Formatting, visibility, and exclusion of trans* people on Tinder

Abstract

To create a profile on the Tinder dating app, one must input their name, age, and indicate their gender self-identification and sexual orientation. These data (mandatory resources for building the user's algorithmic identity) can be anonymized in the profile information. While dating apps predominantly aimed at heterosexual encounters have begun to adapt, offering new ways of gender identification in these forms, trans* individuals continue to be potential targets of a combination of misogyny and transphobia, victims of the unfair or decontextualized application of rules, terms of service and codes of conduct. Forms are instruments of information formatting, producing what Koopman (2019) calls "infopower" and creating an "informational person." This article investigates the entry form of Tinder, analyzing the infopower established by formatting this person. It is concluded that by requiring identification, forms produce their own visibility regime that results in the exclusion of transgender people. It is this obligation, this infopower, that produces the formatting of the visible informational person (as "trans*", in the case analyzed). This creates disturbance, expanding forms of denunciation, potentially leading to banning, also administered by another form. The problem is no longer one of invisibility, but of visibility formatted in infopower.