The first lesbian dating app will be launched, using gender recognition technology to exclude trans women and ensure only biological women can register.
It’s the brainchild of feminist activist Jenny Watson, who says there are currently no dating apps that cater exclusively to women who want same-sex relationships.
The current generation of dating apps, she says, are increasingly being used by men who identify as women and who say they are also lesbians.
L’App will use facial recognition technology to verify that a person is a biological woman.
Watson said potential users will have to go through a process when they sign up in which the app scans their face through their smartphone.
It’s the brainchild of feminist activist Jenny Watson (pictured), who says there are currently no dating apps that cater exclusively to women who want same-sex relationships.
The software, which Watson says is 99 percent accurate, analyzes characteristics including bone structure, the shape and position of an individual’s eyes, eyebrows, and nose shape or size. It will also be able to detect if a person is presenting a live image instead of simply putting a photo of a woman in front of the camera by detecting movement, blinking movements and heat emissions.
Tests have revealed that if someone tries to disguise themselves as a woman by putting on a wig or makeup, the technology will detect the deception.
Watson, 32, a town planner, told The Mail on Sunday: “At the moment there are no dating apps exclusively for women.” Lesbians need an app they can use without receiving messages from men who identify as trans.’
The current generation of dating apps, she says, are increasingly being used by men who identify as women and who say they are also lesbians. In the photo: a demonstration for the rights of trans people.
She said L’App had also been developed in response to many lesbians finding that they were banned from existing apps if they dared to specify that they wanted to date only natal women. Speaking from her own personal experience, she said: “Every time I join a lesbian dating app or any other dating app, I get banned.”
‘To avoid trans-identified men, I will always write a small blurb, nothing disrespectful, saying that I prefer women and to please respect my boundaries.
And every time I do that I get banned. On one app I was asked to express my most controversial opinion, so I wrote that JK Rowling was right and she was banned for it. She’s crazy.’
Watson has previously campaigned to protect lesbian spaces by hosting women-only speed dating nights. She plans to open the first single-sex lesbian bar in the UK.
She has been criticized as transphobic for excluding transgender women, something she rejects. Her launch comes as a court case is underway in Australia over whether a trans woman can be legally excluded from a women-only social media app called Giggle.