By Andrew J. Sciascia
In an predictable turn of events, prominent health and wellness accessory developer Fitbit, Inc. has unofficially been chosen as the latest subject of the LGBT community’s collective scorn.
The organization is under fire this week on social media for, of all things, a supposed lack of gender “inclusivity” within the software for its popular fitness trackers — which were recently revealed to be incapable of tracking the illusive male menstrual period.
Controversy seems to have initially spun up around the company Saturday, when a transgender Twitter user going by the name of “Lilo the Autistic Queer” publicly called out Fitbit customer support for placing an app feature meant to track users’ menstrual cycles under the “Female Health” umbrella.
“Hey @FitbitSupport I love the ‘Female Health’ tracker in your app.” Lilo wrote. “However, I’m not female & I menstruate.”
“Many trans & intersex people are in this position and feel alienated from menstrual health access. Could you please change the name to the neutral term ‘Menstrual Health’?” Lilo asked.
“I don’t want to have to misgender myself and my body in order to access menstrual health tools.”
If people could retweet this to try to get @fitbit to see it, that would be helpful. It’s a tiny change they could make that will make a huge difference to a lot of people.
I don’t want to have to misgender myself and my body in order to access menstrual health tools.
— Lilo the Autistic Queer (@A_Silent_Child) February 8, 2020
Not everyone who menstruates is female. Not everyone who is female menstruates. Let’s shift our language.
— Lilo the Autistic Queer (@A_Silent_Child) February 8, 2020
What followed was roughly three days of round-the-clock updates from the transgender activist, which began with a screen shot of the menstrual cycle tracker’s interface, complete with “the one issue circled” for clarity — that “one issue” again being the fact that an application meant to track a biological female’s window of fertility happened to be labeled “Female Health.”
Met with numerous responses, however — some from the company itself and others from apparent supportive employees on their personal accounts — the trans activist only seemed to grow more frustrated as the hours turned into days. Many people seemed to agree with her, too, as the activist’s initial tweet garnered over 500 retweets.
And while admittedly cryptic technical responses were met with snide remarks or outright disappointment, things truly took a turn for the aggressive when the company made its most accommodating response: one which included a link to an official company forum on which users could vote for new features and changes.
Oh ffs @fitbit whether or not your product is inclusive to trans people shouldn’t be something you put up for a “vote”
Like, either you support our existence or you don’t. https://t.co/J5CT2KmSRO
— Lilo the Autistic Queer (@A_Silent_Child) February 9, 2020
full story at https://www.westernjournal.com/fitbit-female-health-tracker-attacked-not-including-non-women-menstruate/