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Comment by TFNA | Hacker News Reader

A comparable FOSS app called Drip has been on F-Droid since forever.

Drip has a paradoxical flaw: by trying to be extremely inclusive and making a "gender-neutral" app (without the colour pink) to include trans people, it discourages some people from using it. At least, my friend told me she thought the design was ugly and was looking for a "cute" app, so she ended up using Flo instead of Drip despite my many warnings.

I think FLOSS apps often forget that not everyone is a developer or a nerd who prioritizes privacy and ethics over design, which is a real problem since people end up using proprietary apps that data-mine them.

That sounds not so much as a flaw, as a conscious product decision. And to be honest, doesn't sound like a bad one, not every app needs to work or look the same way, as long as people have choices, they can be responsible for the choices they make. If someone wants a safer but boring app or if someone wants a cute "who gives a fuck about privacy" app, both should be fine.

The problem is that there is literally no other free and open-source app to track your periods, so you're forced to use some proprietary piece of shit that sells all possible medical information about its users.

There seem to be lots of FOSS period tracking apps available, look at the other comments in this submission!

What seems to be lacking, is a FOSS period-tracking app that also lets you share stuff with a partner, which is the reason me and my partner use Flo in the first place.

The government does NOT let people have choices in many cases. People should NOT be forced to choose between medical privacy and potential prosecution.

That your comment even implied that would be acceptable in this context is appalling.

I don't know where you got "the government" from, all I'm saying is that apps should be allowed to have cute designs or boring designs, based on their own judgement, and that people should be allowed to freely choose between those. No one should be FORCED to chose anything, I agree, and I didn't imply anything like that.

Regardless of your opinion on gender and identity politics, surely people can agree that only biological women have periods.

Not quite! While trans women obviously don't have menstrual cycles a good chunk of the population suffer from period-like symptoms/PMS just due to similar hormonal fluctuations.

Aren't those 100% predictable since they are caused by external application of said hormones?

There are multiple factors like dosage and specific hormone regimen (some do monotherapy while others do estrogen and a anti-androgen), but generally yes

Of course, but treating transgender men like you would a cisgender woman with all the same gendered expectations is both incredibly disrespectful if done on purpose and humiliating for someone who very much does not want to be treated as a woman despite having a period that most likely already makes them very uncomfortable and dysphoric

> only biological women have periods

generally, yes, but there are so many edge cases there with intersex people that it is far easier and more inclusive to just say roughly 50 percent of the human population has periods and avoid having to deal with the million asterisks that come with that statement

50% of the human population will at some point in their life have periods, perhaps; but presumably (due to childhood and menopause) less than 50% of the human population has recently experienced a period.

Language is consumed by people, not machines.

You don't have to speak like a lawyer.

There is no intersex person waiting to jump out and yell accusatory things at you because you didn't include sufficient asterisks or you said statements that are 99.9999% true.

> There is no intersex person waiting to jump out and yell accusatory things at you because you didn't include sufficient asterisks or you said statements that are 99.9999% true.

I would assume that the app isn’t pink because the devs aren’t worried about getting yelled at. The number of intersex people is minuscule compared to the amount of folks that have Opinions about them online.

I don't quite understand your point. Is Drip non-pink to include trans men? That sounds really far fetched to me. And your friend found it ugly because it's not pink? Design is obviously subjectivity and perhaps your friend prefers the color pink, but has any of this actually anything to do with trans people and inclusiveness?

What's your reasoning for the conclusion of the app looking the way it does due to this and not due to the developer just subjectively preferring this design?

In the app description: "Not another cute, pink app. drip. is designed with gender inclusivity in mind"

So it's a perfectly conscious choice, and that's exactly what turns off some women who might prefer a cute, pink app. I have nothing against inclusivity, quite the opposite, but in this case they could offer two themes rather than imposing an app that isn't "cute". Even as a man, you can prefer cute things.

Okay, that's strange. It also doesn't make sense to me. Making an app non-pink and not-cute doesn't seem gender inclusive at all to me. It's a perfectly fine design choice on its own, but implying that non-pink things are somehow more gender inclusive than pink things is quite stereotypical about traditional gender roles.

I think this could easily be fixed by allowing themes of some kind

took me a while to figure out what you were even responding to:

> Not another cute, pink app. drip. is designed with gender inclusivity in mindful

so a FOSS community should bimboify their app because your friend wants her data pinkwashed more than she wants her data safe? sounds like a her problem but she could always fork herself

Why would a pink theme count as bimbofication? Because it's associated with femininity? And anything feminine is immediately "bad" by association?

If Drip had a pink theme, I'd use it (albeit I'm fond of their current design, too!).

My friend isn't a developer; on the contrary, she's pretty tech illiterate. She has very little patience for testing 10 different apps. I think it would be possible to have two themes: a neutral one, and a pink and cute one.

or, like I suggested, allow custom ones. I know a trans guy who would think a shark themed period app is pretty cool (he calls it his shark week)

I seriously doubt that the vast majority of women would avoid using a period tracking app just because it's not pink and stereotypically girly. Frankly, I find the notion vaguely offensive.

iOS/watchOS has had period tracking functionality with completely sterile design and people use it just fine.

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