We received a press release from Adult Matchmaker recently regarding their expansion of permissible genders in their system from the traditional Male/Female binary to a far more inclusive list of 31, including Genderqueer, Agender, Transgender, Pangender and Gender non-conforming.
They say:
While there have been significant leaps forward in trans rights and acceptance in recent years, we appreciate that there is still much work to be done. As more and more trans people share their stories, the public’s understanding of gender diversity and expression increases and we aim to lend our voice to this agenda.
It’s also nice to see they’ve included Intersex there too which is a group of people who are often included in name only when we talk about the LGBTI alphabet soup.
And including the Genderbread person in their advertising is nice (even though it’s impossible to determine what means what).
Andrew Peters, the CEO of Adult Matchmaker says:
Adult Match Maker appreciates that gender expression is a very personal & complicated journey. We believe it’s only fair that our members can express their gender identity in terms that they feel comfortable using.
From a business standpoint, opening up your system to include more people is a no-brainer (and something sites like Facebook still haven’t really gotten their heads around). If they’ve designed their databases carefully, it shouldn’t take much to add additional suggestions either, because there are simply so many ways people can define themselves.
The site has an expanded sexuality list too which includes Queer, Asexual, Pansexual and Aromantic (I always read it as those turned on by aroma, or smell, but that’s not right is it?).
As with everything, it’s impossible to please everyone — how do you define the sexuality of a genderqueer person for example? — so we hope Adult Matchmaker will be open to modifications to this master list over time.
But if you have some cash to part with and are in the market for a partner, it looks like Adult Matchmaker can probably help you out!
Read more on the Adult Matchmaker blog
