Tinder has just made dating easier for people with gender fluid identities

As of yesterday in a historic step, Tinder will now let people identify as transgender on their app. The company has taken a huge step in the fight against discrimination towards transgender men and women and people with other gender fluid identities.

Sean Rad, along with other Tinder executives, decided to make the change when he began to notice two main forms of persistent harassment. Transgender users were being verbally abused by other users they were matched with, but were also being accused of abuse themselves. This meant that transgender users were often reported and sometimes even blocked from the site, through no fault of their own.

Previously, users were only given two gender options: a man or a woman. Now the app has stepped up it’s game and added 40 options for the users to chose from, including transgender man, transgender woman, trans-masculine, and non-binary. If none of those options suit your identity best, users can also write in their own.

Tinder’s new update was included to not only let users chose their real identity, but also to help keep dating safer. The transgender community faces high rates of violence and discrimination and are often accused of lying and deceiving people when it comes to romantic situations.

Zachary Drucker, a producer of the television show Transparent, said the update shows how social attitudes towards gender are changing. Speaking to the New York Times she said: “Gender categories are expanding. We are part of the world, and we date”.