Trans man accesses dating app that uses facial recognition to exclude trans people

A trans man went ‘undercover’ on a gender-critical dating and community app and found that it has fewer than 100 members.

Writing in the Washington Blade, Henry Carnell detailed how he was able to gain access to L’App, an app created by gender-critical campaigner Jenny Watson who previously claimed there were “no female-only dating apps at the moment” and “lesbians need an app which they can use without being messaged by trans-identifying males”.

Details about the app caused a storm in June when Watson, who has previously spoken about launching a female-only private members club, said it would use facial recognition technology to scan a prospective user’s face on their smartphone, and was supposedlyable to detect if a woman was cis or trans with 99 per cent accuracy.

Research by PinkNews found most top dating apps, such as Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge and Grindr, are all trans inclusive and have zero-tolerance policies when it comes to transphobia on their platforms.

After reading the definition of womanhood on L Community, a site dedicated to lesbian and bisexual women, Carnell realised “that I, a trans-masculine person, fit the bill for ‘adult human female’.

“So, I checked the box verifying that I was ‘biologically female’, snapped a picture of my face and signed up for the dating app. I didn’t shave beforehand, so my testosterone-induced stubble remained in the picture. Chest photos were not required so my flat chest raised no alarms,” he wrote.

“I paid and was refunded the $12.75 (£9.90) to verify my identity and I was ushered into the community, which was notably silent. The only content was mainly from Watson.

“Posts included telling members the proper dating app portion was on its way on an invite-only basis and asking if anyone wanted to join a Zoom meet up [because] ‘our recent event had only six attendees.’ Another user posted sporadic lesbian-themed memes.”

In June, when details of L’App came out, Watson told the Daily Mail the technology analysed facial features such as bone structure and the positioning of a person’s eyes, eyebrows and nose, and was able to detect if someone was holding up an image of a woman to the camera, by noting physical movements, blinking and heat emissions.

“Any time I’ve joined a lesbian dating app or any other dating app myself, I get banned,” Watson said. “To avoid trans-identified males, I will always write a little blurb, nothing disrespectful, saying my preference is for women and please respect my boundaries. And every time I do that I get banned.”

In response to news of L’App’s creation, the chief executive and founder of queer dating app HER, Robyn Exton, previously told PinkNews she believed it was “largely opportunistic” and based on “an interest that people have” because of online discourse around trans issues. She felt a “real sadness” the app was being promoted during Pride month.

“This is a month where we’re supposed to talk about rights, equality and equal access for our whole community and this is the time when you choose to build a platform that you intentionally discriminate against part of our community. It’s disappointing to publish it during [now].”

HER, which boasts more than 15 million members and has been supportive of its trans users since it launched, faced vitriol last year for welcoming transgender and non-binary people, despite that not being something new.

The abuse and pile-on the company faced from anti-trans bigots led to the official HER account on X/Twitter being suspended and gender-critical male activists to create accounts in a bid to “catch out” trans women using it to find love and connections – only to end up exposing one another instead.

HER sent a push notification to all members telling transphobes to delete the app from their phones if they had a problem with inclusion.

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