The trading floors of the New York Stock Exchange were filled with pride flags as homosexual dating app Grindr debuted on public markets.
Leaders of the company rang the opening bell on Friday as individuals assembled throughout the historic building waved the “progress pride flag,” which includes the colors pink and blue to represent transgenderism, as well as black and brown to represent diversity. Large versions of the flag were also seen hanging throughout the building.
Grindr made its initial public offering through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Tiga Acquisition Corporation. The firm’s common stock will trade under the symbol GRND.
“Today marks an important milestone not only for the team at Grindr, but for the LGBTQ community we serve,” Grindr CEO George Arison remarked in a press release. “We enter the public markets with momentum, carried by our market leadership, strong financial performance and significant growth runway as we step up investment in our core product and services. I am thrilled to work with our team and investors as we continue expanding our platform and enhance the critical social infrastructure for a traditionally underserved community.”
Grindr users spent an average of 61 minutes on the app each day as of December 2021, according to the company, which earned $90 million in revenue during the first half of 2022. The company believes that there exists a $4 billion total addressable market for its services.
The entrance of Grindr onto public markets occurs as acceptance for homosexuality and transgenderism has quickly risen among Americans. Earlier this year, a poll from Gallup indicated that nearly 21% of Generation Z and over 10% of Millennials identify as LGBT, while roughly 4% of Generation X and less than 3% of Baby Boomers indicate the same.
Another poll from Gallup found last year that a majority of Republicans expressed support for legal same-sex marriage for the first time in history. Twelve Republican members of the Senate joined their Democratic colleagues on Wednesday in a procedural vote to advance the Respect for Marriage Act, a piece of legislation that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said in a statement that he voted in favor of advancing the bill despite his personal belief in traditional marriage because Obergefell v. Hodges has been “the law of the land upon which LGBTQ people have relied.” Though the former Republican presidential nominee added that he was satisfied with religious freedom protections included in the bill, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) remarked in another statement that he voted against the motion because “religious liberty protections” were “severely anemic and largely illusory.”
Corporate America has likewise expressed support for LGBTQ ideology and engaged in pressure campaigns against state governments that oppose the movement. The NASDAQ, which follows the NYSE as the second-largest stock exchange in the world, filed a proposal last year with the Securities and Exchange Commission to create new listing rules that would “require all companies” the exchange to “publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors.” Companies must have, or “explain why they do not have,” at least two diverse directors, including one who “self-identifies” as female and one who identifies themselves as “LGBTQ+” or an underrepresented minority.
