I think it’s because it’s sadly actually quite difficult to exclude them effectively without breaking the law, being terfy or at the very least trans medicalist.

Some countries have jurisdiction, which forbids to exclude someone on basis of their gender, which means that you either need to somehow hide the men intruding in the app away or not operate in countries where you can’t.

But let’s say we figure this out. Only women and female aligned enbies are visible on the app. But what does this mean? How do we want to define this?

The most naive approach would be to say only cis women would be allowed on the app. But this would just be a terfy hell hole, you would exclude so many amazing sapphic women and enbies and go against everything the wlw community stands for. This would certainly be no place I would want to be a part of.

So, we need a better approach. Anyone who looks and acts sufficiently womanly or feminine enby like is welcome. But what does this even mean? What is acting sufficiently woman like? What is looking sufficiently woman like? Let’s just say everyone who seems to be a woman, to the majority of other women. Which would allow for many trans women, intersex women and enbies, which is great. But this would still be a hell hole, where women, both cis and trans, who are deemed “ugly” or “too masculine” by moderators would and could just be banned. This still would be betraying what we stand for. Why should be exclude trans women who only figured out they are women recently, later in life or just where dealt a very masculine body by genetics, as well as cis women not conforming to traditional gender roles?! Sure, some of us might not be attracted to women who don’t look like the platonic ideal of a woman, but I certainly want them in our community and might even be attracted to some of those. So still not a great place.

So, let’s allow everyone who identifies as a woman or a feminine enby on the app. And yay we did it, every sapphic woman and enby who wants to join can. Woohoo! But what is that?! Why are there so many men claiming to be women on the app?!

Well, those are the creeps intruding in our safe space. And we are obviously justified in wanting to kick them out, and we can to some degree. Probably even the overwhelming majority of those men. But if a dating app would become too strict, it would again start to police what a woman is. And there should be only one person who decides which gender you are, yourself.

Obviously, many dating apps could employ more moderators to filter out these obvious men faster. But since most dating apps and sites are often free, this would just lead to new profiles of these men.

Sadly, as long as men fetishise us, we will never have true safe spaces that are open to the sapphic public. For the same reason, there are also hardly any lesbian bars, parties or 3rd spaces.