“A breeding ground that perpetuates racism against gay Asian Men”
A man is planning to sue the gay dating app, Grindr, for racial discrimination and is looking for co-plaintiffs across the US’s fifty states so that he can bring a class action.
In a statement released on social media, Sinakhone Keodara, the CEO and founder of the Asian Entertainment Television company says that Grindr allows “white gay men to write in their profiles ‘no Asians’, ‘not interested in Asians’: or ‘I don’t find Asians attractive’,” which he says, leads to people feeling “offended, humiliated, degraded and dehumanised” by the app.
Keodara says that anyone who is considering joining him must be a paying customer.
In 2018, Grindr became fully owned by the Chinese gaming firm, Kunlun Tech Co.
The dating app OKCupid recently analysed sexual racism among 1m of its male site users. The company found that compared to black, Asian or minority ethnic users, white users got more messages. White users were also found to be less likely to reply or match with users of a different race to themselves, and more likely to question interracial marriage.
Recent research from Australia also found that 15% of gay men on the dating app Grindr included sexual racism on their profiles. This was more likely to be the case if the profile user was white, and if the user held broader racist views.
