Not for cis straight men: the dating app that launched a thousand queer love stories

The new app Lex was born out of Personals, a photo-free Instagram service that emulated traditional newspaper ads

Cachi(C) Owens and Cynthia Velisquez reached the same conclusion within days of meeting: they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

The pair first started talking on Instagram in January, through a popular account that offered a contemporary version of traditional newspaper personal ads. Owens, a 29-year-old artist and professor, had never had much luck on dating apps, but the Personals page was different. It did not use photos, but instead featured a long list of bios of queer and trans people looking for internet friends, lovers or partners across the globe.