Lyft adds in-app pronoun choices for riders
Lyft is the first ride-hailing app to ask what pronouns you use when you ride in a car, whether that's male, female, neutral pronouns, or other options.
The ride-sharing service announced Wednesday that starting today for LGBTQ Pride month (that's June) and going forward, riders can add pronouns onto their profiles, and choose from five different options:
1. They/Them/Theirs
2. She/Her/Hers
3. He/Him/His
4. My pronoun isn't listed
5. Prefer not to say
Lyft's soon-to-be-former chief marketing officer Joy Howard said in a phone call this week that the pronoun addition is part of Lyft's "Two is Too Few" campaign calling out the gender binary engrained into our society. Lyft is adding pronouns to be part of creating an "inclusive platform," she said.
Starting today, you can update the app and input your pronouns, which will show up for drivers. "There's a sense of community in our app," Howard said. She said including the pronouns encourages safe, respectful, and pleasant conversation in shared trips or for chattier rides.
Pronouns are only the start of Lyft's Pride campaign. The newly public company is also offering name-change support for transgender drivers with the National Center for Transgender Equality, which includes $200 for name change fees and paperwork filing.
Ongoing support for the LGBTQ+ community comes in through Lyft's "Round Up and Donate" program, which asks passengers to give the remaining change from their fare -- say a $6.82 ride rounds up to $7 with 18 cents donated -- to different charities and organizations. A popular destination for round-up donations is the Human Rights Campaign. Passengers have raised $3 million since 2017 for the LGBTQ civil rights group.
Lyft will also embody its Pride campaign with a presence at 50 different Pride events across the globe next month. As Howard said, the concept behind "Two is Too Few" will come to life in honor of Pride.
Topics LGBTQ Social Good lyft
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
