In response to the ongoing protests across the country in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died face down on the ground, handcuffed with a knee on his neck for several minutes, gay dating app says “We will not be silent.”
In posts to the company’s social media accounts, Grindr has announced the ethnicity filter on its app is history. Gone.
“We were planning to announce our #PridePerseveres initiative today, but in light of the ongoing violence and injustices against our POC family, that no longer feels appropriate,” begins the statement on Instagram. “How can we launch a month of celebration when so many of us are hurting?”
“How can we celebrate Pride without acknowledging that we wouldn’t even HAVE a Pride month if it weren’t for the brave black, brown, trans, and queer folks whose uprising against the police at Stonewall gave birth to the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement?”
Announcing the company stands “in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the hundreds of thousands of queer people of color who log in to our app every day,” the dating app says it will not be silent nor be inactive. “Today we are making donations to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and Black Lives Matter, and urge you to do the same if you can.”
“We will continue to fight racism on Grindr, both through dialogue with our community and zero-tolerance policy for racism and hate speech on our platform,” the statement continues. “As part of this commitment, and based on your feedback, we have decided to remove the ethnicity filter from our next release.”
Grindr goes on to mention their previously announced #PridePerseveres calendar, a series of Pride events taking place each day of June, will go on but “in a different light.”
Noting that Pride this year “has an added responsibility, a shifted tone, and a new priority,” the programming for the series will be amended to show “support and solidarity for queer people of color and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.”
Wow! Long overdue, kudos to grindr!!