Why Tribes Are of the Same Gender
We3 was designed to make the friendship-making process as safe, comfortable, and creep-proof as possible. Especially during our early stages, we are committed to creating spaces that allow our pioneering users to make connections, make plans, and make memories, without having someone make moves.
To prevent We3 from sliding into a dating or mating project, we match you into a Tribe of three, we keep your profile photos private, and we currently divide our Tribes by gender. This last choice is mainly for our women users, who have reported being accosted online and are tired of unwanted and unsolicited attention.
Since our launch exactly two months ago, we have received a lot of thoughtful messages from users that were disappointed with the binary nature of Tribes on We3.
We are really sorry if this move doesn’t represent all our members in terms of identity and sexuality, and we are also very aware that most people have only good intentions. We made this decision based on feedback from our pilot users last year and from our female friends in general. Although it is a minority of users who will be prone to misuse We3, given that they can negatively impact on the two other people in the Tribe, we can’t take that risk just yet.
Nevertheless, we definitely welcome any suggestions to help us make the We3 environment accessible, secure, and positive for all our members. Thanks to some of your feedback, we are already thinking of how we can make an eventual transition to a more mixed-gender-inclusive environment, without compromising the experience of others.
I appreciate what you all are doing, by providing women a safer environment to connect with potential friends. But as a non binary person, it is very disheartening to have to misgender myself to even match with people. Perhaps you could add more gender options, such as non binary AFAB (assigned female at birth) or non binary AMAB (assigned male at birth). It may sound silly, but I would greatly appreciate not forcing myself into a box that doesn’t resonate. Thank you for your time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Madison! I think your suggestion is great. We’re going to work on this in the near future. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.
Hey,
I have both male and female friends and often find it easier to get along with the guys (more in common, more laid back, often less gossip & drama) so I would‘ve liked it if I could meet guys too. At first I was a bit dissapointed, but I unterstand your reasoning. It‘s awesome that you‘re trying to provide a safe space & you‘re right with the assumption that some people could use the App as a dating App otherwise (it happened to other Apps before). Thanks for explaining why you‘re doing it this way.
Let‘s find some cool girls to hang out with^^
Have a nice day!