I’ll never forget the moment I discovered the magic of Grindr. It was the summer after sophomore year of college, and a gay friend and I were hanging out at my dad’s apartment, watching Friends reruns and drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade, when his backpack buzzed. He pulled out his phone, opened an app I’d never seen before, and showed me a profile from someone just 50 feet away—literally in my dad’s building.

As my friend slipped away to meet his match, I stayed behind, sipping my overly sweet drink and wondering if something like that existed for girls who like girls. I wouldn’t officially come out for another six years, but deep down, I already knew—like so many LGBTQ+ people do. And as I grew into my bisexual identity and started dating people of all genders, I kept waiting for a Grindr-like app for queer women. It’s been over a decade, and I’m still waiting. But why?

“I think it’s as simple as capitalism and patriarchy making assumptions about queer women’s behaviors, interests, and spending habits,” says Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, a writer and managing editor of Autostraddle. “It feels connected to why people think lesbian bars aren’t financially viable. There’s this perception that queer women aren’t into casual hookups, but that’s just not true.”

She adds, “At Autostraddle, I answer a lot of advice questions, and one that comes up again and again is about this exact thing—people asking what apps to use for casual hookups or exploring kink, or how to cruise in real life as lesbians. There’s a real hunger for it.”

There have been attempts to fill that gap, most notably Lex, a queer-focused dating app that grew out of a missed-connections Instagram page and welcomes everyone except cis straight men. I used Lex for years before my last monogamous relationship. But when I recently checked it out again, I was disappointed to find it felt less like a hookup platform and more like a place to find a pet sitter for your rescue Maltipoo. That’s great for community-building—we all need more queer friends and favors—but what about my dreams of a casual, semi-anonymous hookup app?

Then there’s Her, the Sapphic dating app founded in 2013. But in my experience, it doesn’t have the same reach or round-the-clock activity as Grindr and similar apps. Upadhyaya agrees, recalling her time using an app called Scissr in Chicago back in 2015: “There just weren’t enough people on it. I got the sense the founders didn’t really understand their own product. One of them said she wanted to make a lesbian version of Grindr, but ‘classier.’ I thought, Classy? Just let it be a hookup app! It can be messy—it doesn’t need to be dressed up just because it’s for women and femmes.”

Maybe there’s no great mystery here. The tired cliché is that queer women eventually settle down, adopt rescue dogs, figure out sperm donors, and stop going out. But I know so many queer and trans people across the country and the world—who don’t identify as men—and would love to get laid.As LGBTQ+ identification increases in the United States, shouldn’t our dating options grow too? If any kind-hearted angel investors are reading this, I have one simple holiday wish: a smooth, reliable, and inclusive app to connect with other newly single lesbians and bisexuals. That’s all I want for Christmas!

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Why Arent There Any Great WidelyUsed Dating Apps for Queer Women

BeginnerLevel Questions

1 What do people mean when they say there are no great dating apps for queer women
They mean that while apps exist they often have significant problems like small user bases poor design inactive profiles or a lack of features that cater specifically to the needs and safety of queer women nonbinary and trans people

2 Arent apps like Tinder and Bumble options for queer women
Yes and many people use them However these are general audience apps Their features arent built from the ground up for queer communities which can lead to issues like being shown men by mistake encountering unicorn hunters or having fewer filtering options for specific queer identities

3 What are some apps that are made for queer women
Apps like HER Lex and Feeld are designed with queer women and nonbinary people in mind HER is the most wellknown but users often report bugs a mix of social and dating content and still encountering fake profiles

4 Whats the biggest simple problem with these niche apps
The network effect A dating app is only useful if lots of people are on it Many queer women stick to the big apps because thats where they assume everyone else is which keeps the smaller apps from growing

Advanced Practical Questions

5 Beyond just size what specific design problems do these apps have
Common issues include a lack of robust identity options inadequate reporting tools for harassment algorithms that dont understand queer preferences and monetization models that hinder usability

6 Why is it harder to build an app for queer women than for gay men
Gay male dating apps often thrive on a large concentrated user base with more aligned intentions around dating vs hookups The queer womens community is more diverse in gender identity and dating desires and is statistically smaller This makes it a tougher market to capture profitably which deters big investment