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How I — a trans man — went undercover on a TERF dating site
Female-only app asserts lesbians must be ‘biologically female’
It turns out the “lesbian renaissance” only has 85 people.
No, I am not talking about the Renaissance as defined by Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, Bottoms, and Drive-Away Dolls. That Renaissance is well populated.
It’s the Renaissance defined by Jenny Watson, a lesbian and self-described TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) committed to the idea that lesbians can only be “biologically female.”
My number comes from Watson’s female-only lesbian and bisexual dating and community app, L Community, which took LGBTQ news and Twitter by storm last month when it claimed it could identify and exclude trans women to a rate of 99.89% accuracy using AI-powered “sex recognition software.”
As of Aug. 7, more than 60 days since launching, the website couldn’t even break 100 users.
After reading L Community’s definition of biological sex – “biological sex is firmly linked to distinct reproductive anatomies dedicated to producing sperm or eggs for reproduction” – I realized that I – a transmasculine person– fit the bill for “adult human female.”
So, I checked the box verifying that I was “biologically female,” snapped a picture of my face – and signed up for the dating app. I didn’t shave beforehand, so my testosterone-induced stubble remained in the picture. Chest photos were not required so my flat chest raised no alarms.
Not that any of that would have mattered, Watson is clear that her app can’t be trans-exclusive because “there are many biological women who identify as males and we would certainly welcome those women.”
I paid and was refunded the $12.75 to verify my identity. And I was ushered into the community, which was notably silent. The only content was from Watson. Posts include telling members the proper dating app portion was on its way via an invite-only basis and asking if anyone wanted to join a Zoom meet up since “our recent event had only 6 attendees.” Another user posted sporadic lesbian-themed memes.
I used my legal name to register, as the platform requested. Conveniently, I haven’t changed my name to Henry yet. At the same time, I reached out to Watson multiple times for comment under the name I publish under and use.
(To counter any claims of misrepresentation, my chosen and legal names are irrevocably tied together on the internet due to my brief time publishing with both. A cursory search of either name identifies both as associated with me).
In response to an initial email request for an interview, she wrote “To ensure our message is accurately conveyed, I would prefer to answer your questions via email,” and provided the background “L’App is designed to create a safe and respectful space exclusively for lesbians, utilising facial recognition technology to ensure that only biological females can sign up.”
Watson noted, “This innovation addresses specific concerns raised by many in our community regarding their dating experiences.”
When I followed up with specific questions, as requested, such as the number of active users or their approach to people using the singular “they” pronoun or how they plan to approach intersex individuals, Watson failed to respond in a five-day comment period. I extended that to 7 days out of courtesy, and heard nothing.
Ten days after I reached out with my questions, Watson asked for another week to respond. I provided her with a work-week deadline and never heard back.
Watson’s stances on the non-binary, intersex, and trans community are of public record, however.
Watson had previously described a queer, non-binary musician – who happens to be in a relationship with a man – as “a straight woman LARPing.” She tweeted in dismissal of the inclusion of non-binary and intersex people in lesbian bars and lesbian history.
In the same interview Watson said trans men were welcome on the app because they are actually women, Watson repeated that no trans woman could be a woman, to the surprise of the conservative interviewers who questioned if Watson’s conviction held “if they have gone through it, and they’re completely a woman now.” It, of course, being transition.
By the logic presented in the interview, trans men who pass as men, who have testosterone levels equal to that of a cisgender man, and who have received top and bottom surgery are eligible for participation in the community, but trans women who pass as women, have received top and bottom surgery, and have testosterone levels of a cisgender woman cannot.
Not that passing is something that every trans person wants, can do, or should be a necessity to gain respect or protection from discrimination.
Additionally, Watson’s app may not be open to cisgender women as well.
Watson was quick to tweet against Imane Khelif, the cisgender boxer whose gender was questioned by a coalition of far-right actors ranging from J.K. Rowling to J.D. Vance. (The only “proof” that Khelif has XY chromosomes comes from a highly discredited Russian sports organization).
The L Community website states that: “In humans, biological sex is firmly linked to distinct reproductive anatomies dedicated to producing sperm or eggs for reproduction. At birth, human reproductive anatomy is unmistakably male or female in over 99.98% of cases.” Meaning, that there are only .002% of people who are intersex.
This statistic is categorically incorrect. The Cleveland Clinic estimates that 2% of people worldwide are intersex. Other medical and advocacy organizations consistently argue that the number likely is 1.7%, drawing from the research of sex and gender biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling.
Where did Watson get that number? It is likely from Leonard Sax, a medical doctor and psychologist, who has argued that 0.018% of people are intersex. Sax has also argued that gender is biologically hardwired between females and males on numerous occasions, including on conservative talk shows and for the far-right think tank the Institute for Family Studies.
Even if Sax’s and Watson’s proposed statistic was correct, Watson and L Community offer no guidelines about the inclusion of intersex people, regardless of their gender identity. Watson’s derision of Khelif suggests intersex people may not be welcome in the community.
This is not the only case where Watson’s assertions may be faulty. Watson initially claimed that her AI-powered software only messed up 0.10% of the time. She provided no proof to verify the claim.
Recent peer-reviewed research from CU Boulder studied gender recognition accuracy in multiple softwares and found that gender recognition software accurately categorized cisgender women 98.3% of the time, meaning that it miscategorized cisgender women 0.17% of the time, or a little less than double what Watson’s app does.
Importantly, CU Boulder was examining some of the most advanced and well-supported models out there, looking at Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Clarifai programs. For those who don’t know Clarifai, it’s an AI-specific company that employs over 100 people. The rest need no introduction.
Not only is Watson working with a much smaller team — LinkedIn estimates 2-10 employees – Watson’s software also must account for the diversity of gendered appearances within the lesbian community, ranging from butch to femme, in addition to differentiating “biologically female” trans men from men and “biologically male” transwomen from women, meaning their software must be highly advanced.
The Boulder research team found that transgender men were categorized as women approximately 38% of the time and men the remaining 62% of the time, meaning they are incredibly hard to accurately categorize in either direction.
Dr. Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, one of the authors of the CU Boulder study, said, “A lot of people have this view that tech is somehow abstracted from human bias or human values, but it’s not in any capacity.” While Scheuerman knew the topic of my interview, we only spoke about his research, not about the app specifically.
Biometric AI and computer vision – how computers can identify objects or people – consistently shows bias against transgender individuals
Watson’s team manually verifies sex from submitted selfies using a script on the website which uses publicly available datasets and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Per UCLA, APIs help dictate how software works and share information. There are several publicly available gender differentiation APIs.
Scheuerman explains that, “at a broad level, most computer vision works by defining the categories which you want the system to recognize. In gender, this is often male or female.”
As Scheuerman’s research explains, large data sets of images, qualitatively labeled by people for specific characteristics like gender, can be trained to predict those qualities in future images.
Since the foundation of computer vision is human training, Scheuerman says, “these generative AI models, or these large foundation models, ideally can do anything you want them to do.”
Fundamentally, Watson’s model wants to differentiate between ciswomen and transwomen. Since existing computer models successfully read transwomen as women most (87.3% per Scheuerman) of the time, Watson likely needed to train her model specifically for its task.
The specifics of Watson’s model remain under wraps. But ostensibly to get the level of accuracy, Watson’s model must have been trained on photos of both transgender women and cisgender women, in addition to transmen. This raises questions of consent.
Where did Watson get the photos? Stock photo websites often include collections of transgender people available for republication, but some explicitly exclude their collections to be used in Machine learning or AI data, while others encourage it. Research has found that AI models often use copyrighted work as data to train models, regardless of if they have explicit permission.
That is even if Watson used stock photos. “Scraping” data from publicly available sources like social media is very common for AI training and research and has previously been used to target trans people.
For example, an investigation by Vice found that the University of North Carolina Wilmington scraped more than 1 million images of trans people from YouTube without permission to create a dataset to learn more about terrorism. An interesting research question, seeing as a highly disproportionate number of terrorists are not transgender.
Although we don’t know how Watson went about sourcing the data used to train her model, the broader question remains: What would models think about their photos being used in this way?
Shae Gardner, director of policy at LGBT Tech, who has worked in the field of tech policy and research for eight years, says, “While there has been zero transparency in how this app’s facial recognition system was trained, if it involved the non-consensual scraping and inclusion of images of transgender women, that constitutes a severe breach of privacy, trust, and consent.”
Gardner emphasizes that “developing a technology with the explicit goal of identifying members of a marginalized group raises significant ethical concerns. Openly stating an intention to use that technology to exclude said group confirms them.”
Scheuerman says that “a lot of people have this view that tech is somehow abstracted from human bias or human values, but it’s not in any capacity.”
He hopes that “the field of computer science would be more open to understanding these types of concepts [like equity and diversity] because they’re our responsibility and a moral responsibility. Plus, it’s actually valuable within the market.”
The politics of consent and AI are just beginning to be negotiated and already have led to multiple lawsuits.
The first trans-exclusionary lesbian app Giggle for Girls, started in 2019 by Sall Grover, is currently facing a lawsuit from a transwoman, Roxanne Tickle. The app shut down in August 2022 with 20,000 members. Grover’s Twitter bio says the app is under renovation and will be re-launched soon.
Grover and Watson used to be collaborators of sorts, having joined each other’s podcasts to hype up the small world of female-only dating entrepreneurs.
That collaboration seems to have soured as both are claiming to be the first trans-exclusionary dating app. Giggle started first, but Watson claims it did not begin to discuss dating – just finding community – until after L Community launched. Grover claims otherwise.
However, a dedication to in-person events is unique to Watson’s mission. She plans to open a bar in London for women — her definition — only. It will be a member’s only club, so the exclusion of transwomen is legal.
Watson recently hosted a counter event to London Pride, protesting trans and asexual inclusion at the event. Estimates Watson promotes put her event at 150 people. To put that into perspective, their event was under .005% of the size of London Pride.
These numbers are not surprising. A 2023 YouGov survey found that 84% of cisgender lesbians think of transgender people “very positively” or “fairly positively.” Another 13% don’t care (“neither positively nor negatively” and “fairly”). Only 3% felt “very negatively” about trans people.
The Her App, a trans-inclusive lesbian dating app, that has critiqued Watson and L Community, has more than 15 million users. Grover’s app before it shut down was 0.0013% the size of that. Watson’s app is .000005% the size of that.
Perhaps no comparison is more jarring to show that Watson and her followers are a stunning minority within the lesbian community.
Federal Government
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Federal courts begin to deliver end-of-year responses to lawsuits involving federal transgender healthcare policy.
While many Americans took the week of Christmas to rest and relax, LGBTQ politics in the U.S. continued to shift. This week’s short recap of federal updates highlights two major blows to the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
19 states sue RFK Jr. to end gender-affirming care ban
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Tuesday that the NYAG’s office, along with 18 other states (and the District of Columbia), filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
In the press release, Attorney General James stressed that the push by the Trump-Vance administration’s crusade against the transgender community — specifically transgender youth — is a “clear overreach by the federal government” and relies on conservative and medically unvalidated practices to “punish providers who adhere to well-established, evidence-based care” that support gender-affirming care.
“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” said Attorney General James. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices. My office will always stand up for New Yorkers’ health, dignity, and right to make medical decisions free from intimidation.”
The lawsuit is a direct response to HHS’ Dec. 18 announcement that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming health care for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access. It would also restrict federal funding for any hospital that does not comply with the directive. KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, found that in 2023 federal funding covered nearly 45% of total spending on hospital care in the U.S.
The HHS directive stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 Executive Order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures like the one pushed by President Trump’s administration that restrict access to trans health care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
The lawsuit also names Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin as having joined New York in the push against restricting gender-affirming care.
At the HHS news conference last Thursday, Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the department, asserted, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men.”
DOJ stopped from gaining health care records of trans youth
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “personally identifiable information about those minor transgender patients” from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), saying the DOJ’s efforts “fly in the face of the Supreme Court.”
Journalist Chris Geidner originally reported the news on Dec. 25, highlighting that the Western District of Pennsylvania judge’s decision is a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s agenda to curtail transgender rights.
“[T]his Court joins the others in finding that the government’s demand for deeply private and personal patient information carries more than a whiff of ill intent,” Bissoon wrote in her ruling. “This is apparent from its rhetoric.”
Bissoon cited the DOJ’s “incendiary characterization” of trans youth care on the DOJ website as proof, which calls the practice politically motivated rather than medically sound and seeks to “…mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology.” This is despite the fact that a majority of gender-affirming care has nothing to do with surgery.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled along party lines that states — namely Tennessee — have the right to pass legislation that can prohibit certain medical treatments for transgender minors, saying the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it does not involve suspect categories like race, national origin, alienage, and religion, which would require the government to show the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored, sending decision-making power back to the states.
“The government cannot pick and choose the aspects of Skrmetti to honor, and which to ignore,” Judge Bissoon added.
The government argued unsuccessfully that the parents of the children whose records would have been made available to the DOJ “lacked standing” because the subpoena was directed at UPMC and that they did not respond in a timely manner. Bissoon rejected the timeliness argument in particular as “disingenuous.”
Bissoon, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Obama, is at least the fourth judge to reject the DOJ’s attempted intrusion into the health care of trans youth according to Geidner.
A Wider Bridge on Friday announced it will shut down at the end of the month.
The group that “mobilizes the LGBTQ community to fight antisemitism and support Israel and its LGBTQ community” in a letter to supporters said financial challenges prompted the decision.
“After 15 years of building bridges between LGBTQ communities in North America and Israel, A Wider Bridge has made the difficult decision to wind down operations as of Dec. 31, 2025,” it reads.
“This decision comes after challenging financial realities despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding. We deeply appreciate our supporters and partners who made this work possible.”
Arthur Slepian founded A Wider Bridge in 2010.
The organization in 2016 organized a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago that was to have featured to Israeli activists. More than 200 people who protested against A Wider Bridge forced the event’s cancellation.
A Wider Bridge in 2024 urged the Capital Pride Alliance and other Pride organizers to ensure Jewish people can safely participate in their events in response to an increase in antisemitic attacks after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported authorities in Vermont late last year charged Ethan Felson, who was A Wider Bridge’s then-executive director, with lewd and lascivious conduct after alleged sexual misconduct against a museum employee. Rabbi Denise Eger succeeded Felson as A Wider Bridge’s interim executive director.
A Wider Bridge in June honored U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at its Pride event that took place at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the museum.
“Though we are winding down, this is not a time to back down. We recognize the deep importance of our mission and work amid attacks on Jewish people and LGBTQ people – and LGBTQ Jews at the intersection,” said A Wider Bridge in its letter. “Our board members remain committed to showing up in their individual capacities to represent queer Jews across diverse spaces — and we know our partners and supporters will continue to do the same.”
Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers traveled to Israel and Palestine with A Wider Bridge in 2016.
The White House
‘Trump Rx’ plan includes sharp cuts to HIV drug prices
President made announcement on Friday
President Donald Trump met with leaders from some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Friday to announce his new “Trump Rx” plan and outline efforts to reduce medication costs for Americans.
During the roughly 47-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room, Trump detailed his administration’s efforts to cut prescription drug prices and make medications more affordable for U.S. patients.
“Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast, furious, and will soon be among the lowest in the developed world,” Trump said during the meeting. “For decades, Americans have been forced to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs by far … We will get the lowest price of anyone in the world.”
Trump signed an executive order in May directing his administration “to do everything in its power to slash prescription drug prices for Americans while getting other countries to pay more.”
“This represents the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care, by far, and every single American will benefit,” he added.
Several pharmaceutical executives stood behind the president during the announcement, including Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, Boehringer Ingelheim (USA) CEO Jean-Michel Boers, Gilead Sciences CEO Dan O’Day, Bristol Myers Squibb General Counsel Cari Gallman, GSK CEO Emma Walmsley, Merck CEO Robert Davis, and Amgen Executive Vice President Peter Griffith.
Also in attendance were Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.
Under the Trump Rx plan, the administration outlined a series of proposed drug price changes across multiple companies and therapeutic areas. Among them were reductions for Amgen’s cholesterol-lowering drug repatha from $573 to $239; Bristol Myers Squibb’s HIV medication reyataz from $1,449 to $217; Boehringer Ingelheim’s type 2 diabetes medication jentadueto from $525 to $55; Genentech’s flu medication xofluza from $168 to $50; and Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis C medication epclusa from $24,920 to $2,425.
Additional reductions included several GSK inhalers — such as the asthma inhaler advair diskus 500/50, from $265 to $89 — Merck’s diabetes medication januvia from $330 to $100, Novartis’ multiple sclerosis medication mayzent from $9,987 to $1,137, and Sanofi’s blood thinner plavix from $756 to $16. Sanofi insulin products would also be capped at $35 per month’s supply.
These prices, however, would only be available to patients who purchase medications directly through TrumpRx. According to the program’s website, TrumpRx “connects patients directly with the best prices, increasing transparency, and cutting out costly third-party markups.”
Kennedy spoke after Trump, thanking the president for efforts to lower pharmaceutical costs in the U.S., where evidence has shown that drug prices — including both brand-name and generic medications — are nearly 2.78 times higher than prices in comparable countries. According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, roughly half of every dollar spent on brand-name drugs goes to entities that play no role in their research, development, or manufacturing.
“This is affordability in action,” Kennedy said. “We are reversing that trend and making sure that Americans can afford to get the life-saving solutions.”
Gilead CEO Dan O’Day also spoke about how the restructuring of drug costs under TrumpRx, combined with emerging technologies, could help reduce HIV transmission — a virus that, if untreated, can progress to AIDS. The LGBTQ community remains disproportionately affected by HIV.
“Thank you, Mr. President — you and the administration,” O’Day said. “I think this objective of achieving the commitment to affordability and future innovation is extraordinary … We just recently launched a new medicine that’s only given twice a year to prevent HIV, and we’re working with Secretary Kennedy and his entire team, as well as the State Department, as a part of your strategy to support ending the epidemic during your term.
“I’ve never been more optimistic about the innovation that exists across these companies and the impact this could have on America’s health and economy,” he added.
Trump interjected, asking, “And that’s working well with HIV?”
“Yes,” O’Day replied.
“It’s a big event,” Trump said.
“It literally prevents HIV almost 100 percent given twice a year,” O’Day responded.
A similar anti-HIV medication is currently prescribed more than injectable form mentioned by O’Day. PrEP, is a medication regimen proven to significantly reduce HIV infection rates for people at high risk. Without insurance, brand-name Truvada can cost roughly $2,000 per month, while a generic version costs about $60 per month.
Even when medication prices are reduced, PrEP access carries additional costs, including clinic and laboratory fees, office visits, required HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing, adherence services and counseling, and outreach to potentially eligible patients and providers.
According to a 2022 study, the annual total cost per person for PrEP — including medication and required clinical and laboratory monitoring — is approximately $12,000 to $13,000 per year.
The TrumpRx federal platform website is now live at TrumpRx.gov, but the program is not slated to begin offering reduced drug prices until January.
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