Morgen Bromell: Hacking Liberation: Building Safe Platforms for All Genders

Talk #7: Morgen Bromell (@MorgenBromell), CEO & founder of @ThurstHQ - "Hacking Liberation: Building Safe Platforms for All Genders"

Their queer dating app, Thurst, getting really big and viral didn't mean they got paid the big bucks :'(

At the time, other dating platforms were not queer at all. All founders were white and very few were queer.

Dating is dangerous as hell for a black, queer, nonbinary person—so how much more dangerous must it be for more marginalized folks?

Began reimagination of what safety and security looked like. And love: who gets to love? Who is excluded?

A lot of their family choose love as survival. They saw working class trans folks joking, "What's love got to do with it?"

Systems and algorithms don't have space for some folks. Little visibility. Commodification of love means some folks are "more valuable."

Marginalized folks are visible online (ex.: Black Twitter) but not on dating sites.

If you don't design to prevent abuse of marginalized groups, you design for it.

In many spaces, not just dating sites, we are unaware of the ways we deprioritize a person based on various elements.

5 tips to center nonbinary and trans folks: • Care a lot, use empathy, and place yourself in their reality.

• Do considerate research. Figure out who you aren't hearing from.

• Design shouldn't be oppressive. Each design choice can make a user feel safe or excluded.

Tinder has nonbinary gender options, but they are under "Other." Still othering.

• Use tools and services by companies that support your vision for greater inclusion.

• Hire and collab with your ideal users. It saves time to solve from lived experience. If you don't live it, pay someone who does.

@MorgenBromell, do you have a donate link, Patreon, or something else you'd like to plug at the end of this thread?

@dmurring Yes! Folks can donate to:  http://thurst.co/ 

My work is always free, so yr financial support is extremely valuable! Tips:  http://paypal.me/dmurring  Patreon:  http://patreon.com/dmurring