Celebrating PRIDE: Dating Apps for Queer Women, by Queer Women that are Changing the Online Dating Game

It’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month! Pride is for celebrating LGBTQIA2S+ love and community, but finding love can draining for queer women and nonbinary folks, especially in the era of online dating. Over half of queer people aged 18-49 have used a dating app at some point in their lives. However, mainstream apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are the most popular - and they don’t cater to the queer community.

While many mainstream apps have made efforts to be more LGBTQIA2S+ inclusive by expanding gender and sexuality options, they weren’t made with the queer community in mind. Online dating as a LGBTQIA2S+ person poses unique challenges related to self-expression, safety, and finding success on dating apps that straight people don’t experience. Having apps on the market created by queer people who understand these particular challenges is an opportunity to make online dating more accessible and user-friendly for the LGBTQIA2S+ community.

The first widespread dating app for queer people wasn’t introduced until 2009 when Grindr, primarily meant for gay men, was introduced. But it was still four years later when HER, an app created for and by a queer woman was launched.

Today, there are more dating apps for queer women, but they are still limited. However, the handful of apps for LGBTQIA2S+ women that exist fill an important gap in the dating apps market.

Sapphic Connections on HER

Robyn Exton realized the need for more online dating options for queer women when she was exploring her own sexuality. She tried mainstream apps and apps adapted for LGBTQIA2S+ women, but encountered the core problem of online dating as a queer woman: apps simply aren’t made for this community.

“When I went to go use a [dating] website, it was just horrific. My friends were having a horrific time because it was only websites that were built by gay men, for gay men and they would turn it pink [as a lesbian version of the app],” Exton told Built By Girls.

Recognizing this gap in the market, Exton became passionate about bringing a dating app to the scene specifically designed for queer women and the unique dating problems they face. This led to the first version of HER being released in 2013.

Now with over 14 million users, one of HER’s most popular and unique features is their pride pins. “[Mainstream apps] don’t really support and express queer culture and what it means to be sapphic,” Exton voices, which makes it hard for queer people to express themselves authentically on these apps.

HER’s pride pins allow users to express themselves in a more personalized way, from their love language to their unique queer identity. Pins include identities like butch, femme, lipstick lez, and pillow princess, terms that queer women identify with that further describe their LGBTQIA2S+ identities. Additionally, users can add pins like gaymer, body positive, and plant parent, to find other users who connect with their interests and values.

In June 2024, HER is releasing even more options for pride pins, starting with social style pins which are available as of June 1. “25% of users have ended a relationship because of incompatible social styles and dynamics,” Exton shares. “We want people to be able to express: are you a homey and cozy person? Are you a nightlife person?” Other social style pins will include sporty queer, corporate networker, and more.

Also in June, HER is releasing sapphic energy pins, which will include terms like golden retriever and black cat. “I think it's [the] gayest thing we’ve ever done,” Exton laughs. “It’s kind of like if you know you know, if you’re in the community, what the vibe [is] that someone gives off within gay culture.”

Love is Love (But Finding It is the Hard Part)

To dive deeper into some of the challenges to online dating for LGBTQIA2S+ women, Built By Girls talked with sexologist and dating coach, Myisha Battle. With a masters degree in psychology, Battle’s practice focuses on coaching individuals and couples through sex and relationship obstacles, including queer women.

“For a lot of women specifically, there can be a fetishization for bisexual and lesbian women. Just putting that on your dating app and even trying to filter people out by that, you might be subjected to unwanted messages where people are sexualizing you,” Battle tells Built By Girls.

56% of queer users have received an unsolicited sexual message or image on a dating site, a significantly higher percentage than the 32% of straight people who have had this experience. This rings true for many queer women who have tried dating apps and encountered unicorn hunters, or couples looking to connect with a third person sexually, an experience that is very common among bisexual and pansexual women.

Another common barrier to online dating in lesbian relationships is actually making the first move. “Sometimes it can be difficult to start [a] conversation because women are socialized to not make the first move when dating,” Battle explains.

Exton and the team at HER know that this challenge can lead to matches without further conversation, which makes online dating less rewarding for queer women. To remedy this problem, HER has a feature that will automatically start the conversation if no one has made the first move after 24 hours.

“We kind of put a message into their inbox that they should both respond to, which had a really big increase in the number of people who started their conversations after that,” Exton illustrates. HER also bans unicorn hunters from their platform to ensure users feel safe and comfortable using their app.

“I think it's really important that there are apps that are developed by people who are from the community,” Battle emphasizes. “They understand the unique challenges of dating and can at least attempt to address those from a tech standpoint.”

Building Online Communities for Queer Women

Among queer women, there is also a desire for apps that build community beyond romantic and sexual matches. This is part of the market that Lex has increasingly focused on. Lex was launched as a dating app in 2019 and has since expanded to be a more general social platform for queer connections.

“From dating, to hookups, to best friends, house mates, book clubs, roller-skate friends, T4T tea parties, it's all on Lex,” CEO Jennifer Lewis shares with Built By Girls.

Lex differs from other queer dating and community apps because it's organized as a feed. “Instead of a 1 to 1 matching or swiping algorithm, we have a location-based feed where people post who they are and what they are looking for,” Lewis explains. Their unique algorithm allows for a more open, community-based feel, where users can connect with other nearby queer folks without requiring a match.

Lex is also one of the few text-based apps of its kind, prompting people to connect based on interests, rather than visual appearances. “Our feed is text based, decentering visuals and focusing on how a person wants to express themselves and connect with another person,” Lewis voices.

Though Battle specializes in dating, she’s all for expanded community-building apps for LGBTQ+ folks. “It provides another entry point to use the apps to find community.”

We Need More Queer Women in Tech

Robyn Exton and Jennifer Lewis are bringing much-needed apps to the online dating world. However, apps like HER and Lex are still rare. Because of the distinct obstacles queer women face in online dating, there is a true need for apps made with that community in mind - and the only people who know how to effectively create those platforms are queer women themselves.

“[Mainstream apps] can not make decisions that prioritize sapphic users’ experience because 50% of their demographic is cis dudes,” Exton emphasizes. “We are operating in a niche market, but we also know it's big enough to build a fantastic business and community from.”

In the current LGBTQIA2S+ dating landscape, Battle emphasizes the importance of online dating options for queer women. “There aren’t a lot of lesbian bars left in the United States,” Battle asserts. “Queer spaces have sort of dwindled and apps really provide an opportunity to bridge community.”

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Hailey Dickinson (she/her) is a freelance writer for Built By Girls and has been writing for the publication since January 2023. She is a creator passionate about using digital platforms to build community, make connections, and ignite positive social change. Outside of writing for Built By Girls, she manages social media and communications for multiple non-profit organizations. She is a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota and has a Bachelor’s degree in communications.