This new dating app will use facial recognition technology to exclude trans women
The founder of the app is an anti-trans activist who keeps getting kicked off other apps for her anti-trans comments.
Not once have I encountered a trans person on a dating app who wasn't 100% transparent about it. Some even asked me after matching, "you're aware that I'm trans, right?" just to be sure.
There's no logical reason to falsely pretend to be cis on a dating app to get matches. If someone's cool about it then it's better to know up front, right? And if they're not, then you probably don't want to waste your time on them.
The "justification" for this app is just bigotry, plain and simple. Fuck TERFs.
This is a great point.
The technology that excludes transwomen from the app is the clear warning that the app is populated exclusively for transphobes. It's obviously wildly dangerous for a transwoman to be on the app.
The notion that AI is going to clock them is absurd AI hype. There's no reason to expect AI to be capable of this kind of discernment, and that assumes you even had a training set. Where in the absolute fuck would someone find a training set like that?
Edit: I didn't read the article. It seems it's a lesbian dating app. Well, probably less dangerous for transwomen, but still not technically sound.
We sometimes have to clarify that LGBT+ folk aren't particularly virtuous, just people, and like the rest of the population suffers from its own share of internal bigotry. The lesbian community is no exception.
Lesbians range from really rather bisexual to staunchly misandrist and there are different gatekeeping checkpoints, where some don't count trans women as lesbians to others that don't want to date a woman who's ever been with a man (which makes for a really small dating pool).
But this kind of exclusion is not about who these women date, rather who they allow into their community and are allowed to come to their potlucks and tea parties. Generally communities that are progressive and have experienced external oppression and dehumanization are glad to be welcoming and inclusive. Mostly. And I think this includes the lesbian community.
From my experience. I'll get to how that's tricky.
I've found the lesbian circles I've engaged with have been even more inclusive than the general LGBT+ community. They're actually really good about including bisexuals and trans women that are into women. However, this is partly due to the anthropic principle: Even though I'm enby I still have [M] on my state ID, look like a dude and have male parts, and have been completely forthright about this even in online circles (e.g. r/actuallesbians) where no-one would ever know I was really a cat. But this means that I don't get invites to circles that are more restrictive, since I'd be high on the no-admittance list.
But inclusive lesbians are not super fond of less inclusive ones, especially since human sexuality can change over time. The closet has multiple doors, and when your best friend who invites you to all the get-togethers is a women-only transphobe second-wave feminist (this was a thing), and suddenly you've been taking an interest in a special guy, you're going to keep your bi-curiosity hidden from your friend (or stop being friends). And as per the whole thing of coming out, the point of the LGBT+ community is being able to be who you are, and being accepted and validated.
So when I see a lesbians dating app that is intentionally looking to draw transphobes, it reminds me of those conservative dating apps to hook up men in the white power movement with trad-wife minded women, which is to say it's good they're over there and not trying to date people over here that they're ultimately going to disappoint and hurt.
Good point. I don't want to date trans people, but I wouldn't want to use an app that purposely excluded them. I'd rather occasionally have to go "oh sorry thanks for telling me" than restrict my dating pool to bigots.
Not once have I encountered a trans person on a dating app who wasn’t 100% transparent about it.
...that you know of. not defending bigots or bullying, but that statement doesn't make sense.
I mean, isn't that also just true of anyone you've interacted with? Their point was that they never "found out" someone they were dating on there was trans, and everyone that dated from those apps who oc every discovered were trans were straightforward about it.
Why would you need or want to be that precise about your language?
It's absolutely happened to me. I also don't understand. Maybe the reasoning is, if they get me to invest enough time then maybe I'll suddenly be sexually attracted to penises? I don't know.
Having known multiple trans people and heard them talk about the arguments for and against early disclosure: Fear.
Also two less fear-related (and less common) possibilities:
Curious what happens when it thinks a cis woman is trans.
…and it will happen.
Already has. Creator of the app doesn't past the screening test.
There will be a right wing meltdown when someone like Chloe Cole is rejected.
First, from a purely technical perspective, there is absolutely no way this works properly, you just can’t recognize a trans person just by looking at his/her face, even if this was ethically okay (and this isn’t), it couldn’t work at all.
Second, the privacy nightmare that would be, every picture of everyone would be processed (and certainly stored forever for training the program) without the possibility to disable it ?
And finally, the obvious discrimination against trans people (I never encountered a trans person that wasn’t honest about it, so it’s even pointless to "detect" them)
To be honest I’m not in the LGBT community or anything, but this goes to far
TERFs are obsessed with the idea that you can always tell.
I can always tell it is a toupee... except when I can't.
I never encountered a trans person that wasn’t honest about it
I guess you're not on dating apps?
Happened to me a lot. For some reason, especially while I was on my way to meet them. "Hey, by the way, is it okay if I have a penis?*
Look, I'm sorry, I'm not attracted to penises. So far I've only had one attempt to say it's transphobic to not want to have sex with them, but even for the others it's really shitty to lead someone on like that.
The consensus in the trans community is to let a potential partner know earlier, rather than later. It avoids the situation you've encountered. Some men also can react violently, when they find out, so it's quite a critical dilemma to them.
Unfortunately, not all follow that mindset. They also tend to bust out a lot, and so lead a lot of men on.
It's a bit like the scumbag dilemma women face. Very few men are scumbags, yet women encounter them regularly when dating. Most men try not to annoy the women they find attractive. They are careful in their approach mentality. This means they only make a few approaches (relatively). They also tend to pair off, and so exit the pool. Scumbags cast a wide net, and don't hang on to women for long. This means they make a LOT of approaches, and so annoy a vastly disproportionate number of women.
Basically most trans people try to be as polite and careful about it as possible. A few, unfortunately, can destroy the reputation of the rest by being scumbags about it, at least locally.
Oh trust me I was, I tested pretty much all of them 😂
the majority it was displayed directly in the bio, and the rest told me in the first or second message
I trust you but I can’t relate to your experience, I always encountered honest people (at least with this subject)
Were they actually being dishonest about it, or were they not disclosing it? There are a lot of things people don't disclose before meeting up. Outside of a romantic relationship context, cis people tend to be more accepting of trans people in general if the cis people don't know right away that the person is trans and find out later.
But for sexual/romantic relationships it's different because most people want to know the genitals of their potential partners up front. This makes it difficult for trans people, who are stuck deciding at what point they should disclose the state of their genitals, in a way that is considered honest, keeps them safe, and maintains some privacy.
Yes it does suck on your end but on the other side of the phone your perspective date is probably having a whole mental breakdown about it. For a lot of trans folk disclosure is absolutely nessisary as early as possible and preferably for safety reasons not when you are face to face...
Buuuut they also are very likely to get really vile transphobic backlash from a perspective date as much as they are honest rejections based on genital preference which sucks to be rejected for but is nobody's fault. There's a lot of trans people out there who feel like they are never going to be given a chance. Either way steeling themselves for one form of rejection or a vile reminder of the awful people out there who think you are subhuman and are offered up a nice juicy target on which to let loose their bigotry does tend to make for disordered social niceties. Once someone has been burned enough they get pretty damn shy and the procrastination is more of a case of battling personal traumas until the last possible second where one absolutely must do the right thing.
I would advise not taking it too personally.
My sister is trans and she had to deal with that. She also made it extremely obvious that she was trans but she still got Neo Nazis.
She also got banned from a dating site for saying that she was only attracted to cis women.
It's marketing bullshit, in announcement they also said they used "heat signatures" from the photo to help determine if the person was trans lol
Well to be fair trans people are extra hot ;)
I don't think this goes too far morally, but technically - what you said, this doesn't work. It definitely won't for those of trans people who had their hormone balance sufficiently off since birth. Well, I don't know anything about hormones or human development, but I've read that the transition itself is usually a smaller part in addition to what has been already dealt by nature. And I've met a person once by whom I wouldn't tell (from appearance).
I’ve read that the transition itself is usually a smaller part in addition to what has been already dealt by nature
This is unfortunately not the case for most trans people. I think it's quite rare that a trans person would consistently be able to pass (=blend in) before HRT.
There are some trans people who are also intersex, which is the condition when one's biological sex (without medical intervention) doesn't fit neatly in either the male or female boxes. But most trans people aren't intersex and about half of intersex people aren't trans.
Edit: But I do agree with your main point, there's simply no way an app like this could identify trans people with the vast range of facial features humans have. It will both exclude many cis women and allow many trans women, as Giggle did a few years ago.
It actually won't, it will incorrectly attempt to identify and exclude people, but it won't work, because this is all snake oil horseshit perpetrated by attention seeking grifters.
It'll exclude plenty of people, it just won't do a good job of selectively excluding trans people.
isn't this solving a problem that doesn't really exist? I'd have thought most trans people on dating apps would be fairly up front about it... you know for safety or even just expectations management? I can't speak from experience, my dating life predates the rise of dating apps
Yes, trans folks tend to be pretty upfront for the reasons you mentioned.
This is just some hateful, bullshit, trans panic nonsense. Some people can't even handle the idea that they might as a matter of course be attracted to a trans person given the opportunity.
This tech will inevitably also exclude some slightly less normative appearing cis folks too, but they don't care because they just hate trans people.
I was once downvoted to hell for expressing a similar sentiment on reddit.
The best part: The creator (a woman) couldn't even pass her own app's test; it said she was a man with 97% certainty. 🤣 TERF didn't check herself, and thus wrecked herself.
Yeah man that won't work
So far the app has already banned a featherless hen and its own creator (seriously)
Plot twist: she only wanted to come out as trans so she cooked up this ridiculous idea to out herdelh
funny enough terfs already tried this once before and ran into literally the same problems.
The app will probably get false positives anyway.
It already did, I'm struggling to find the link (E: found it ), but Jenny Watson the woman who launched this shit was found to be like 98% likely to be "a man" by her own software (someone ran the photo of herself she used in the launch tweet)..
When AI meets phrenology... Is there a scam that hasn't been recycled yet?
Bigots will use anything to justify their bigotry.
Yeah... If anyone starts talking too much about the shape of the human skull as if that means anything whatever they are selling ain't worth the pitch
Hmm well I admit I haven't seen many people willing to tell your fortune by cutting open an animal then reading the guts inside. Someone should contact Y-combinator. Maybe work block chain into it somehow.
I don't think atrificial intelligence will be needed, trans people will just use intelligence and not use this app.
What about making different classifications for cis and trans males and females? There are people who are not dating someone trans or who only date trans people.
Saving them the weird moment of realizing it seems good.
You'd be better suited just having a user select that they are comfortable dating a trans individual because it will likely come up very early in the dating process anyway.
Forcing someone to identify as a gender that doesn't make them comfortable is just going to result in them not using your app and is frankly kind of a dick move overall. Your suggestion would just create an app that was suited for chasers, not trans users.
I dunno about other apps, but OKCupid does have this option.
Yeah it seems ridiculous this isnt the standard way to do online dating. Many people dont want a trans partner, and many people only want a trans partner. Not being clear and upfront about these things only causes future heartbreak and rejection issues.
I don't think it's really that simple from many trans peoples' perspective, as it places an obligation on them to out themselves before they even talk to a person. Many trans people's goal with transition is not to live as "trans" it's to live as their target gender, not some "other". Being trans is not a sexuality.
A better solution would be to have people who don't want to have the possibility of ever dating any trans person put that as part of their profile.
If people have an issue with doing that then it kind of reveals the truth of the issue for what it is.
Almost like instead of relying on faulty AI predictions, they can just include that as a bio and search option. No bullshit AI necessary.
Some daughters have the same face as their fathers, some sons have the same face as their mothers. How could this possibly work?
It won't, it's just a grift.
It's like claiming that you can identify homosexuality through facial recognition. There's no such thing as a "trans face". It's just a silly idea.
They said the same thing about gaydar but I already subscribe $9.95/month for the AI addon package for that. I already preorded the trantenna (trans antenna 🤣 ) for a cool $500 down. No price is too much to keep children safe... on dating service networks? Wait, I thought we hated trans people to save the children? There shouldn't be children on these sites anyways.
Seems like wasted effort & resources....
The people on the apps should be able to manage their own activity.
As long as the greater society continues to conflate sex(ual)/genitalia[male, female, intersex/hermaphrodite] with gender(man, woman, trans man, trans woman, non-binary, etcetera) nothing will reach a mutal level of comprehension.
The plethora of false positives makes this technology flawed - the number of females who will be flagged as trans 😅..... the plethora of trans woman who will not get flagged....😅....
What a time to be alive.....
These apps are not created to make meaningful connections. It's to increase their profits and engagement. Apps have been around how long now, and we see a DECLINE in the quality of relationships not their improvement..
They literally tried this exact thing already and it accepted many trans women and refused many cis women.
This already happened a few years ago. Transphobic ciswomen got mad when the app identified them as trans.
Who’d want to date anyone who uses this app anyways?
shhh let them all splinter between this, the right stuff, and christian mingle so they never procreate
Even the TERFs are getting into AI grifts nowadays
Hopefully Apple doesn’t allow this astroturfer crap on the appstore.
The transphobe Chloe Cole won't be able to use it.
If bathroom laws pass, she will never be able to use a public bathroom.
Crying Game reference. Heh. Nice.
Lol, it's just really not that hard to get your vagina, tits and face in the same photo. It would be super obvious if there was a penis in between. So maybe they should detect penises? And then they could detect diseases on the penis that would be pretty obvious. So guys would need to upload a photo showing their penis and face in one shot... again pretty easy to do these days.
