BEAVERTON, Ore. -- A 25-year-old transgender woman from Beaverton is taking on Tinder, suing the online dating giant for deleting her account days after she wrote about her gender identity on her profile.
“I was just looking for what anybody else is on there for… to hopefully find love,” said Ariel Hawkins, who filed her lawsuit this week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
According to the suit, “on March 10, 2018, shortly after the plaintiff edited her profile to disclose the fact that she was a preop trans woman, Tinder deleted plaintiff’s account. Tinder deleted plaintiff’s account for the sole reason that she identified as a trans woman.”
The suit goes on to read that Hawkins added the line “camgirl on the side. preop trans woman.”
A camgirl, she said Friday, is someone who performs acts on a live webcam for money.
Some perform sexual acts, a practice that is legal.
“I file taxes on that and everything,” she said, adding she’s disclosed the same info on other dating apps and never had her account deleted.
The suit includes an image of what, her attorneys say, Hawkins’ account looked like just before it was deleted.
Despite numerous requests, she said Tinder has yet to provide any indication as to which term of service she violated.
“It was really frustrating and disheartening,” she said. “It was discouraging, and I felt like I was shut off and not able to have the same access to online dating as other people.”
Hawkins said it was all the more frustrating when her attorneys learned her case was part of an apparent pattern.
The suit cites this article from Vice News, titled “Why Are Trans People Being Banned From Tinder?”
It also references other tweets and social media posts, apparently made by transgender women who say Tinder deleted their accounts as well.
“I really want to fight for them,” said Hawkins, who filed a class action suit in the hopes that other Oregonians who have faced the same issue will join.
She said Friday her main goal is to force Tinder to change its policy surrounding who gets banned.
It’s one that Business Insider described as “guilty-until-proven-innocent”.
In a 2015 article from Business Insider, Tinder execs claim the issue lies in their “complaint based” algorithm.
In short, if enough people complain about an account, it can be deleted almost automatically.
The author wrote, “Tinder has a guilty-until-proven-innocent strategy when it comes to being reported and banned.”
"Each banned account is individually assessed,” the company is quoted as saying. “If we find that a user has been wrongfully banned, then we unban their account. This includes instances when transgender users are reported by others, but haven't violated any of our community standards."
KGW reached out to Tinder about Hawkins’ suit and hasn’t yet heard back.
The company sent a statement to Willamette Week reading, "While we do not comment on pending litigation, we can say, categorically, that we do not ban users from Tinder due to gender identity. At Tinder, we fundamentally believe that gender is not binary and we support inclusivity and acceptance of all people, which is why we offer more than 37 gender identity options for our users in the United States."