sometimes you have to dig deeper, but sometimes you have to let go

August 14, 2022 6:31 PM

i am genderfluid presenting as male due to work and society pressures but i prefer to present as female when possible. last night i uploaded several pics of both gender presentations to Bumble in the process of creating an account, and they keep deleting my cutest female picture with a generic non-explanation saying it's breaking their photo guidelines.

my gender is set as genderfluid. they force you to pick if you want to appear in searches for men or women. since i'm AMAB i picked to appear in searches for men.

but i want any potential dates to know what they're getting into and i have this one killer pic of myself in a dress looking super cute that i want to be my profile pic. i uploaded it twice and they deleted it twice (they use the term "moderated"). they didn't moderate a second, very different pic of myself in girlmode. so i dug into the website until i could find the contact form and sent them a polite, inquisitive email about how i could avoid having my photo moderated away.

i got an automated response with a boilerplate message containing some general reasons why users might have their photos moderated, none of which i can tell apply to me except for "someone who is not you". i reckon they just think it's not a picture of me? the generic email said i could respond further if i wanted but i already have half a leg up on "fuck this." for all their talk about inclusivity and empowerment i think this is a pretty shitty way to treat someone, but i'm biting the bullet for the moment out of crushing loneliness. it's just the machine, it's not someone actively fucking with me (probably?).

i guess my core question is: is this even worth responding to their email and ask for further review? has anyone had good experiences with Bumble support, especially with genderqueer issues?

it's already a huge ask for me to even try to participate in these sorts of apps, as they have never succeeded for me and the only thing i've gotten out of attempts at online dating in the past are depression triggers and scam fishing, so like, i'm in a pretty emotionally vulnerable place just by signing up for the things but every so often i get the urge to take another whack at it, maybe it'll work out this time! hahaha. i've never tried Bumble so i figured what the hell.

whadya think, friends?

posted by glonous keming to Human Relations (6 answers total)

Yes, it's worth reaching out. Please DM me.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 8:23 PM on August 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

Honestly as a queer + nonbinary person who has tried every dating app, I would say Bumble skews heterosexual, or at least very conventional. Try Okcupid — the gender options are way better/less invalidating, the questions allow filtering out people with incompatible views, and there are way more nonbinary people. I've found cool people on Tinder and Feeld too, but okcupid is the place where I've met the vast majority of my dates. I've seen lots of people on all three of those apps with photos that have different gender presentations. So I'm not sure about Bumble moderation practices but it's definitely ok on other apps.
posted by 100kb at 9:22 PM on August 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah I’d say it’s not worth trying to push with bumble. I used to use tinder and had two separate accounts for different genders. I ultimately got banned from tinder and have never been able to find my way back in. I think your different issue shouldn’t be as much of an issue on other apps, but I don’t think working with bumble is going to go anywhere.
posted by Summers at 3:18 AM on August 15, 2022

Response by poster: > Is this something you encountered when setting up your account?

yes, and i set it to genderfliud, which i just verified to make sure i hadn't screwed something up.
on one's profile it's right above the radio-button slider for "Show me in searches for... (WOMEN ( MEN)" 😅😭
posted by glonous keming at 3:03 PM on August 15, 2022

Response by poster: respectfully, who i would like to date is not the same thing as a mandatory binary gender choice and was not what this question was asking about anyway. i'm marking this resolved. thanks everyone. #LetItGo
posted by glonous keming at 7:18 PM on August 15, 2022

Response by poster: it's all good, MollyRealized. i'm fine. we cool. ☮&🧡
posted by glonous keming at 7:59 PM on August 15, 2022