Do you think a real same-sex dating app could be used safely?

submitted by HelloMomo from (self.LGBDropTheT)

Let's say that someone created a same-sex dating app. No TRA stuff. Just homosexuals, and bisexuals looking for same-sex partners.

Do you think this app could be used at least mostly-safely?

I'm 21, and I've heard other actually-gay people my age lament how hard it is to date, to find like-minded people. Sometimes people toss around the idea of "what if there was a new app, a better app!"

It's a nice idea, but I'm skeptical. My question is: Do you guys think it could actually work? I am sure that once word of this app got out, there would be a huge backlash. I fear the app would quickly get overrun with malicious people trying to catfish us. Maybe screenshotting our profile pictures and making compilations of "terfs to punch on sight." Even if there was a very strict policy about banning assholes, could it keep up? Or is such an app inherently doomed in this day and age?

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[–]artetolife 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Nope, look what happened with the giggle app and it's not even a dating app.

[–]fr_bandersnatchghey... 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm a luddite, what happened with the giggle app?

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Here's the original thread about it: * One * dating app for lesbians exists and you can guess the reaction

[–]KingDickThe2nd 11 insightful - 6 fun11 insightful - 5 fun12 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

You would have to brand it as a LGB conservative dating app.

Or one only for atheists and people who believe in ontological deflationism, seeing as transgenderism is about having a spiritual gender which is incompatible with the rejection of metaphysics found in ontological deflationism.

[–]julesburm1891 12 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

In my dream-world, I’d create an app called Same, for people looking for same-sex connections. It would be created alongside another app for people looking only for opposite-sex connections. That app would have to marketed and hold some ground in the dating app world. (TQ would try to sue for discrimination at some point. Having the second app gives the threat of “if you make men appear on lesbians’ possible matches, then straight men get to see a litany of dudes too.” And that’s probably what would save Same.)

Ideas I’ve had: 1. Your only choice signing up is to choose whether you’re male or female. 2. You submit info to identity yourself (name, phone, email, etc.). The app also registers your IP address. You then have to submit a copy of your driver’s license or state id before you can go any further. If the sex marker on your ID doesn’t match up to what you originally selected (or if any of your other info doesn’t match), you’re locked out of the app permanently. 3. This step requires a better facial-recognition AI than what we have. You have to give the app access to your camera and hold it up in front of your face in real time. (No highly edited photos allowed.) If the AI reads you as the opposite sex, you’re permanently banned. (There should be a process to appeal this step in case of error, but it would require talking to a real human. Trans would take advantage otherwise.)

Safety-Features 1. Either screen-capping isn’t allowed or screen-capping sends a notification to the user being screen-capped. (Like Snapchat.) 2. If a user goes on a date with someone, and they turn out to be the opposite sex, the user can report them. One report would lock the reported person’s account for one week and they have to resubmit both verification aspects again. (If things don’t match up, they’re banned.) 2. If this happens a second time with the reported user and a different user, the reported user’s account is locked again and they’ll have to video chat with someone from customer service to have their account reopened. (If they’re clearly of the opposite sex, banned.) 3. To prevent TQ spamming, no complaints will be taken seriously unless the users actually matched, talked to each other, and either planned a date on the app OR exchanged phone numbers. (Creepy invasion of privacy, but I think it would be necessary.) 4. Users making reports would have the reports they make tracked on the backend. Making a report without actual contact, gets you locked out for a week with a warning. If a user continues to make such reports, they’re banned. 5. Users making reports into multiple users after making contact would also have to be investigated. I’m not sure how this part would work yet.

Platforming would be biggest issues facing this and I’m not sure how it would be handled.

[–]HelloMomo[S] 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Gotta say, I'm surprised how much I like the name Same. That's actually pretty cute.

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This was really well thought out, I like it.

I just wish WE didn't have to make an exclusive space...LGB should be standard(ex. If it's a lesbian dating app, people should know common sense it's for female people. Same for a gay man dating app, it's for male persons).

Trans people should be the ones making their own apps. But unfortunately the world is turnt upside down right now...

[–]GConly 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I think you could probably manage it with video bios instead of still pictures, with the users encouraged to report catfish.

I'd suggest it on normal dating apps as well. It would cut down people posting fake bios.

I have never seen a hetero mtf pass for female in anything but stills. It would be way harder to weed out ftm, but they don't really threaten life and limb the way mtf can.

[–]Feather 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm confident that sneaky non-trans TRAs would join in order to dox "TERFs" to earn points with trans people.

[–]HelloMomo[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, I actually imagining more non-trans folks attacking it than trans folks, just because they are demographically a bigger group.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

for me it's pretty easy to spot a FtM. If i see a pic i always get that snap thought of "oh a lesbian" then you realize. Also if they have more than 1 photo you can see better and if you check their height, most of them are like 5'2". Like... if they waited till after puberty you get some really obvious facial features and if they pulled the trick where they transitioned at like 12 they look more realistic but they are lucky to break 5 feet tall from skipping puberty.

There are extreme outliers but those people are probably already in a relationship and not on the app.

[–]GConly 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah but facial hair can cover a lot up.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Their facial hair is like dustbunnies thrown at a lesbians face.

[–]dandeliondynasty 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This question shows how radically off the wall TRAs are. There is so much political polarization & extremism today and this is still the only group I can think of that will definitely interfere en masse with their opponents’ efforts to seek romantic partners among themselves.

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You will need some verification for every member then, otherwise it will be like all lesbian apps, which are full with "hetero couple searching lesbian for threesome" and "tranwoman with dick intact searching lesbian", and often they are not even saying that there penis involved, so it is deceiving every time.

[–]Willpoll 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Unless you were able to keep it relatively unknown I don't think it could work. But then again, that defeats the purpose of a dating app. If it gets much attention at all then your gonna get people signing on to "own the terfs" and all that. So maybe if you kept it underground and tried to spread information of it through more targeted ads then just putting it out there

[–]Gearbeta 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think right now we're stuck. LGB people functionally cannot make their own spaces publically at the moment without being called bigots. Even if you did ban every one of them, they might try and dox people on the app, dox the creators of the app, or attack funding or advertisers.

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Dating app" and "safely" don't go together. Regardless of whether it's straight, gay, or "all genders inclusive." There's a reason there's a ton of memes about catfishing and predators using those things. I wouldn't use one even if I was straight. I hate being alone, but I have zero "romantic attraction" to men and I don't feel like sifting through thousands of fake profiles, sexual predators, and assholes to MAYBE find one guy who MIGHT buy me a drink before degrading me. It's about measuring risk vs reward and for me personally, that reward is very, very low.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The main issue would be getting it to stay on the app store. There was already an obvious case example with a drop the T petition that began circulating. Google claims they dont interfere like this but they literally blacklisted the search results and if you tried to search for it they would put the opposing petition up. If i remember correctly, even if you put the exact hyperlink into google they would still not show it and put the opposing petition up.

The moment something like this began to get popular the TRAs would go berserk at google and apple to pull it from their app stores and effectively deplatform the app.

[–]Willpoll 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Apple is the only OS I think where you can only download crap from the app store, and it looks like that may change soon, so it may be possible to hypothetically cut out the middle man

[–]wafflegaffWoman. SuperBi. 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Frankly I think the app for this is old-school, privately-consulted human matchmakers (I suppose with bodyguards this time). TRAs seem to be in the business of ruining everything that does not belong to them.

[–]8bitgay 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it could work if you keep the "cis only" part out of publicity. I mean, most social media out there have very controversial issues surrounding them. Still people use social media and consider that these issues shouldn't stop them from using the platform. In a similar sense, if someone "accuses" you of using such an app you could say "oh I disagree with this rule too, but the app is nice otherwise".

[–]Tikiri 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Could you make one that’s general but have both mandatory video profiles plus separate categories like “transwoman”, “transman”, “nonbinary” etc.? And enforce those somehow? That way a MtF can’t list himself as Female and a FtM can’t list herself as Male, etc.? So you’re not keeping them out, but also ensuring that LGB people can find matches too.

[–]PeakingPeachEaterfemale♀ | detrans🦎 | eater of peaches 🍑 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If they go this route, I hope they allow us to filter "not interested in trans or non-binary" on the profile.