This gay dating app is helping LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees and their families find shelter

As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, a gay dating app is helping LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing the conflict find safe shelter outside the country.

More than 3,000 Romeo users have offered up their apartments and residences to house Ukrainian refugees. The app counts more than 3 million users and features more than 17,000 groups on its platform devoted to everything from dogwalking to various fetish communities. On March 7, Romeo created a “Shelter for Ukraine” group to help refugees connect with potential hosts.

As the queer and trans news site Queerty reports, users in locations ranging from France and Belgium to the Netherlands have posted listings in the week since the group was created. Because Romeo is a German company, the majority of its users are European, and most postings are in Europe.

Abigail Gaskin, a spokesperson for Romeo, says the company has been “unbelievably grateful” to see the response from users. Its team met last Monday to discuss providing assistance to LGBTQ+ Ukrainians, she says, and decided to act immediately. Within hours, the app began notifying users that the shelter group was now available on its platform, and Romeo received so many responses that they had to “turn off the notifications on our computers because our batteries were running down,” Gaskin recalls.

“We’ve been really lucky with how great our users have been and how they’ve opened their hearts,” she tells Xtra. “One of the things we were concerned about was that people might use it in the wrong way, but we haven’t had to be worried. People see how scary what’s going on is. People are very serious, and they’re being very kind.”

More than 2,800 Ukranians have died since Russian troops began invading on Feb. 24. As many scramble to flee the country, LGBTQ+ Ukrainians face a unique threat as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aims to retake the former Soviet Union republic. Putin has reportedly drawn up a “kill list” that includes dozens of LGBTQ+ Ukrainians, and trans people without corrected IDs have been left stranded at the border, unable to leave. Many have lost access to gender-affirming care during the conflict.

Life could be even worse for LGBTQ+ Ukrainians under Russian occupation. In 2013, Russia passed an infamous “propaganda” law prohibiting the spread of information on “non-traditional sexual relationships to minors.” Its passage resulted in a crackdown on virtually all forms of queer life: local leaders in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg have banned Pride parades, and organizers have faced arrest and violent persecution.

Russia upped the ante last year by formally outlawing same-sex marriage and trans adoptions. In 2015, the country even banned trans people from driving.

Romeo’s queer male user base may not be able to take advantage of the housing listings on its platform, however. The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine has barred men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law on Feb. 24. Many have chosen to stay behind in Ukraine and join the military resistance.

Gaskin stresses that the offers on Romeo’s app are not merely for LGBTQ+ subscribers but also their extended family members: “sisters, aunties, brothers and whoever.” “We’ve been really clear from the start that this isn’t just for people in the community,” she says. “This is for everyone. It’s about helping people.”

One of the biggest obstacles Romeo faces in getting the word out to LGBTQ+ Ukrainians and their loved ones, however, is that the app has fairly limited reach in Ukraine. Gaskin says there aren’t a “huge amount” of Ukrainians who use the platform, and she estimates that the number is around 10,000. She says that only a “fraction of the offers have been taken up” at the time of publication.

That’s why Romeo is hoping that the LGBTQ+ community can help spread the word to ensure as many people are able to access the group as possible.

“There’s going to be a lot more people in the coming weeks and months that are going to really need to use this,” she says. “We’re going to have to keep pushing and reminding them that there is a resource there. It’s very frightening to see how things are going so backward.”

Pink Triangle Press, which publishes Xtra, owns the dating site Squirt, which is a competitor to Romeo.