the district, and two parents whose children go to school in the district filed the suit against the Escambia County School District and the Escambia County School Board in Pensacola, Florida.
“All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir manifesto by LGBTQ activist George M. Johnson.Alamy Stock Photo
The plaintiffs alleged that the district and the board violated the First Amendment by “depriving students of access to a wide range of viewpoints, and depriving the authors of the removed and restricted books of the opportunity to engage with readers and disseminate their ideas to their intended audiences.”
They also argued that the removals violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment “because the books being singled out for possible removal are disproportionately books by non-white and/or LGBTQ authors, or which address topics related to race or LGBTQ identity.”
“This is no accident,” the suit alleged. “The clear agenda behind the campaign to remove the books is to categorically remove all discussion of racial discrimination or LGBTQ issues from public school libraries. Government action may not be premised on such discriminatory motivations.”
Neither the district nor the school board immediately responded to requests for comment. However, Bill Slayton, a member of the school board, told NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton that he was surprised by the lawsuit because the school board and the superintendent have been following state law.
“We have been removing books that have been called inappropriate, pornography,” he said. “I guess I’m a little surprised because this is going on all over the state of Florida, not just here. My reaction is our procedures are following what we have been told we have to do.”
The plaintiffs allege a campaign to restrict access to books in the Escambia County School District began last May after Vicki Baggett, a language arts teacher at the district’s Northview High School, challenged “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky. Baggett expanded her effort in the fall and challenged more than 100 books for “questionable content,” prompting a book purge in the district, according to the Pensacola News Journal.
Baggett did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since last May, the district and the school board have removed or indefinitely restricted access to five books by the author plaintiffs: “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” by Sarah Brannen, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, “Two Boys Kissing” by David Levithan, “When Aidan Became a Brother” by Kyle Lukoff and “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez.
A transgender woman in Ohio has been found not guilty of indecent exposure charges stemming from her use of the women’s locker room at a local YMCA.
Rachel Glines, 31, was found not guilty of three misdemeanor counts of public indecency by Judge David McNamee at Xenia Municipal Court on Monday. Glines was charged after multiple complaints were filed with police regarding her use of the women’s locker room at the Xenia YMCA in 2021 and 2022. McNamee found Glines not guilty because none of the accusers saw her genitalia and prosecutors could not establish an intent to commit a crime.
“The facts and law have been on Ms. Glines’ side from the beginning,” Glines’ attorneys said in a statement following the verdict Monday. “It’s unfortunate not only for her, but for the entire community, that the filing of these charges ever occurred.”
The case arose after multiple women complained about Glines disrobing in the women’s locker room. According to the Xenia Gazette, one unidentified witness recalled at trial she “felt very uncomfortable” after seeing Glines naked. She also admitted that while she saw her “whole front side and back side” she was unable to see Glines’s “man parts” because they were concealed by her body.
Defense attorney Keara Dever argued that since none of the witnesses had actually seen Glines’s genitalia, no crime had been committed. Judge McNamee agreed with Dever in his ruling.
At the time of the incidents becoming public, the Xenia YMCA issued a statement defending both Glines’s right to use the locker room aligned to her gender identity, and also the organization’s adherence to state and federal law.
“The Greater Dayton YMCA adheres to Ohio and Federal laws and antidiscrimination laws which allow all members access to its facilities and programs, regardless of religion, national origin, race, color, sex, age, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” the Xenia YMCA said in a statement at the time, later adding, “Let it be known that, under no circumstances will we investigate an individual’s birth gender identity and then, assign individuals to locker rooms. That would be counter to the law, counter to respect for all people, and it is not who or what we are as an organization.”
A Dallas grand jury has decided not to bring charges in the death of DeeDee Hall, a transgender woman who died after an encounter with police last year.
Hall, 47, had been restrained by police who responded to a report that she was causing a disturbance at a business May 26, TV station WFAA reports. She “appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” according to the station. Paramedics were called as well.
She “yelled at police and paramedics and began taking her clothes off,” WFAA reports, and police pinned her to the ground and handcuffed her. They also placed what’s called a spit hood over her head. They then put her in an ambulance, bound for Baylor University Medical Center, but in the ambulance her vital signs deteriorated. She died shortly after arriving at the hospital.
The Dallas County medical examiner ruled her death accidental, caused by her consumption of cocaine, methamphetamine, and PCP. However, activists and Hall’s family demanded further investigation, especially after video of the incident was released. Her case was referred to a grand jury to consider charges against police and paramedics, and the Dallas County district attorney’s office announced Friday that no charges will be brought. The DA’s office had no further comment.
Hall’s family said an injustice is being done. The video “showed the actions were inhumane. It almost treated DeeDee like a thing, instead of a person,” Hall’s cousin Robbi Reed told WFAA.
“On body camera footage, crews could be heard laughing and commenting on how hot the weather was that day,” the station reports. At the same time, Hall was trying to tell them she was dying, said Justin Moore, an attorney for her family.
“Instead of receiving the care, respect, and understanding she deserved, she was subjected to the callous and discriminatory treatment by the very individuals who should have safeguarded her rights and well-being,” Moore said in a prepared statement.
“We express our utmost outrage and disappointment at the grand jury’s decision to label her untimely demise as a mere accident, despite overwhelming evidence suggesting otherwise,” Moore added. The DA’s office, he said, has “once again failed to deliver justice in the face of blatant negligence resulting in the tragic death of a transgender Black woman.”
After Hall’s death, Dallas Fire-Rescue placed the two paramedics involved on administrative leave and suspended their credentials, EMS1.com reports, but it’s unclear if their employment or credentials have been restored.
Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld is a U.S. Navy combat veteran who will be inaugurated as the American Medical Association’s (AMA) first out gay president on June 13 – and he says the organization “simply will not stand” for legislation targeting abortion and gender-affirming care. He has pledged to use “every avenue available” to oppose such laws.
“We see the attack on reproductive care, reproductive access, and transgender healthcare as a continuum of government overreach into patient-physician decision making,” Ehrenfeld told The Washington Blade. The AMA, whose mission is to advocate “the art and science of medicine [for] the betterment of public health,” represents at least 271,660 members, including physicians and medical students.
“If there is a secret to raising healthy children, it is to accept and focus on what they are, instead of what they’re not.”
“We simply will not stand for the government coming in to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship [by passing bills that] outlaw what we know to be appropriate, evidence-based clinical guidelines-based care,” Ehrenfeld said.
But Ehrenfeld said his inauguration marks an “important moment” in the AMA’s history as it signals increased LGBTQ+ visibility in a field that wasn’t always open to queer professionals or queer patients’ needs. Ehrenfeld and his husband will be marching with an AMA group in Chicago’s Pride parade, a first for the group that seems particularly significant considering the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being introduced nationwide.
“We have a lot of backseat drivers trying to tell doctors what to do,” Ehrenfeld said of bans on gender-affirming care for minors that have been passed in 18 states and introduced in 13 other states. He said these “backseat drivers” include “insurance companies who put up barriers around prior authorization for getting approval for care and services.”
The AMA has said that gender-affirming care is safe and essential to the overall well-being of trans youth. However, laws that criminalize gender-affirming care — charging doctors with felonies and revoking their medical licenses for rendering such care — cause “moral injury” to physicians, Ehrenfeld added, putting medical professionals in “an untenable choice: provide the care that they know is in the patient’s best interests, or break the law and [potentially] go to jail.”
“That stress is real,” Ehrenfeld said. “There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t hear from a colleague who says I can’t take it anymore.”
Additionally, Ehrenfeld said that the AMA has noticed a drop in healthcare workers applying for jobs in states passing such legislation. The lack of workers could eventually risk the lives of every potential patient in those states, regardless of their feelings on trans care for minors.
Ehrenfeld noted that a lot of his professional work has included improving healthcare access for LGBTQ+ people. He pledged that the AMA will use “every avenue available” to oppose such legislation, including encouraging the National Governors Association to file lawsuits and amicus briefs against bans on gender-affirming care as well as working with other stakeholders to influence state and federal policies in governmental and private sectors.
Ehrenfeld directs a philanthropic organization called Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment and has previously taught at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization’s Digital Health Technical Advisory Group and as a special adviser to President Donald Trump’s (R) U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams.
While serving as Adams’ adviser in 2019, he testified to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee against Trump’s ban on trans military members. Ehrenfeld told the committee that he found “no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service.”
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it finalized a new rule that will allow more gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
Under the latest guidelines, all potential donors would need to complete individualized risk assessments — regardless of gender or sexual orientation. People who have had anal sex with new partners or more than one partner in the last three months would be asked to wait to donate blood.
The updated guidelines mean most gay and bisexual men who are in monogamous relationships with other men will no longer need to abstain from sex to donate blood.
Previously, the FDA allowed donations only from men who have sex with men if they hadn’t had sex with other men for three months.
“The implementation of these recommendations will represent a significant milestone for the agency and the LGBTQI+ community,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a release.
The agency will continue to monitor the safety of the blood supply, he added.
The FDA’s restrictions on blood donations from men who have sex with men stem from the AIDS crisis, which began in the early 1980s, when little was known about HIV.
The agency first proposed the new rules, which are in line with those in Canada and the United Kingdom, in January.
People who are taking medication to prevent or treat HIV infections would be asked to wait to donate blood under the new guidelines.
The owner of Houston’s only lesbian bar says her business is in jeopardy after it was denied insurance coverage, and she’s putting the blame, in part, on an anti-drag bill moving through the Texas Legislature.
“They outright denied us, the underwriters, because we host drag shows,” Julie Mabry, the owner of Pearl Bar, said in an interview with NBC affiliate KPRC of Houston.
Pearl Bar owner Julie Mabry.KPRC
Mabry has insurance through December, but she decided to switch agents a few months ago and shop around for a new policy, she told KPRC. It was during that process that her agent received the denial email, which the agent then sent to Mabry.
“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten an email like that. I cried about this for about a week,” said Mabry, who told KPRC that drag shows were the first thing mentioned in the email, which outlined why the underwriter did not want to take on the risk of insuring her bar.
Mabry did not share additional details about the underwriter or the email, and she did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Mabry, who opened Pearl Bar in 2013, said the current political climate fueled the situation she’s in, and she encouraged followers of the Pearl Bar Instagram account to contact their legislators about anti-LGBTQ bills in the state, including one that would restrict drag shows on public property, on the premises of a commercial enterprise or in the presence of a child.
The bill, Senate Bill 12, passed in the Texas Senate last month by a vote of 20-11, and it was set to be considered by a House committee Thursday. If the measure is signed into law, violators could be subjected to civil penalties of up to $10,000.
“Pearl needs everyone to speak up for us so that we can stay open and HOST DRAG SHOWS! It’s THAT serious,” a post on the Pearl Bar Instagram account said. “We are in the final stretch of session and every voice counts in pushing back on this and the other anti-LGBTQ legislation. We need you to step up, be loud, and tell your legislators NO to any anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Our state should be open to all, period.”
State Sen. Bryan Hughes, the bill’s author, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brad Pritchett, a Houston resident and the field director for LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, noted that drag shows are still legal in Texas and said Pearl Bar’s situation is a result of the “fear and panic that lawmakers have stirred up” around the centuries-old art form.
“This situation highlights one of the most insidious consequences of all the anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the legislature this session—most people don’t know what’s going on,” he said in an email. “It’s ludicrous to think that lawmakers can shut down an entire industry without even changing the law. Texans, we need you to show up to the capitol, to email your legislators, and to make a lot of noise about what is happening in Texas.”
Texas is one of at least 16 states where legislators have proposed bills this year seeking to restrict the audiences for drag performances and where they can take place. Tennessee is the only state to have enacted such a law, which a federal judge temporarily blocked from taking effect.
Bills seeking to restrict drag shows are part of a larger trend of Republican-led bills targeting LGBTQ people in the U.S. So far this year, more than 470 such bills have been proposed in legislatures across the U.S., according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Pearl Bar is one of about two dozen lesbian bars left in the U.S. and one of only two in Texas, the other being Sue Ellen’s in Dallas. Mabry hopes Texas will not be left with just a lone lesbian bar.
“This situation is real,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’ve tried to be as careful as I can to keep my patrons, performers, and staff safe, but if we stay quiet, we aren’t helping.”
Most top dating apps are entirely inclusive of trans people, which will come as terrible news to transphobes who are still raging over lesbian dating app HER’s ongoing support of its transgender users.
In recent weeks, HER has faced the vitriol of anti-trans bigots expressing outrage that the platform, which has been trans-inclusive “since day one”, welcomes trans and non-binary people.
And it’s not just HER. Leading dating apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge and Grindr are all trans inclusive and have zero-tolerance policies when it comes to transphobia on their platforms.
The pile-on faced by HER resulted in its Twitter account being temporarily suspended on Lesbian Visibility Day (26 April), after bigots reported it en masse. It has now been reinstated.
So-called gender critical male activists even took to creating accounts on HER in a bid to “catch out” trans women using it to find love – only to end up exposing one another instead.
The team behind the app did not take the hostility lying down and came out swinging for trans rights and in defence of HER’s trans and non-binary users.
In response to the attacks, the team sent a push notification to the app’s 10 million users,telling transphobes to delete it from their phones.
Robyn Exton, HER’s founder and chief executive, told PinkNews that the anti-trans hate was not slowing the team down and, instead, they are using it as an opportunity to double down and “to make our position exceptionally clear”.
Exton explained: “It’s kind of absurd that we’re now getting this vitriol, saying that we’re a lesbian app that is ‘now promoting’ inclusion of trans women. It always has, since day one.”
Robyn Exton, the founder of queer dating app HER. (Helena Price)
Transphobes enraged at HER’s policies will be hard-pressed to find a mainstream dating app that specifically excludes trans people.
Arguably the best-known dating app in the world, Tinder is often the first platform people new to the online dating world venture on to – and is open to the entire LGBTQ+ community.
The app has found LGBTQ+ people tend to use Tinder as the first place they are comfortably “out” after coming to terms with their identity, a spokesperson for the company told PinkNews.
The number of LGBTQ+ Tinder members under the age of 30 has doubled in the past three years, data from the platform showed.
A spokesperson said: “Tinder is an inclusive community where our members can freely express themselves, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
“Vulnerable communities face outside bias, prejudice and stigma, and Tinder recognises the role it has to support the safety of all members on our platform.
“We’ve collaborated with leading organisations, including HRC [the Human Rights Council], RAINN [The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network] and GLAAD to help us create an equitable and respectful platform where everyone can make meaningful connections.”
Additionally, in 2019 Tinder introduced its “traveller alert” an in-app function that enables LGBTQ+ users to “hide” their profile, should they be alerted by the platform that they have entered a country that discriminates against the queer community.
Tinder calls itself an inclusive community.(Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for OkCupid – which has 50 million registered users worldwide – told PinkNews that the platform supports the entire LGBTQ+ community.
“We were the first dating app to offer expanded gender and orientation options and we now offer users 22 genders and 20 orientation options that include agender, transgender, trans man and trans woman,” the spokesperson said.
“Last year, after hearing from non-binary and transgender daters, we realised there was an opportunity to educate and inform people about the different identities we offer on our app and added definitions to each of our gender and orientation options to help people better understand what these terms mean, and better serve all our users.”
The team is always working to create a “safer, more welcoming experience for everyone”, they added.
‘Transphobia is a violation of our terms’
On its website, Hinge – with its 23 million users – describes trans and gender non-conforming people as an “essential part of the [its] community”.
A Hinge spokesperson said: “At Hinge, we’re passionate about building a welcoming and effective dating app where everyone can find love.
“To support LGBTQIA+ daters in fully expressing themselves and foster an inclusive community, we’ve introduced a variety of app updates.”
These updates include NFAQ (Not-so Frequently Asked Questions), a resource for queer daters, prompts for LGBTQIA+ daters, the addition of pronoun options and more than 50 gender options for users.
“The safety and well-being of our trans daters are always a top priority,” the spokesperson added, “We have a zero-tolerance policy for hate and anyone exhibiting transphobic behaviour on Hinge will be banned from our community.
“If a user experiences transphobia, we encourage them to report it through our hate speech reporting option – which they can do directly within the app and our team will take immediate action.”
They added: “Anyone who reports a user for being trans or non-binary will be banned from our community. Furthermore, we have an ongoing relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to identify and remove any hate speech within our app.”
A statement from the company’s website also says: “We have never, and will never, ban someone based on their gender or gender expression. Being trans is no more a violation of our terms of service than being cis (cisgender refers to anyone who is not trans).
“Transphobia, on the other hand, including reporting someone simply for being trans, is definitely a violation of our terms of service. We have banned members in the past for reporting profiles for this reason and will continue to do so.
“It’s our responsibility to ensure that trans members feel safe and welcome on Hinge and we will continuously work to do just that.”
Most dating apps are trans inclusive. (Yu Chun Christopher Wong/S3studio/Getty Images)
Perhaps best-known as a hook-up app for gay men, Grindr is proud of its inclusivity and describes itself as a “social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people”.
In 2017, the app introduced more gender options to enable users to be able to express themselves authentically.
This has expanded over the years and the app now hosts a range of community resourcesfor the trans, as well as the wider queer, community, covering everything from FAQs on gender identity to sexual health.
‘Real love is for everyone’
Although launched as a dating platform for solely cisgender, heterosexual people, eHarmony has grown over the years and now specifically labels itself as “LGBT friendly”.
The company website states: “We believe that real love is for everyone and we’re deeply committed to providing a platform that’s safe, inclusive and welcoming for every single one of our members.
“We don’t have a type – eHarmony members represent individuals of all ages, demographics and backgrounds.”
“We’ve learned and grown quite a bit in our 20+ years of helping millions find real love and we have continuously evolved to meet the needs of our members. The work to build a diverse and inclusive environment is never complete.
“We recognise that we have work left to do and we are committed to finding ways to be more inclusive to people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, across all facets of what we do.”
