Popular Gay Dating App Grindr Poses Exploitation Risk To Minors

Bradley Tyrrell, 35, displays the Grindr app on his mobile phone in Brighton, Mass. on July 11, 2021. (Meredith Nierman/GBH News)

German Chavez was 14 years old when he first started using a gay dating app called Grindr to find adult men to pay him for sex.

He needed to help his troubled single mother pay the bills, he said, and had no trouble finding men to purchase him on the popular location-based mobile app.

Now 25 and years away from the sex trade, Chavez is warning other minors to stay away from Grindr, one of the most popular apps in the country for gay and bisexual men.

“Things that can be bad can happen to you, possibilities of death, [going] missing or being locked in a room where you can be taken advantage of as a sex object,’’ said Chavez, who now lives in Malden, Mass. “It’s an at-your-own risk place.”

The company touts its mobile platform as “The World’s Largest Social Networking App for Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer People” and says its users have to be 18 years old and older.

But the app is teeming with underage gay, bisexual and questioning boys, according to researchers, child exploitation specialists and users like Chavez who say they can easily lie about their age to gain access to the service.

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