I reached a mildly confusing page that allowed me to pick a second gender identity (non-binary) and asked whether I wanted to be included in searches for men or women (I chose women). While creating a new account, the app asked me to choose a gender (male or female were the only options and I chose female) and a sexual orientation (you could pick three I went with lesbian, queer, and gay). This was the only way to be absolutely sure I’d checked off all the settings properly, to rule out any mistakes on my end.
In July, I deleted my Tinder account and signed back up on the platform for an entirely fresh start. Being a generally curious journalist, I set out to solve the mystery.
