Paris Olympics: Why Grindr turned off location services in the Village

The Paris Olympics have already made heads turn and stomachs roil (depending on your political inclination and knowledge of history) with the opening ceremony. Drag queens, a new rendition of the Last Supper and some righteous right-wing Christian anger later, this mega event now sees Grindr — the social networking and dating app for the LGBTQ+ community — going location-blind.

The reason is a gender-affirming and sex-positive one.

On 24 July, in a blog post, the company confirmed that the move is by design — not a bug, nor poor planning.

During the 2022 Winter Olympics as well, Grindr opted to disable location-based features within the Olympic Village and other sites to protect queer athletes from unwanted attention and from being outed against their will.

“If an athlete is not out or comes from a country where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal, using Grindr can put them at risk of being outed by curious individuals who may try to identify and expose them on the app,” the post said.

Grindr has been paying special attention to app usage at the Olympics ever since 2016, when Daily Beast writer Nico Hines — a straight, married man and a father — published a story about the “hookup culture” at the Rio de Janeiro Games’ Olympics Village.

Although Hines did not name anyone, his original story included detailed descriptions of the athletes he had been matched with on app — which, as many pointed out, could place closeted athletes in a dangerous position if they were outed, vis-à-vis the laws of their home countries.

Many in the community called his article homophobic, exploitative and dangerous. It was eventually taken down.

This year, Grindr can still be used by people in the Village, although some features — geolocation, taking screenshots of profile images and recording private videos — are disabled.

Meanwhile, Grindr will allow users there to send unlimited disappearing messages or unsend messages for free for the duration of the Olympics.

Out of the 10,500 athletes taking part in this year’s games, 175 officially identify as LGBTQ+.

As of 2023, there are 64 countries that outlaw and criminalise homosexuality, for instance. Trans rights are another kettle of hot water altogether. Even in relatively progressive France itself, the far right led by Marine Le Pen has been gaining momentum — she opposes same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples.