Popular ride-sharing app “Lyft” is using a transgender woman to promote its new Women+ Connect feature. This feature is an option for women and non-binary drivers to connect with women and non-binary passengers.
The app’s new feature will allow drivers who identify as women to connect with non-binary or female passengers. Conversely, passengers will also be able to choose whether they would like to be picked up by a non-binary driver or a female driver.
In late February, the company entered into a paid partnership with “Davey” Felton, a 55-year-old transgender woman from Oregon, on TikTok to promote the new feature.
Felton, a TikTok influencer with nearly 1 million followers, calls herself “genderqueer,” according to a GoFundMe page aimed at raising money to provide free clothing to people in Central Oregon’s transgender community. He admits it to himself.
“This feature gives women and non-binary people more control over their driving experience and gives them more confidence behind the wheel,” Felton said in a TikTok post.
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Lyft was responsible for thousands of sexual assaults while sharing rides between 2017 and 2019. (Rafael Enrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket)
Felton’s other TikTok content includes teaching other transgender women how to “tuck,” a term used to hide penises under clothing or swimsuits. Another video shows Felton going to the DMV.
Last month, Lyft expanded its Women+ Connect feature nationwide, which was previously available in just five locations in September 2023. According to the company’s press release, “Women+ Connect gives women and non-binary riders and drivers more control over their ride-sharing experiences.”
“Women+Connect is a priority feature and not a guarantee, so drivers who have the priority feature turned on will be matched with a man even if there are no female or non-binary riders nearby,” a company spokesperson said. said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
The company also said it operates with “always a focus on safety” and that passengers and drivers who violate safety policies will be removed from the platform.
Both Lyft and Uber, which have been largely supplanted by the taxi industry in recent years, have faced costly lawsuits in which passengers allege sexual assault, kidnapping and harassment. In its announcement, the company did not say whether Women+ Connect was created to address safety, but rather to “build an equitable platform where women and non-binary people can thrive.” There is.
The company said it is “always working on new ways to empower drivers and riders.”
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Tabitha Means of Florida is suing Lyft Inc. in 2019, alleging that a driver raped her repeatedly, resulting in her becoming pregnant and having a child. (Pipher Wolf/Kelly Sullivan)
Over the weekend, the company posted an ad on TikTok with the caption “This was made for Gilly,” showcasing the gender options for its Women+ Connect feature.
“If ridesharing is better for women and non-binary people, then ridesharing is better for everyone,” Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement. We’re proud to bring that sense of camaraderie and camaraderie to millions of people across the country.”
“This is incredibly beyond the bounds of common sense and would go far enough, if not worse, to make things worse.”
Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said in an interview on Fox News Digital on Tuesday that “to say Rift has woken up is an understatement” and that the Women’s Connect feature is “an already smoldering problem. It’s like pouring kerosene on a fire,” he said. fire. “
“The villainy, the deception goes both ways,” Perry said. “There are passengers who identify as women, and drivers who identify as women. There may be illegal or criminal activity.”
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Florida DMV office in Miami and a person holding a transgender flag. Florida has announced a policy change that will no longer allow gender changes on driver’s licenses. (Monique O. Madan/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Reuters/Demetrius Freeman via Getty Images)
Perry said that if Lyft wanted to work collaboratively on its app’s safety efforts, it “would have offered its own non-binary option.”
“For example, a passenger who identifies as non-binary may make demands of a driver who also identifies as non-binary to maintain biologically separate categories for female passengers and drivers.” she said.
“This is incredibly beyond common sense and would go far, if not make things worse,” Perry continued.
Lyft released data showing more than 4,000 sexual assaults were reported on its app between 2017 and 2019. Fox News Digital requested an updated report from the company on Tuesday.
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In February, a Connecticut judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by the family of an unidentified 14-year-old girl who alleges she was driven out of state by one of the app’s drivers and sexually assaulted in New York. It denied Lyft’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.
And earlier this year, a Florida woman sued the company, claiming her male driver raped and impregnated her. Her lawsuit alleges that “Lyft failed to take reasonable precautions to protect vulnerable female passengers from a foreseeable and known risk of assault.”
FOX News Digital reached out to Felton for comment, but he did not respond by press time.
