Looking For 🍑🍆💦: A Beginner’s Guide to Grindr for Trans Men

Approaching Grindr (and cruising culture) as a trans man.

Grindr’s own header image, via the AppStore.

As a trans man I’ve been using Grindr for years, and especially in the past year I’ve been way more sexually active — I’m two years on testosterone now, and I pass pretty consistently as a cisgender man, but I’m out as trans on Grindr. With that said, I was using Grindr pre-T and I still got a lot of engagement from other men, so I want to make it clear that there’s no like, required surgery or amountof HRT to make you “allowed” to use Grindr.

There are absolutely transphobes on the platform, and there are people who don’t like trans men or other trans people, who aren’t interested in us, but neither their feelings nor their whining about it are Grindr’s own policies, let alone the feeling of every person in the community.

You might have seen my Twitter thread last month delving into this topic, and this piece is gonna be covering much of the same ground while delving into a bit more detail!

Hoping this guide will be useful and a good place to start if you keep downloading the app and not getting any further!

So here’s some sections out:

• First Things First — a disclaimer about me and the difference between Grindr and other apps or spaces you might have been in
• Building Your Profile — split into subsections covering your profile pics, your nickname, your profile body, your tags and tribes, and your profile survey.
• Glossary — covering a bunch of common terms on Grindr, and also the tags.
• FAQ — some general questions about using Grindr, especially how to deal with chasers, how to find other trans people, some safety considerations, etc.

First Things First

I just want to start with a few disclaimers — first, a few things about me, and then something about Grindr as a whole.

About me: I’m a binary transgender man and I’ve been on testosterone for 2 years, and I pass pretty consistently — I’m also white and very thin, and while Grindr in many ways can be a great space to meet with other men and queer people, it can be super racist, super…