Transgender Dating App Sees Tremendous Growth

Last year Plusreported on one of the few dating apps specifically for cis-gendered men seeking trans women — since then the site has seen as a boon in the growth of its membership base.

The competitive edge that TAT had was that unlike other traditional dating sites, TAT wasn’t trying to adjust its approach or target to make trans women feel welcome.  The entire community revolves around valuing and celebrating transgender women. “TAT actively works to connect its massive user base with straight and bisexual men and women who love trans women."

Founder Brett Richmond says, ‘TAT was initially created in order to fulfill a need for a true on-line date site for the transgender women and their admirers.  In addition, we saw a need to match transgender people with admirers from outside of the gay community (i.e. there are tens of thousands of people who define themselves as straight and they are very interested in meeting and dating transgender women.)’”

While the app had a robust membership during the past several years,  nothing prepared Richmond for the explosion that he saw a few months ago. Richmond sees huge trans victories over the past few years “TAT has grown exponentially in the past 18 months and we believe that this is due to a variety of factors including greater trans visibility, trans politicians winning elected office and word about TAT itself spreading throughout the United States.”

TAT is also very inclusive and, six years after the website first went live, has now expanded and rebranded itself as "TAT - an alternative date site for the open minded." The text on TAT's homepage has changed to reflect this inclusion: "In order to accommodate our members, TAT has expanded its audience to include open minded straight men, cis-women, bisexual men, transgender women, cross dressers, panty boys, sissies, feminine gay men, twinks, dominant/submissive/BDSM and gender fluid individuals."

Richmond says that the broadening of its target audience was a direct response to customer queries. "TAT is not the same as most mainstream date sites in that it is not pretending to be politically correct. TAT markets itself as something edgier; a place where you will be able to find other people who you would never be able to meet on a traditional mainstream date site.  Specifically, an edgier date site that is open to all alternative lifestyles including gender fluidity, fetishes and kinks."

At the same time, TAT will always be remembered for getting its start by focusing on the transgender community.  Without the trans community, TAT would not even exist.

You can check out the site here.