Gender Identities
Leaning into our value of being true we wanted to be transparent.
You may or may not agree with how we’ve configured gender within the app but we believe gender is extremely personal and infinitely nuanced. It's not binary but connecting people has to be. If everyone had a different gender identity in believr, we wouldn’t be able connect anyone, which is a problem.
In an effort to affirm all gender identities while also creating a great connecting experience, we offer 8 gender identites — knowing this is not complete. With that in mind, we offer a custom field where you can put in any gender identity. We recommend selecting at least one of the pre-defined gender identities to ensure a good experience.
When you decide to connect with others, you will have three options regarding gender: women, men, everyone. Both trans women and cis women will be displayed if you choose "Women." Both trans and cis men will be displayed in your results if you choose "Men." All other gender identities will appear under "Everyone" and will include men and women.
Gender Identities Definitions:
- Men - someone who identifies as a man.
- Women - someone who identifies as a woman.
- Everyone - all gender identities.
For some more context - building a connection experience that allows everyone to match with someone that meets their specific preferences for a niche community that includes many different diverse gender identities is incredibly difficult. There is a delicate balance between not enough filters and too many. believr also serves a very marginalized community (trans individuals, nonbinary folx, etc.).
We decided the best approach was to
- Protect the more marginalized community from being targeted per their request. More on that here.
- Aligned with our company values. More on that here.
- Index on making more connections.
Which is how we can to the conclusion that the filter preferences of "men, women, and everyone " is the best solution given everything outlined above.