HER, the dating app for queer women, revamps profiles

HER, the app that provides safe space for queer women to meet, has today revamped the app’s profiles.

The updated profiles allow users to express themselves more fully in the categories of gender, sexuality, pronouns, diet preferences, star signs, drinking, smoking and cannabis habits, among others. HER has also added space for a text bio, which is very common on other dating apps but wasn’t a part of Her.

“It was interesting to reflect on how people have changed,” said founder and CEO Robyn Exton, in reference to text profiles. “People used to worry about writing a bio but now they really want more ways to express themselves, and they want to see other people’s writing skills when they’re browsing profiles.”

There is a downside to text profiles, which the Grindr community is all too familiar with, in that it allows users to also express their discrimination against certain people or groups. That said, HER’s first commitment is to provide safe space to queer women and has thusly built out reporting tools to weed out bad actors.

Perhaps more importantly, HER is providing a ‘What does this mean’ field across the categories of Sexuality, Gender and Pronouns, to help users understand each other more authentically.

Here’s what Exton had to say in a prepared release:

Profiles are a critical space to tell people who we are yet mostly end up becoming a bland wash where everyone sounds the same. Few social apps have invested any time in trying to truly understand and support the expression of queer identity – a limited number of sexualities and genders just doesn’t cut it. By enforcing these limitations, companies are denying LGBTQ+ people the opportunity to truly be ourselves. To express all of our identity, all the tiny, intersecting facets of what makes us, us.

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HER launched four years ago, rebranded from Daatch, with the intent to give queer women a space to safely and freely express themselves and meet each other. The profiles on the app have always been slightly more expressive than those of other dating apps, allowing users to post multiple pictures, interests etc., all of which were ‘likeable’ by other users.

The new profiles have refined the options available to users and have implemented multiple select so that no user ever gets put in a box.

Like most dating apps, HER operates with a freemium model, offering premium features to subscribers who pay $15USD/month. The company also makes money off of its events business, which operates in fifteen cities across the U.S.

HER has 4.5 million registered users, and has raised $2.5 million in funding. Exton says that HER has been profitable for several years.

Happy Pride!

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/26/her-the-dating-app-for-queer-women-revamps-profiles/