Tinder, the world’s most popular app for meeting new people, today announced its latest update: Tinder will now support more ways to express gender identity, by giving users the ability to add information about their gender outside the binary. Users now have the opportunity on the platform to identify as any gender that they believe represents them most authentically.
Until now, Tinder users in India were offered only two options when selecting their gender: man or woman. For users who identified as transgender, gender neutral or somewhere between or outside the gender binary, that limitation posed an obvious challenge. Tinder now empowers users to just be themselves by adding 23 new genders to the list. From the ‘Edit Info’ screen, users can now type any word that describes their gender identity. Tinder users may also choose to display their gender on their profile.
Tinder instituted an advisory panel comprising The Humsafar Trust, India’s oldest LGBTQ organization working for the health and human rights of the community since 1994 and LGBTQ Author and inclusion advocate, Parmesh Shahani who helped guide local development of the update, help be more inclusive with indigenous gender identities and to reflect cultural nuances of the community in India.