Literally, the only hope for the future is Wing Ma'am, which has a horrifically gendered name but is actually the most impressively inclusive option available to queer folks. If an app straight up isn't going to offer typing by gender, then the least they can do is help users glean hints by filtering to appropriate sexuality markers. Users can't filter matches by gender (obvs) or sexuality, only by age and location. The sexuality identity options are broader than the generic gay/bi framework, and wander into queer, pansexual, and the ever-curious "flexisexual" - but you can't search for mates by those same options. Neither of those scenarios seem particularly inclusive for an explicitly non-hetero app. It definitely has its place in the world and will appeal to certain queer-identified folks, but Dattch doesn't allow users to select a gender identity, which means that its developers either assume all users identify as women or they don't think it matters, as long as you're looking for women. Although it's a neat little tool and definitely different from the catch-all apps that target straight users, it's also a little.lesbian-centric. It even has a cutesy blog you can peruse in-app. It earned credibility by offering verified profiles, rescuing you from sneaky dudes popping up in your feed. It generated a ton of media buzz as a "first of its kind" dating app exclusively ~*for women*~. We all had high hopes for Dattch when it rolled out nationwide. The options for "I'm looking for" are still limited to "women," "men," and "everybody." If OKCupid is going to go through the trouble of helping users self-identify in more authentic ways, then why not finish the job and help them actually attract and match with the sorts of partners in whom they're interested? 3. There's still one glaring area of OKCupid's pro-queer/gender options cause in which it continues to suck: the "seeking" portion, which is arguably the entire point. But don't get too trigger-happy deleting that tedious paragraph where you're forced to queersplain what a special snowflake you are. Gone are the days of skimming for the obligatory "*queer not bi.**sexual anarchist not queer" footnotes in the profiles of folks who couldn't be summed up by the app's surprisingly limited self-identifiers, given its millennial-heavy user base.
This does a ton of the leg work in eliminating creepy messages from bros trying to convince lesbians that they "just haven't had it good yet." This past November, OKCupid also expanded its gender and sexuality options to offer 22 possible gender identities and 12 sexual orientations. And realistically speaking, it's pretty much the Facebook of dating apps: everyone is on it, so how useful is it, really, to go to a smaller competitor who might have a few features you like better?įor a mainstream, mostly hetero dating app, OKCupid made one important protection when it was first acquired by Match back in 2011: the "I don't want to see or be seen by straight people" option. Also bestowed with the 5 million downloads badge on Google Play, its userbase is just as prolific as its predecessor Match, but with a refreshing We're Chill About All This Dating Nonsense And You Should Be Too bent. OKCupid has a little more grit, and caters much more effortlessly to a younger audience. But even so, the non-hetero dating pool is significantly smaller, and many so-called "LGBT" spaces only cater to gay men. Of course, the estimate depends on self-reporting, and queer folks are not always great at coming forward, for reasons we can't possibly imagine.
The CDC estimates that around 4 percent of the population is LGB- or "something else"-identified. It occurred to me that most people don't take the numbers game into account when it comes to dating queerly. Of course, I hadn't been doing anything wrong Tinder is just an atrocious app for queer women. I don't know if you've ever had a dating app with the difficulty of Candyland mansplained to you at a bar, but I can assure you, it's not cute. Your settings must be wrong." And then he actually proceeded to double check whether or not I had been doing Tinder correctly. "And only one of those has ever responded to a message." Upon hearing this information, a gay male friend cheerfully snatched my phone out of my hands and opened the app.
"I've been on Tinder for over a year and I've only ever gotten four matches," I once proclaimed to a table full of people.