Lex: Queer & LGBTQ+ Friends Ratings and Reviews

Amazing but needs updates

I love this app. I love that people post everything from iso sex to I’m bored let’s chat gaming. I love that it’s queer focused and the age range and visibility range are massive. (I also love the teal coloring it pops beautifully.)

The vision of this app is gold. It does need some serious updating though. For one thing, the notification badges don’t show up for me (they are enabled in my phone settings). The messaging is glitchy all-around with the view not updating properly after a messages is sent. I’ve also had issues with the app crashing.

The layout could also be more user friendly: switch the tab placement for people’s profiles and your message thread with them. This way swiping left will send you back to your inbox, which is more useful than goin into their profile every time.

On queerbaiting

What I was looking for: a deeply intense friendship in which writers would get accused of queerbaiting if this were a TV show. In which we’d share a future, even if we never shared a bed. In which we’d write love letters like poets write about the moon, to admire, never to possess.

What Lex has given me: a deeply intense romance in which writers would get accused of promoting the gay agenda and seducing children away from traditional family values if this were a TV show. In which we share a future that includes snow days, laundry days, grocery shopping, vacations, inside jokes, food adventures, book discussions, all the profundities and mundanities that comprise the rich and colorful tapestry of lives well-lived, and lots and lots and lots of sex, joyous sex, tender sex, violent sex, make-up sex, wake-up sex, just-met-at-the-airport-an-hour-ago sex, pours-into-your-orifices-like-liquid-gold-and-splatters-your-internal-organs-in-molten-star-stuff sex, leaves-you-bruised-and-trembling-and-sore-for-days sex, ruins-you-for-future-lovers sex. In which we exchange love letters and think pieces, philosophical musings and future plans, and whisper longingly across 3000 miles utterly filthy thoughts of the ways we’d like to lay claim to one other, until we can let our bodies do the talking.

I asked for a chord, and received a symphony. Fair warning to all future users: be careful of what you don’t dare wish for. You might just get it.

Developer Response ,

This is absolutely incredible 🌈✨ infinite thank you's for sharing this with us.

Please read!!!

I never leave reviews on apps. Mostly cause I don’t care enough to tell people what I think. But this app-wow. Just wow. I’m sure by the time you’ve found this app you’ve already tried Tindr, Grindr, Taimi, Bumble, Meetme, Badoo etc- this is the magnum opus, the creme de la creme, this app works because it gets rid of the picture. It gets rid of the ability to like or not like someone based on what they look like and who I interpret them as. It works because it just brings people together regardless of what u look like. I feel like I’m getting repetitive so let me get to my favorite thing.

Never. Ever. In my 21 years of queer socializing have I met so many amazing people. Best part is they all live within 50 miles. With any other app it would give me people farther away just to get me to click more and use it more. This app has been nothing but wonders and I promise I’m not being paid to leave this review. Please. Keep this app a safe and wonderful place. Keep this a place that our community can use. Ik there isn’t really a way to keep bad people out or predatory straight cos people out but-as long as the team stays on top of getting rid of the bad apples that get reported- this app is the only social media app I need.

Developer Response ,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this review! It means so much to us that you love Lex and took the time to let us know 💖

Used to adore, but nope on the new direction

I’ve been on Lex since it was very new and have been a huge advocate for it (getting friends to join, etc). I loved the original vintage personal ads model of the app that was understated and refreshing compared to other apps. I strongly disagreed with the visual rebrand last winter and the move to center advertiser-friendly “friendship” and decenter sexuality on the platform. They’ve been adding lots of new bells and whistles to the app, most recently the ability to comment on posts, and the new vibe is very far from 20th century queer underground personal ads, and similar to a hybrid of queer twitter and queer tinder, which I really don’t enjoy. Longtime bugs remain, which I used to happily tolerate from a scrappy app that I felt like had my back, but that feeling is eroding. I used to say I love Lex because it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to monetize our loneliness, unlike every other app—but on top of the new+more corporate features, Lex just got $5.6M in venture capital this fall (source: crunchbase), so I think that era is over. 😭

Developer Response ,

Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to share this feedback. We take your input seriously and genuinely appreciate you sharing your perspective 💚🌈 Please feel free to send any ideas or requests to support@lex.lgbt!

dislike how they turned it into a cashgrab

i used to really love lex, it was small but great for finding community, items, etc. the ciswhite lesbian execs got a multi million dollar investment and immediately began paywalling previously free features (like setting your location in other cities). they also make posting more than 6x a month cost money, frequently take down mutual aid calls by BIPOC users, and overall have a nasty vibe. their dev focus is clearly on whatever features will rake in more cash. i feel like they dont really consider user feedback at all. they don’t seem to care who uses the app anymore, and im frequently sent unwanted msgs from straight men and bots. i love inclusion AND i want to be able to have a platform intended for queer folx, actually be used by queer folx.

honestly, i no longer recommend this app. start your own trading/community discords from here and leave. it is useful for keeping up w some folx, but i feel like the popular sentiments on lex are becoming more conservative and less friendly. it kind of stresses me out to open the app nowadays. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Developer Response ,

Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to share this feedback. We take your input seriously and genuinely appreciate you sharing your perspective 💚🌈 we'd love to hear how you'd like to see us improve Lex! Please feel free to send any ideas or requests to support@lex.lgbt.

A great community but technically frustrating

Don’t get me wrong, I love this app and the community on there (with some exceptions lol). But the experience has kinda been ruined for me, because of the bugs. I used to get this particular bug occasionally and it was annoying, but bearable. When I open the app, it tells me I don’t have an internet connection, yet I have both 5G and Wi-Fi, very stable connection, and working for all other apps on my phone. Sometimes it will work as intended and I can open the feed. But now this bug happens more often than not, and it makes the app unusable, because I can only actually use it every ~100th time I open it, which is really disappointing and frustrating. I even thought my account was deleted the other day because of some bug where my number was removed from my account, and I wasn’t able to log in with my email either due to some loading issue.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing this issue with your app loading! This is an issue we're aware of and hoping to resolve as soon as we can. I'm very curious to understand what happened with your phone number when you tried to log in. If you're open to it, would you send an email to support@thisislex.app with more information about what you experienced? Thank you!

Awesome!

I really do love this app. The anonymity is empowering and makes it easier to put yourself out there. I can think of a couple things that could improve the app, but it’s kinda great in its simplicity. I’m gonna list a couple things, but honestly even as is I am pleased with the app.

My biggest wish is that they’d give you more characters for your ad (and a character counter would be helpful too, though not necessary!) Obviously you don’t want like whole essays for an ad, but just a couple extra sentences worth maybe?

I’d also love to see an area on your profile for like a mini bio, but I wouldn’t mark down for that bc I understand the app is based on old school newspaper personals and the idea is not to have those. But maybe just a spot for your orientation too, or what kind of relationship you’re in/want? As a queer ace that’d be cool so people could see right off the bat that I’m not interested in sex (bc there’s not always room to include it in my ads :’(

Okay wait, I did just think of another thing—it’s a little hard to find your messages at first, I didn’t even know how to check them for like two days... 🤦‍♀️ But again! This is constructive criticism bc I still do love the app! Thanks devs! ❤️

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for your review! These suggestions are wonderful, I just shared them with our team. I really appreciate you taking the time to write them out. Feel free to send more to support@thisislex.app in the future. I'm so glad you've enjoyed using Lex! 🌈 💖 ✨ -Aubrey

I’ve had good experiences but there are lots of scammers

I’m grateful for Lex because I’ve met the majority of my friends on the app. A lot of reviews complain about the post limit but honestly I am happy about it because it’s extremely annoying when one user makes multiple posts in a row so I’m glad that’s limited lol. Definitely wish something would be done about the infinite bots, scammers, and people (possibly bots?) making posts about selling hard drugs. I see multiple posts advertising drugs every week in my 30 mile radius. And every time I post I immediately get a message from a bot. I also wish there would be more of a crackdown on selling in general. It seem like every couple of posts are advertising something or selling concert tickets.

Developer Response ,

Hi, thank you for this real feedback, we sincerely appreciate it! 💚

My phone number is private

Unfortunately they seem to not allow email sign up any more. I don’t share my phone number. It’s private information and companies need to stop acting like they have a right to it.

Response to response: That’s false. Using a phone number is no more a secure identifier than email. Phone numbers are easily spoofed or obtained via virtual phone apps and services. I mean just look at these reviews and determine for yourself if the app is safe. Note the real reason why they collect phone numbers, well I’ll just refer you to their privacy policy. “ We may also allow third parties to place and read their own cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect information through the Services and those service providers may need access to your information, including personal data, to perform fulfillment and other services. “

Developer Response ,

Hi there, thanks for sharing this! Using phone number sign ups is one of the most effective ways we can keep our users safe, but I understand your decision to keep it private. Feel free to review our FAQs for information about how we use user data in case that will ease your worries. Take care!

Unsafe and abandoned

This app has such a wonderful concept and design but is somehow a less safe place to be than Grindr was at launch as there is virtually no moderation. Bots and scammers are granted first class in the ecosystem and preserving locality is basically a manual process. I don’t know why people in Jakarta and Sweden are messaging me when I post about local PDX goings on, but something stinks when it’s even possible to end up in this scenario in the first place. I understand wanting to make global connections, but not letting people constrain their visibility is a massive security risk and I would have thought queer people making apps for queer people would have understood that. But that’s the gap in understanding at the level you need to be to work in tech; being so detached from reality and self-absorbed by product benefits that they don’t consider anything practical. Disappointing at best.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, thank you so much for taking the time to share this feedback. We're working on several initiatives right now to make the app safer, and I sincerely appreciate you sharing these insights. I've passed on your thoughts to our team.