Performing Gender Identity Through Digital Interfaces: Comparing Self-presentation Practices Between Queer and Heterosexual Dating App Users

<jats:p>This study examines how digital matchmaking systems structure partner selection processes among queer and heterosexual users, focusing on how platform design and algorithmic affordances create asymmetrical conditions for the performance of gender identity. Despite claims of inclusivity, dating platforms encode binary and heteronormative assumptions in their interfaces, shaping match outcomes and limiting the visibility of queer users. Addressing a gap in online dating research, largely focused on heterosexual users, this study analyzes the experiences of nonbinary, genderfluid, queer, and cisgender users navigating algorithmic matchmaking across 11 dating applications in French-speaking Switzerland. It adopts a mixed-methods, feminist, and ethically grounded methodology, combining 41 in-depth interviews, participant observation, and legally obtained personal data from two platforms. Findings reveal that while heterosexual users pursue strategies of normalization and authenticity, queer users must negotiate visibility, safety, and algorithmic legibility through profile curation, geolocation management, and orientation disclosure. Matching results indicate that even on queer-oriented platforms such as HER, profiles aligned with normative femininity consistently receive more engagement, exposing persistent aesthetic hierarchies. These findings highlight that dating platforms are not neutral tools, but political spaces where social norms and gendered power relations are reinforced and, at times, strategically challenged through self-presentation.</jats:p>