National
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.
National
White House orders warning signs at Smithsonian over gender identity exhibits
Administration criticizes National Museum of American History
The Trump administration will install temporary warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History after releasing a report accusing the museum of promoting what it calls “radical” gender ideology and other politically biased content.
According to the Executive Order, “For purposes of policy formulation under EO 14253, this review of the National Museum of American History concludes that NMAH, by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”
Executive Order 14253 refers to what the White House has deemed the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order. Therefore, the Trump administration has said it will take all available steps to ensure that the issues in the report are addressed and rectified.
Without specifying, the White House has stated that warnings will be posted along NMAH to alert visitors to sections of the museum it has deemed are in violation according to the report.
“The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the National Park Service (NPS) and in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall install temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum, informing visitors of the findings of the Report and of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order,” the Executive Order states.
The warnings were raised in a 162-page report issued by the Domestic Policy Council. The report detailed ways in which the National Museum of American History (NMAH) has “poorly” portrayed American history and insufficiently highlighted the founding story during America 250th celebrations.
The report outlined key findings of the NMAH. One of these findings was the Center for Restorative History within the museum, which has stated its purpose is to “encourage systemic change” by highlighting diverse groups. However, the report states that it highlights every group of Americans except for straight and white Americans.
The Domestic Policy Council accused the museum of engaging in “transgender activism.” According to the report, examples include referring to “biological men” as women or girls, displaying what it describes as sexually suggestive content, and incorporating discussions of gender fluidity, gender identity, and gender nonconformity into the museum’s educational curriculum, “Becoming US.”
The report also criticizes the curriculum for using the term “transgender” when discussing gender-nonconforming people and encouraging individuals to ask a person’s pronouns when meeting them. It further objects to exhibits stating that “transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes” continue to struggle for and demand equality.
It also condemns what it refers to as explicit content in an exhibition, “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)”, such as chest binders, questioning gender testing in women’s sports, and referring to biological females as “people inhabiting female bodies.”
Additionally, the report accuses the museum of no longer participating in flag-celebrating ceremonies because it was “too busy” preparing for June Pride and WorldPride events. It states, “As Director Hartig explained in a June 2024 presentation, all her attention was focused on flying the Smithsonian Pride Alliance’s ‘intersexual pride flag during June’ in 2023 and 2024.”
On July 9, the American Historical Association issued a statement rejecting the report’s findings.
In regard to the report, it states, “Its anonymous authors overlook a central lesson of the nation’s founding: the United States was forged by finding common purpose amid intense divisions, conflicts, and disagreements.” They argue that only “honest history” can tell the true history of the nation.
House Republicans led a subcommittee hearing that questioned Smithsonian Director Hartig extensively. A main focus of the questions was on the exhibits related to gender identity and whether they were appropriate. In the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace asked: “When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?”
In response to questioning, Hartig stated that the institution is nonpartisan and does not push a specific agenda.
Hartig published a two-page statement ahead of her hearing outlining her thoughts on the situation. In the report, she states that the institution is always open to criticism and will continue to look for ways to improve, but she sees the report as misleading.
“I can attest that the report does not fairly characterize the full body of work at this museum. I am familiar with the depth and breadth of our collections, exhibits, and programming. And while I recognize there is always room for improvement, I also know the beauty, inspiration, and expertise that exists in our museum,” Hartig wrote.
Democrats created their own 16-page report as a rebuttal to the Domestic Policy Council’s report. It argued that the attacks by the current Trump administration are another example of its attempt to rewrite history. Additionally, the report states that no policy changes were included in the Executive Order, as that is beyond the President’s role. “The Report recommends nothing. That is no accident. To recommend an action, the Report would need to identify who is legally empowered to take it, and its own opening chapter concedes the President’s only power is to ‘urge’,” House Democrats wrote.
It is still unclear when the temporary warnings will be installed or what form they will take beyond the requirements outlined in the executive order.
An exhibit at the Smithsonian. (Washington Blade photo by Landon Shackelford)
National
Trump ends direct HIV prevention funding to community groups
Advocates say transfer of funds to states may disrupt local programs
A decision by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the request of the Trump administration to discontinue direct federal funding of community-based organizations and clinics that provide HIV prevention services has raised concern among community health advocates, including LGBTQ advocates.
News surfaced earlier this month that the OMB informed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it would not renew $46 million in funding for 96 community-based organizations that provide HIV testing, referrals to medical care, and arrangements for obtaining pre-exposure HIV prevention medication known as PrEP that has been shown to be 99 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.
Under the new policy arranged by OMB, the funds will be redirected to the states to be allocated to state and local health departments. The policy calls for states to encourage but not require their respective state and local health departments to allocate some of those funds for community-based organizations. Under the new policy, the funding is scheduled to last until May of 2027, before a renewal decision is made.
Some political observers have speculated that the decision to end direct federal funding to community-based organizations could be motivated by the Trump administration’s hostility to diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs and organizations that promote those programs, with the belief that some of the groups receiving the federal HIV prevention funds are promoting DEI.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, is among the leaders of many AIDS advocacy organizations expressing strong opposition to the OMB action. Schmid said that in places like D.C. and some states, local officials will be willing to redirect the federal funds to local community-based organizations.
A list of the 96 community-based organizations across the country that are currently receiving the federal AIDS funds includes the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, which has a long history of healthcare support for the LGBTQ community, and La Clinica del Pueblo, which reaches out to the Latino community.
Schmid said Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo have longstanding good relationships with the local D.C. government.
“But other states and jurisdictions don’t have that relationship with the community-based organizations,” Schmid said. “It depends on the state,” he said, adding, “Not all states send their money to the communities that really need it most. And not all states are fast in getting money to the community-based organizations.”
Spokespersons for Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on whether they think the Trump administration’s latest action related to funding will adversely impact their respective organizations.
Schmid said under the current federal grant program slated to be discontinued, which has been in effect for at least five years, HIV-related health organizations receiving the federal grant funds were eligible for an existing federal policy enabling them to purchase HIV-related medication, including the PrEP prevention medication, at a significant discount from pharmaceutical companies. With the ending of the direct federal HIV funds to community-based organizations, Schmid said it was unclear whether problems may surface in obtaining drug discounts.
“They could still qualify as a sub-grantee from a state,” Schmid said. “But what if they don’t get that grant again? They would not be able to qualify to obtain the drugs” at the discounted price, he said.
Among the organizations expressing strong concern over the decision to discontinue the direct HIV prevention funding to community-based organizations has been the Federal AIDS Policy Institute and its subgroup called the HIV Prevention Action Coalition.
In a July 22 letter bearing the names of 71 community-based organizations from throughout the country sent to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya, the group called for the Trump administration to “reconsider” ending the current funding policy.
“Ending this program without a clear plan for what comes next would dismantle prevention infrastructure that has taken more than three decades of federal investment to build and do so just as that long record of measurable returns is accelerating,” the letter states.
It says the initiative by President Trump in his first term as president to end the HIV epidemic and reduce new HIV infections by 90 percent by 2030 was moving ahead by the funding program for community-based organizations that the administration now wants to end.
“Discontinuing this program would also cost far more than it saves,” the letter says. “Every HIV transmission prevented avoids an estimated lifetime treatment cost of roughly half a million dollars per person to the healthcare system – costs that fall heavily on taxpayer-funded programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program,” the letter continues.
“The choice before the administration is straightforward: a modest, targeted investment in prevention now, or far greater public expense for treatment later,” the letter concludes.
Spokespersons for the OMB and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, have not immediately responded to news media requests for comment on the opposition to the funding change policy.
National
At Alliance Defending Freedom’s summit, church and state are one
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) among speakers
Uncloseted Media published this article on July 23.
By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | Earlier this month, hundreds of people filled a conference room in San Diego. These included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brian Christine, OpenAI executive Dean Ball, and the attorneys general of West Virginia and Idaho.
They all came together for Alliance Defending Freedom’s 2026 Summit. The Christian legal group, also a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, described the event as a “gathering of leaders from many different spheres, including law, public policy, media, business, education, and Christian leadership.”
Johnson — who has said that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and … society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle” — was a featured speaker.
In his speech, he seemed unconcerned with the separation of church and state: “It is so encouraging to Kelly and I to be among friends and fellow warriors for this cause and people who understand that God is not done with America yet. … ADF’s on the very tip of the spear, front line, defending those very truths and keeping the door open for the spread of the Gospel. This is our moment. I’m telling you, I believe the next season … is going to be the greatest season of this ministry since its inception.”
That ministry is one that has espoused aggressively anti-LGBTQ views since its inception in the early 1990s. It was co-founded by a group of evangelical men, including Alan Sears, who co-authored a book called “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” Since then, ADF has opposed gay marriage and supported bans on gay sex and on gender-affirming care for minors.
After helping overturn Roe v. Wade, ADF lawyers have led key victories at the Supreme Court. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, SCOTUS ruled that a website designer could refuse service to gay weddings. And this year they convinced the Court to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy and to uphold state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that ban trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.
At the summit, ADF President Kristen Waggoner, who has promoted conversion therapists and consistently misgenders trans people, interviewed these states’ attorneys general.
“The lawyers who were defending women’s sports were among the best I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Waggoner.
Similar to Johnson, Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Health Christine showed his commitment to governing based on conservative Christianity. He gave a Bible-thumping speech against gender transition and trans healthcare, saying that it “contradicts … the deeper moral order that is woven into creation itself. For Genesis 1:27 informs us that God created man in his own image. … Male and female” He also said the “complementary relationship between man and woman is divine” and advocated for youth with gender dysphoria to receive care from a pastor.
All of these remarks from politicians made me think of the interview I published earlier this week with Pete Hegseth’s pastor, Doug Wilson. He wants a Christian theocracy in America and told me that: both the perpetrator and the victim should be disciplined in some cases of marital rape; that transgender people are “sad;” that execution is justifiable for certain homosexual acts; and that gay sex should be illegal.
The ADF Summit is glossy and polished. And while its messaging may be less explicit than Pastor Wilson’s, the track record of the organizations shows they have the exact same desires. They’re just deeply strategic in what they say and when and how they say it.
I believe the political power players who attended this year’s summit know this. They know they are endorsing an organization whose members have essentially called for the illegalization of most — if not all ‚ forms of queer behavior and presentation.
In the last few years, these perspectives have become increasingly embedded in the highest rooms of the federal government and they have been effective in stripping away LGBTQ rights. Wilson, who just installed a full-time pastor in Washington to lead services, says there are 10 to 20 government officials who align with his church’s ideology.
It is vital for Americans to keep their eyes wide open to the ultimate goal of groups like ADF: to create a United States that leaves LGBTQ people without rights and that pushes us back in the closet.
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