A transgender woman has filed a lawsuit against Tinder, alleging discrimination against transgender users on the platform.
According to TMZ, the lawsuit claims Tinder “rejects all transgender people from the dating service,” and cites the complainant, Ariel Hawkins, who was allegedly suspended from the platform after she put “camgirl on the side. preop trans woman,” in her profile.
“Ariel Hawkins claims in a new lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, a few days ago she edited her profile to disclose that she was a pre-op trans woman. She says Tinder immediately deleted her account,” reported TMZ. “She says the company sent her email saying she violated its terms of service … but didn’t point her to any term and refused to explain the basis for the rejection.”
In a comment to TMZ, Hawkins claimed, “I don’t think the company understands trans people and they don’t appreciate how we may represent ourselves.”
Hawkins then accused Tinder of refusing “to provide transgender individuals full and equal access to its app.”
Last year, Tinder became the highest grossing app on Apple’s App Store, while in January, a California court ruled that Tinder Plus’ higher prices for users over the age of 30 were discriminatory.
Update — A Tinder spokesperson provided this comment to Breitbart News: “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.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.