We sat down with the founders of My Transgender Date, Cyril Mazur and Maki Gingoyon, as they tell us their journey of building the leading trans dating site worldwide.
How did My Transgender Date start out?
Cyril: Maki and I met in 2011. She is trans, I’m transoriented, so we both knew the challenges of dating for people like us. Online dating for trans women was all about sexualisation and objectifying them. Being an experienced web developer, I decided to build the first decent dating site for trans women. Then My Transgender Date was born.
Why hire mostly trans women?
Maki: No-one could better understand the issues of trans women than trans women themselves. Having a team of trans women is an edge because it makes our dating site more effective than others. We have the same experiences with other transgender women when it comes to online dating which helps us to identify problems and find solutions.
What are the biggest challenges of a dating website?
Cyril: Many people distrust dating sites, so we had to build My Transgender Date with the highest quality service, transparency and consistency to gain our members’ trust. It took time, but we are now the most trusted dating site for trans women.
Maki: We have to be alert in weeding out unwanted profiles to ensure the safety of our members. Thankfully with our advanced system and moderators who work 24/7, we manage to keep the site clean, and deliver a quality dating experience.
Why change from My Transsexual Date to My Transgender Date?
Cyril: ‘Transsexual’ is perfectly valid, but an increasing majority of trans women now prefer to employ ‘transgender’ instead. So we simply follow what our members want.
Maki: I have been advocating for the term transgender ever since we started the site. As a trans advocate I observed that there are more trans women who are comfortable using the word transgender, even when it wasn’t popular back then. I personally believe that transgender woman is a term that’s more globally used by trans women.
What’s next?
Cyril: We will release our mobile app, which will have the same user base as the site and be the de facto #1 trans dating app. Second, we will expand to more countries, especially to the least LGBTQ+ friendly countries, because these are the trans women who need a safe and decent dating platform the most.
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