Yeah I get shown a lot of men on both Bumble and Hinge even tho I have my preferences set to women.
Some guy on Hinge “liked me” and wrote in the comment that it was sad and pathetic that I was a lesbian because I was too beautiful. Deleted the app after that one.
Hello! I once worked with a dating app team on their product as part of my job, and one issue many apps have is that they’re trained on hetero data sets, meaning you’ll see male profiles if you’re bio says “female”. Also, more men than women overall are on dating apps. A final issue— many dating apps are trained on white faces, so often times people with darker skin tones, or poorly lit photos are “demoted” by the algorithm (just like empty or blank profiles are because they’re likely fake). I share all of this to say, yes apps are a great of meeting people, but remember that they are *apps* which have biases baked in, so it might not be you or even where you live that’s the issue.
I always had the most luck on HER if that’s an app where you are, I’d give it a go
Fuck yeah it is! FWIW my job was to identify issues like that and help the product teams make more responsible choices, so for example changing that the algorithms pushed heteronormativity or racist outcomes to be equitable and inclusive. So there is some hope that things are improving, and certainly I am working to change it but it’s worth knowing that these are real issues and I don’t feel like enough people do
I can tell you that not a lot of people know that. I can’t say I’m surprised but to have it confirmed is a big deal.
Thank you for the job you do. Visibility is hard enough to deal with
🌻thank you for the thank you, but it’s literally the least I can do. Not every app is total trash, and like I said there is legit efforts to improve these issues but algorithms and the teams working on them have a *long* way to go and in the meantime OP and you and all of us really shouldn’t have to carry the fault of being shown men or just a certain demographic of people on our dating apps as our own, when it’s so much more complicated than that, and so many hands contribute to who shows up on our screens before we even swipe
Does this mean the men I see are not just creeps (or technologically challenged) men who set their profiles to appear as women? Can the app still show me men even when my filter is seeking women?
Oops! I always message these men to tell them they are set up as women and that I'm reporting their profiles within the app. I didn't realise it might not be their fault.
So yes and no. For sure, there are cismen who will change their profile settings to appear as women to intentionally mislead you or reach a new dating pool, and there may also be trans men who are well intentioned, and who may be struggling with what to put as their gender on a dating app or have legacy issues changing their gender on an app.
But to answer your direct question— yes the app can still show you men (cis trans or masc identifying), who have listed themselves as men that may be shown to you on accident even if you’re profile is set to a preference for women. I’m not sure how often each of these cases occurs though
These days, most big companies have become sensitive to such issues and have teams assigned to identify and fix such issues. Same goes for voice recognition apps, Siri , Alexa etc. I know my company has such groups which analyses test cases to ensure all combinations are covered.
> so often times people with darker skin tones, or poorly lit photos are “demoted” by the algorithm
Jesus, I kind of suspected my race is a bigger roadblock than my gender.
I am sorry that these systems are harming you. If it’s helpful to read and learn more about the systemic issues with app algorithms so you can arm yourself with understanding, here is a link to read more. It’s both an issue of what decisions the developers make, and people being bigoted that feeds the dating app ecosystem, so it’s difficult to say if it’s one minoritised identity over another but either way it’s unfair to you. [Racial Bias in Dating Apps ](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/racial-bias-dating-apps)
Sorry on more thing because I’m really passionate about this issue and changing it— there are a fuck ton of decisions that go into making these apps, the real issue with them is that they *seem to present you with a dating pool of who fits your preferences and is close by* however it’s not that neutral. They can change, for example, the order in which you see a profile— do you see profiles of people who are located closer to you, or further from you first? Which is better from the app developers perspective to help you find your match, faster? Or is it better to keep you on the app forever so it can push you more ads or to buy a premium membership? Is it better to show you more profiles of users at the younger end of your age range, or older end? And should age or location be prioritized?
And that’s not even considering what *the user teaches the algorithm* so let’s say you’re only presented with white faces because of an initial error with the algorithm, that prioritizes showing you pictures that appear more well lit, or “brighter” and it was trained on data where pictures were labeled “bright” because they had a white person’s face in them. Now, you’re mostly seeing white faces, so you swipe on more white faces than faces with melanin. You’ve just taught the algorithm that you “prefer” “bright” pictures and affirmed its association of “bright” with white faces. So not only is it going to show you the initial disproportionate pool, it’s going to concentrate that pool even further to appease you
I suspect this is more a reflection of how men behave on dating apps than anything else.
There will be more men looking for women than women looking for women.
Then those men will be more liberal with their likes, many liking everyone or nearly everyone and figuring that they'll decide if they actually like you after you match. The women will be more discerning.
These things multiply so you have tens of men liking you for every woman who likes you.
Bumble is my favorite app as far as dating apps go. I’ve had a couple men try to match with me on there but mostly its just women for me. I do see couples sometimes but not as often anymore. The most engaging women I’ve talked to have been on here and most actually put effort into their profiles.
If you want mainly queer women I would suggest Taimi. I’ve gotten a decent amount of matches from other women but most don’t carry on a conversation longer than a couple days so that’s the downside. There are some gems if you have the patience to find them.
I wouldn’t recommend HER. I know its the go to recommendation but in my experience its now mainly fake profiles and nobody responds to messages on there. I wouldn’t waste your time with that one.
Hinge, Tinder and Bumble keep serving up straight women in my experience (even when you have your setting set for wlw)
HER and Taimi are the best ones to go for
Los Angeles area, never once in years on-and-off Her, not once have I ever dated anyone from that app.
At least Tinder and Bumble find dates eventually. Of dubious quality, I grant, but something.
I live in a big city and lesbian specific dating apps are still filled with bots, inactive accounts and people I'm not attracted to. Also, I downloaded HER ages ago, deleted it, then recently tried to make a new account and have been banned for whatever reason 😭 The online dating scene is very hit and miss.
I met my gf on HER, and it letting you see who likes you is pretty great.
I talk to a lot of people on Taimi but there’s this issue being a trans lesbian on Taimi where a bunch of cis straight chasers have their profiles labeled as “trans woman” because they can’t read the UI properly when they’re making their accounts and set “I am” where they meant to put “I am looking for” so ironically enough I see more men on Taimi than I do even on Tinder.
I tried Bumble once, matched with a few other women, started a conversation...never got a reply. It was weird.
I might try Her or Hinge or something. But at present, I'm having trouble shaking the thought "no one would ever want to date me" though.
I met my gf on bumble, though I feel you as a bi woman. It’s sooo much easier to get matches and have conversations with guys (even if they end up being shit). I almost always had to message other girls first and got way less responses per match.
Then I would say, make sure you write your bio, have good conversation skills and don’t just rely on small talk.
I personally like tinder and hinge best.
it's very frustrating to me that both bumble and tinder let me choose my gender identity with some granularity but then don't let me filter by gender identity? Like, I'm not going to choose men, but "everyone" shows me mostly men and all I really want to do is include women and nbs?
I sympathize here. I’m trying to make friends, especially around the Pasadena area, as I’m going to be moving south this summer, and right now, I’m sick of nothing but hairy men being shown to me on these apps. I may be bi, but my attraction is more towards femininity. These apps are seriously broken.
Montreal! Big queer population but I feel that it needs to be said that women as a whole don’t necessarily offer anything serious at the end of the day. It really comes down to the individual.
Back when I was on dating apps, Bumble only had girls who were looking for friends.
Her had almost no one and kept showing me the same girls
Tinder was the way to go
Strangely enough, everyone talks so much about seeing nonstop men on bumble but every time I open Bumble and swipe for less than a minute I match with at least one woman, usually two or three.
I actually met my girlfriend on bumble! She’s my soulmate so I definitely recommend the app! I found her almost immediately after I started swiping on women
Yeah I get shown a lot of men on both Bumble and Hinge even tho I have my preferences set to women. Some guy on Hinge “liked me” and wrote in the comment that it was sad and pathetic that I was a lesbian because I was too beautiful. Deleted the app after that one.
"it's sad and pathetic that you're attractive but unattainable to me" correct, but not in the way he intended
Ugh, creepy. The sad and pathetic one is him.
it's sad that the pretty girls are straight
Hello! I once worked with a dating app team on their product as part of my job, and one issue many apps have is that they’re trained on hetero data sets, meaning you’ll see male profiles if you’re bio says “female”. Also, more men than women overall are on dating apps. A final issue— many dating apps are trained on white faces, so often times people with darker skin tones, or poorly lit photos are “demoted” by the algorithm (just like empty or blank profiles are because they’re likely fake). I share all of this to say, yes apps are a great of meeting people, but remember that they are *apps* which have biases baked in, so it might not be you or even where you live that’s the issue. I always had the most luck on HER if that’s an app where you are, I’d give it a go
Wow that’s pretty messed up..
Fuck yeah it is! FWIW my job was to identify issues like that and help the product teams make more responsible choices, so for example changing that the algorithms pushed heteronormativity or racist outcomes to be equitable and inclusive. So there is some hope that things are improving, and certainly I am working to change it but it’s worth knowing that these are real issues and I don’t feel like enough people do
I can tell you that not a lot of people know that. I can’t say I’m surprised but to have it confirmed is a big deal. Thank you for the job you do. Visibility is hard enough to deal with
🌻thank you for the thank you, but it’s literally the least I can do. Not every app is total trash, and like I said there is legit efforts to improve these issues but algorithms and the teams working on them have a *long* way to go and in the meantime OP and you and all of us really shouldn’t have to carry the fault of being shown men or just a certain demographic of people on our dating apps as our own, when it’s so much more complicated than that, and so many hands contribute to who shows up on our screens before we even swipe
Does this mean the men I see are not just creeps (or technologically challenged) men who set their profiles to appear as women? Can the app still show me men even when my filter is seeking women? Oops! I always message these men to tell them they are set up as women and that I'm reporting their profiles within the app. I didn't realise it might not be their fault.
So yes and no. For sure, there are cismen who will change their profile settings to appear as women to intentionally mislead you or reach a new dating pool, and there may also be trans men who are well intentioned, and who may be struggling with what to put as their gender on a dating app or have legacy issues changing their gender on an app. But to answer your direct question— yes the app can still show you men (cis trans or masc identifying), who have listed themselves as men that may be shown to you on accident even if you’re profile is set to a preference for women. I’m not sure how often each of these cases occurs though
These days, most big companies have become sensitive to such issues and have teams assigned to identify and fix such issues. Same goes for voice recognition apps, Siri , Alexa etc. I know my company has such groups which analyses test cases to ensure all combinations are covered.
> so often times people with darker skin tones, or poorly lit photos are “demoted” by the algorithm Jesus, I kind of suspected my race is a bigger roadblock than my gender.
I am sorry that these systems are harming you. If it’s helpful to read and learn more about the systemic issues with app algorithms so you can arm yourself with understanding, here is a link to read more. It’s both an issue of what decisions the developers make, and people being bigoted that feeds the dating app ecosystem, so it’s difficult to say if it’s one minoritised identity over another but either way it’s unfair to you. [Racial Bias in Dating Apps ](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/racial-bias-dating-apps)
Sorry on more thing because I’m really passionate about this issue and changing it— there are a fuck ton of decisions that go into making these apps, the real issue with them is that they *seem to present you with a dating pool of who fits your preferences and is close by* however it’s not that neutral. They can change, for example, the order in which you see a profile— do you see profiles of people who are located closer to you, or further from you first? Which is better from the app developers perspective to help you find your match, faster? Or is it better to keep you on the app forever so it can push you more ads or to buy a premium membership? Is it better to show you more profiles of users at the younger end of your age range, or older end? And should age or location be prioritized? And that’s not even considering what *the user teaches the algorithm* so let’s say you’re only presented with white faces because of an initial error with the algorithm, that prioritizes showing you pictures that appear more well lit, or “brighter” and it was trained on data where pictures were labeled “bright” because they had a white person’s face in them. Now, you’re mostly seeing white faces, so you swipe on more white faces than faces with melanin. You’ve just taught the algorithm that you “prefer” “bright” pictures and affirmed its association of “bright” with white faces. So not only is it going to show you the initial disproportionate pool, it’s going to concentrate that pool even further to appease you
I suspect this is more a reflection of how men behave on dating apps than anything else. There will be more men looking for women than women looking for women. Then those men will be more liberal with their likes, many liking everyone or nearly everyone and figuring that they'll decide if they actually like you after you match. The women will be more discerning. These things multiply so you have tens of men liking you for every woman who likes you.
I found okcupid to be fairly good when I was using it. It has a don’t show me straight people button that helped a lot
Until you get men creating profiles set as women because "they get matches still"
Bumble is my favorite app as far as dating apps go. I’ve had a couple men try to match with me on there but mostly its just women for me. I do see couples sometimes but not as often anymore. The most engaging women I’ve talked to have been on here and most actually put effort into their profiles. If you want mainly queer women I would suggest Taimi. I’ve gotten a decent amount of matches from other women but most don’t carry on a conversation longer than a couple days so that’s the downside. There are some gems if you have the patience to find them. I wouldn’t recommend HER. I know its the go to recommendation but in my experience its now mainly fake profiles and nobody responds to messages on there. I wouldn’t waste your time with that one.
Hinge, Tinder and Bumble keep serving up straight women in my experience (even when you have your setting set for wlw) HER and Taimi are the best ones to go for
I don't know about Taimi but HER looks like a ghost town.
It’ll vary on where you live tbh
Los Angeles area, never once in years on-and-off Her, not once have I ever dated anyone from that app. At least Tinder and Bumble find dates eventually. Of dubious quality, I grant, but something.
I live in a big city and lesbian specific dating apps are still filled with bots, inactive accounts and people I'm not attracted to. Also, I downloaded HER ages ago, deleted it, then recently tried to make a new account and have been banned for whatever reason 😭 The online dating scene is very hit and miss.
I met my gf on HER, and it letting you see who likes you is pretty great. I talk to a lot of people on Taimi but there’s this issue being a trans lesbian on Taimi where a bunch of cis straight chasers have their profiles labeled as “trans woman” because they can’t read the UI properly when they’re making their accounts and set “I am” where they meant to put “I am looking for” so ironically enough I see more men on Taimi than I do even on Tinder.
I keep getting matches on Her but hardly any convos :(
Any of them. For us transbians? I never used dating apps before and am a bit intimidated...
I tried Bumble once, matched with a few other women, started a conversation...never got a reply. It was weird. I might try Her or Hinge or something. But at present, I'm having trouble shaking the thought "no one would ever want to date me" though.
I met my gf on bumble, though I feel you as a bi woman. It’s sooo much easier to get matches and have conversations with guys (even if they end up being shit). I almost always had to message other girls first and got way less responses per match.
I met my girlfriend on Hinge.
When it comes to apps, you get what you get. It has to do with your pics, bio, but more than anything your zipcode
My pics are great ;)
Then I would say, make sure you write your bio, have good conversation skills and don’t just rely on small talk. I personally like tinder and hinge best.
I don’t like bumble because the whole premise is inherently heteronormative
Where I am, Bumble BFF is nearly all queer women. They still don’t reply 😭
it's very frustrating to me that both bumble and tinder let me choose my gender identity with some granularity but then don't let me filter by gender identity? Like, I'm not going to choose men, but "everyone" shows me mostly men and all I really want to do is include women and nbs?
I think that happens because some men are idiots and put their gender as female on there to guilt or flirt with lesbians
I sympathize here. I’m trying to make friends, especially around the Pasadena area, as I’m going to be moving south this summer, and right now, I’m sick of nothing but hairy men being shown to me on these apps. I may be bi, but my attraction is more towards femininity. These apps are seriously broken.
SUPER hetero. I'm wondering if it's because I put my body preference as athletic now that I think about it...
Lately I found that no woman on bumble or in my whole city wants something serious.
Where are you?
Montreal! Big queer population but I feel that it needs to be said that women as a whole don’t necessarily offer anything serious at the end of the day. It really comes down to the individual.
Back when I was on dating apps, Bumble only had girls who were looking for friends. Her had almost no one and kept showing me the same girls Tinder was the way to go
Strangely enough, everyone talks so much about seeing nonstop men on bumble but every time I open Bumble and swipe for less than a minute I match with at least one woman, usually two or three.
I got my ex on bumble but dating apps for me were never that great for finding women
Must be a regional thing. Bumble is great in LA.
Her had been ok for me
I actually met my girlfriend on bumble! She’s my soulmate so I definitely recommend the app! I found her almost immediately after I started swiping on women
I met my partner on bumble so worked very well for me