Reclaim sexual health with queer-friendly online apps

Apps like Grindr and Hornet are popular platforms for queer men to link up. How can those apps and their makers promote sexual health and safety, particularly in countries where it is not safe to be out? Today we’ll get acquainted with some of the prominent figures and resources in dating apps, digital safety, and physical safety, to explore how queer men can use apps like Grindr to reclaim sexual health. 

Sex and safety online

Jack Harrison-Quintana is right at the center of digital media and the queer community. He serves dual roles at the dating app Grindr: vice president for social impact, and executive director of Grindr for equality. It’s a fitting move for the Latino activist and author. Now that Grindr is up to 3.8 million daily active users, the pressure is on. What can Harrison-Quintana and his team do to protect the sexual health and the physical safety of their users, and what are they obligated to do?

In an article in Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health, Jack Harrison-Quintana acknowledges these responsibilities, and explores what he and his team are able to control, and what they aren’t. The article is entitled “Sex and safety in the digital age.”

One of the roles Grindr plays in the lives of its users is sexual health education. Let’s talk about the barriers that can stand between LGBTQ+ people and getting access to those resources. I want to start by acknowledging the incredible work organizations like Howard Brown Health do here in Chicago to help provide members of the queer community with the information they need to protect their sexual health. Organizations like this exist across the country in the United States, giving many LGBTQ+ people access to the information they need to practice safe sex and navigate the health risks involved with sex. The other side of this? The societal pressures, in certain cases the legal consequences: it requires a feeling of safety to walk into places and organizations like this, as well as geographic proximity, and that safety is not guaranteed.

Providing Information on Sexual Wellbeing

Apps like Grindr are designed so that queer people, predominantly gay cisgendered men, can find each other through their phones. It has an opportunity with its audience to provide information that may be helpful to them. In 2017, that’s what Jack Harrison-Quintana was trying to do when he launched Grindr’s Sexual Health Resource Center. Originally, it was a set of 20 answers to FAQs that came from the users of the app. Examples included things like “Can I get HIV from oral sex?” Today this resource has been translated into 56+ languages. Harrison-Quintana asserts that for some of these languages, “there is no other sexual health information anywhere on the internet, let alone information that presents sexual health information in a way that centers the LGBT experience.”

In his article, Harrison-Quintana describes the process of getting the resource translated into over 50 languages. He’s honest about some of the roadblocks- like early iterations of the translations using only cis and hetero translators. He provides one example of translating the info into Arabic, immediately after which he is flooded with complaints. It turns out the word he used for lesbian was an offensive term rarely if ever used by lesbians to describe themselves. That’s how they figured out they needed translators who were themselves part of the community.

More than just a list of facts or answers to FAQs though, the app directly addressed some of the sexual health risks like STIs its users may face, by adding optional fields like Last Tested Date to people’s profiles. This lets them communicate their own personal health status, and beyond that, whether this is a primary concern for them in looking to meet people. So we can expect some basic information, and some options to share or disclose information that’s relevant to our personal sexual health.

Safety Measures for LGBTQ+ People in Unsafe Areas

But how does an app, particularly one that pinpoints the geographic locations of other users, keep those users safe when where they live is anything but safe? It remains illegal to be LGBTQ+ in 70 countries. Institutions and governments that are homophobic have been able to use technology to target queer people. Does a dating app specifically designed for queer people owe us safety measures? Let’s look at one example: Grindr users living in Beirut, Lebanon. Harrison-Quintana reports in his article that the people of Beirut routinely pass through several government checkpoints in order to move about the city. It’s a common practice for guards there to go through people’s phones. The Grindr app now has enough of a presence in Lebanon that even the existence of the app on a person’s phone homepage could reveal details about their sexuality which the guards could then use against them.

Grindr’s response? Make the app icon customizable, such that to the casual observer it looks like an innocent app for a calendar or the weather. It’s called Discreet App Icon, and for people moving through checkpoints in Beirut, it can have a major impact. One problem: this tool is kept behind a paywall. Per the article, “users who live in parts of the world where LGBT discrimination is most pervasive and devastating can access the feature for free.” This safety measure exists, but not for everyone. It’s a fitting example of how far apps like Grindr have come in protecting their users, and how far they still have to go.

Safe Queers, an initiative of Out in Tech and The African Queer Youth Initiative, has several recommendations for protective measures you can use if you are somewhere unsafe to be queer. Safe Queers is an online resource to help queer individuals and organizations protect their privacy online. Per their website: “We recommend that you do not post a picture of your face if you live in a country where being LGBTQ+ puts you in danger. For location-based apps like Jack’d, Scruff, and Grindr: we recommend you “hide distance” so that other users cannot accurately pinpoint your location.”

Here are some other tips they’d recommend: 

• Be cautious with sharing information about your private life. You want to stay mindful of who in your life has what information about you.

• You might try creating an email address that you only use for meeting partners. Many email providers are free to start new accounts, and it’s a good idea to protect yourself by creating one separate from the rest of your personal information. 

• If you use a video chat platform, create a separate account as well. Be especially cautious of showing your face over video or pictures.

• If you want to text with someone you met online, platforms like Signal are more secure. Signal is a messaging service you can use for texting, voice, and video calls, and it is encrypted.

• Follow your instincts: if you have a sense that there is something off or that something doesn’t feel right, it is okay to leave. Protecting yourself is an important priority. Naturally, meeting someone for a hookup or a date might make you feel excited or keyed up or anxious. Try to stay mindful in that initial meeting to determine the difference between a sense of excitement or anticipation and a sense that something is wrong or threatening.

• It’s a good idea for first meetings to be in a public place and if you have someone safe you can tell ahead of time where you are going, so much the better. 

As always, one of the best things you can do to stay safe physically is get tested regularly for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. It’s recommended to get tested every three months. Apps like Hornet and Grindr provide testing reminders, and you can put a reminder in your phone as well. If you have more questions, you can check out more articles here, like this one exploring sexual orientation using the klein grid, or this one on tips for using a chest binder.