Only moments after His curse in Monday made President Donald Trump a proclamation to the participants of his inauguration: “It will henceforth be the policy of the US government that there are only two generations: male and female.” Trump subsequently signed an executive order calling the White House ‘Gender ideology’, claiming that a person’s gender ‘is not changeable and [is] Based on fundamental and irreversible reality. “
Trump’s command, commonly seen as an unscientific attempt to return the rights of transgender and sex extensively, also instructs federal agencies “to require the identification documents issued by the government, including passports, visas and global access cards, accurately reflect the sex of the container, ”rather than their gender identity. It was one of the 78 orders signed on Monday, some of which were part of Trump’s efforts to end the Biden-era policy that was “social engineering match and gender in every aspect of public and private life”.
Although the executive order only affects federal policy, the broader implications are great. It has only been a decade since Facebook’s “real name” policy has made it difficult for people to keep accounts under names as those on their IDs. Facebook has been changing these guidelines since then, but since companies like Meta are the way for users to claim that people have ‘mental illness’, it seems that digital safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people are dropping. Except in one arena: dating apps.
After Trump’s executive order, Match Group and Both both told Wired that they did not intend to stop the course when it came to the gender identity options offered on their respective platforms.
“We are not making changes to our programs,” said a Match Group spokeswoman, who owns Okcupid, Tinder, Hinge and several other appointment platforms.
It has yet to be seen how other technical enterprises will respond to the executive order. Some, as Meta, looked like the incoming Trump administration before the week. Earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company was its third-party fact-check program and transition to a community note, à la X.
Zuckerberg has taken the sudden turnaround as an attempt to set free speech on Facebook, Instagram and wires and enable more political content. “We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a number of restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender that are just out of touch with the mainstream discourse,” Zuckerberg said in a video that accompanies the announcement.
If online life becomes even less inclusive for LGBTQ+ people during Trump’s term, programs such as Okcupid, Foundation and Hinge can become digital ports, places to connect. “At a time when many of our civil rights are threatened, appointments have the ability to serve as important spaces for gender, races and sexual inclusiveness,” says April Williams, a professor of communication and digital studies at the University of Michigan at the University of Michigan.
More than a decade ago, in 2014, Okcupid expanded its gender options for users to include identifications such as transgender, pangender, Intersex, Agender and Genderqueer. It was one of the first dating apps that captured an accurate image of identity online, and the different ways in which it developed. Tinder currently offers an option for “Beyond Binary” and Hinge allows users to select “non -binary” on their profiles.