Upon deciding in my late teens that I was going to come out as bisexual, I was warned by people close to me that there would always be people who would “choose” not to understand, despite it being a personal decision for myself that affected no other people.
I am also something of a protective, mothering kind of person. I seem to collect into my circle of friends other folks of alternative sexuality and gender identities.
I’ve been told I’m a “safe” person – that’s a nice complement.
The mothering part of me was upset a couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine called me early on Sunday morning, very upset and in tears.
He’s an autistic guy, a few years older than me, gender fluid, and very shy about meeting people. Many people he’d been attracted to over the years had written him off because of his open stance on his gender fluidity.
It’s not something that suits everyone’s tastes and needs – and that’s okay.
I had encouraged him to try his luck on Tinder to see if he could find someone to connect with.
He used a slightly obscured facial photo, and a couple of photos expressing his gender fluid nature – one of himself in heels, and another in a low cut top showing off some cleavage.
Nothing more than literally thousands of female profiles on Tinder. I’ve used Tinder myself in the past, and know what’s there and seemingly acceptable.
He was completely open and upfront in his profile – explained why the pictures he used were the pictures he used.
He was getting likes and messages from interested women on the Saturday, after creating the profile on the Friday.
Sometime overnight, Tinder removed all of his photos – including the face shot – for being “sexually explicit”.
He appealed immediately, but the appeal was rejected within minutes – presumably by some kind of automated system. There was no space to put a comment against the appeal to explain why he felt the deletion was not warranted.
Nothing.
In disgust, my friend deleted the profile, and spent several days in a dubious mental state. He was just upset – after getting messages and feeling accepted for who he was, he was cut off by an automated system.
I felt horrible because I’d encouraged him to try out Tinder.
He’s doing a lot better – both myself and my partner are good friends with him, and we had him over for dinner on the Monday night to give him someone to talk to, and feel not alone.
But I’m still pissed off.
Tinder leaves up massively similar photos for women, but pulls them down when posted on a male profile. Seems their automated system – either by design or by poor algorithms – feels that people of alternative sexual orientations are not or should not be accepted there.
Fuck them, don’t bother if you’re “different” in any way.
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