Does anyone else struggle with dating apps because of how they categorize bigender?
Basically, I identify as bigender (female and male). I was assigned female at birth, but there are times when I feel more like a man. I don’t consider myself transgender and I don’t want to transition. My gender identity is just… both.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how poorly dating apps seem to handle this.
On one dating app I was using, I wanted to add “bigender” to my profile. The problem was that I had to select “non-binary” first and then choose bigender as a subtype. Apparently, even though my profile specifically said bigender, the app still categorized me as non-binary for its matching system.
For the longest time, I was getting very few likes and basically no matches, which seemed strange because it’s a pretty popular dating app. Eventually I looked into it and realized that if someone’s preferences were set to only show them men or only show them women, I apparently wouldn’t show up for either of them because the app had me categorized as non-binary.
So I changed my gender on the app to female. Suddenly, I started getting likes and matches again.
But now there’s a different problem: I’m being shown as a woman in the matching system. I can put “bigender” in my bio, but if someone has their preferences set to men, the app won’t show me to them at all. And that just frustrates me.
I don’t want to have to choose between being categorized as just a woman or being categorized as non-binary when neither option actually represents what I’m trying to tell people. I’m bigender. I identify as both female and male.
I really wish dating apps would allow people who identify as multiple genders to select multiple genders for their profile, so that someone could say “I’m female AND male” rather than having to pick one category that determines who can see them.
I don’t know if other bigender people have run into this, or if I’m misunderstanding how these apps work. I’m mostly just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing.
Sorry, just wanted to rant into the void for a minute. 😅