--- title: The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App description: How do lesbians meet each other? See how the popular app HER came to rise in the LGBT community. canonical: https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/ author: Megan Lasher article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-08T13:00:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:37.225Z og:title: The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App og:description: How HER creates a unique space for queer women og:url: https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71f57343356645da/6988b8bc97cdffbefd6af5f5/her-lgbt-dating-app.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5288 og:image:height: 2975 og:image:alt: Valentine's Day Copy Space og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App twitter:description: How HER creates a unique space for queer women twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71f57343356645da/6988b8bc97cdffbefd6af5f5/her-lgbt-dating-app.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Feb 8, 2017 1:00 PM UTC  Valentine's Day copy space on smart phone with blank screen and red paper hearts on old grunge wood texture. Valentine's Day copy space on smart phone with blank screen and red paper hearts on old grunge wood texture.stevanovicigor—Getty Images/iStockphoto by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Feb 8, 2017 1:00 PM UTC When online [dating](http://motto.time.com/4259246/being-own-matchmaker/?iid=sr-link3) apps like Tinder and Grindr gained popularity, one group was left out of the right-swiping revolution: [Queer women](http://motto.time.com/4314692/mothers-day-two-moms/?iid=sr-link3). LGBTQ-identifying girls had the option in most dating services to check the “[woman looking for women](http://motto.time.com/4307017/judith-light-lgbt-courage/?iid=sr-link5)” box, but the experience of traditional dating platforms didn’t always translate. Then [HER](https://weareher.com/about) came along. Known as one of the most popular lesbian dating apps on the market, with over 2 million users in 55 countries, according to the company, HER offers a unique way for queer women to meet each other online. Unlike other sites, the platform offers a multitude of sexual and gender identities, all of which are displayed on a user’s profile. It also allows users to report profiles that are made by straight men or straight couples looking for a threesome, two common occurrences on apps not specific to queer people. HER is revolutionary because it was designed specifically for queer women by a queer woman, Robyn Exton, who sat down with _Motto_ to talk about the popular app. **_Motto_** **: Why did you see a need for a lesbian dating app?** Exton: Four years ago, the online dating industry was very different. At the time, I was looking at all these companies and thinking about what was happening in the straight world for dating. My friend was using Grindr all the time, other people were using apps like Tinder, and I thought, “This is ridiculous. Why does everyone else have these really cool things to use and there’s nothing for me and for my friends?” The stuff that was \[available to lesbians\] was built for gay guys, and its marketing toward women felt fake. No one understood what LGBT life was like for women. The diverse, exciting queer community I was seeing at bars and events wasn’t available online. So I decided to do something about it. **How exactly did your project differ from other popular apps at the time?** When we launched our first app, [Dattch](http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/dattch-first-dating-app-lesbians), the key focus was to stop cis men from coming into queer spaces and ruining the experiences. On other platforms, I used to get messages all the time like, “You haven’t met the right guy yet, let’s have a threesome.” What we found in our research of traditional dating products was that most of them were built by men. So the experiences can skew into patterns that work better for men. **How did Dattch turn into HER?** The way people see sexuality has changed a lot in the past four years — the idea of having a few defined sexualities doesn’t exist any more. Everyone’s sexualities were changing and evolving. We realized that we couldn’t be so specific with sexuality and even more so gender identity. Understanding all of this, we released HER at the end of February 2015\. The key focus now was making it as easy as possible for women to meet each other, focused on starting conversations and creating a community. **HER offers a lot of different options for gender and sexual identity — what went into creating such an inclusive list?** Those lists are always changing. If there’s a new one that comes in, we will add it to the list. We want you to be able to express who you are. HER is the community it is because the people who come to it all have a sense of identity that is outside of the mainstream. **How has the app changed in the past few months, especially as the political climate has transformed?** The week of the inauguration we actually saw the largest amount of new profiles being created.There’s been so much dialogue about politics in the community, even between our team. When your community seems to be on the brink of direct threat, there’s a big push to re-engage with others who are like you. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/"},"headline":"The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App","datePublished":"2017-02-08T13:00:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:37.225Z","description":"How HER creates a unique space for queer women","url":"https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71f57343356645da/6988b8bc97cdffbefd6af5f5/her-lgbt-dating-app.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan Lasher","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt71f57343356645da/6988b8bc97cdffbefd6af5f5/her-lgbt-dating-app.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Valentine's Day Copy Space","caption":"Valentine's Day Copy Space","creditText":"stevanovicigor—Getty Images/iStockphoto","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4655865/her-lesbian-dating-app/","name":"The Story Behind the Most Popular Lesbian Dating App"}}]}] ```