For Holly Shore of Massachusetts, Internet dating was a way to meet new people, especially men, but when she recently met “Sam” on Bumble her casual dating life was flipped upside down and now she’s fighting to save her job, friends, and family!

“Sam seemed nice at first. We shared a love for the Bruins and The Weeknd. We messaged back and forth all day,” says the 30-something-year-old who lives outside of Amherst, MA. 

Holly, a nurse with UMass Memorial Health, was a divorced single who spent the last few years vowing that she’d never get in a relationship again. “A friend had met her partner on Bumble, and after the pandemic I realized I didn’t want to be alone again,” the innocent nurse tells GWU!

She continues that when she met Sam, they hit it off instantly. Holly enjoyed Sam’s woke sensibilities and wry humor. “Sam was always sending me funny memes about Donald Trump being arrested and Tucker Carlson being an idiot. What a riot!” Holly agreed to meet again and again and three weeks later the two love birds were seeing each other almost daily. “I was ready to take the next step,” confides the divorcee.

But the newfound love came to a dramatic end when Sam took Holly to a drag show in Boston. “It was fun, different, outside my comfort zone, but Sam seemed to know a lot of people there including the performers, which was odd since we both live more than an hour away. Weird.”

Is that a banana in your pocket?

Hours before a planned trip to the pool Sam revealed the truth that had been hidden from Holly. What Sam had failed to disclose was that HE was a SHE. Sam was a woman by birth who now identified as a man!

“I was shocked and embarrassed. To be honest, I felt like Sam was telling me she had a secret family or was on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list. I felt lied to about everything. I told Sam that it was deceptive and unfair and that, ultimately, I wasn’t interested in dating a woman. My Bumble profile was super clear on that.”

What Holly experienced is a new phenomenon that women and men around the world are experiencing regularly on online dating sites called TransTrick. Simply defined the term has become known on incel message boards such as Reddit, as when transmen and transwomen fail to disclose their gender by birth to online dating partners. The term, of course, is separate from the 4Chan thread Tranny Trap. 

The breakup for Holly, however, did not go well. Sam accused her of being transphobic and actually filed a complaint with her employer at UMass. The gal masking as a guy also shamed Holly on social media sites to both friends and family. 

“I have no problem with trans, I just don’t want to be in a relationship with one,” adds the blonde haired blue eyed single. “Some of my friends agreed with Sam and while my parents were on my side, they did say that as a nurse I should’ve recognized how mentally ill Sam was.”  

With Holly’s world turned upside down, she contacted Bumble, who told her that it was not their responsibility to disclose the “assigned gender” of their users and that she should have used a “better vetting process before agreeing to meet.”

“What the hell are you supposed to ask?” questions GWU!’s war on culture columnist Toby P. Gelman. “Do you have a sausage or a bun? This is a scam. These trans know full well that 98.99% of the world doesn’t want to go to bed with them. And, yet, they intentionally deceive their victims and then when it doesn’t go their way they destroy their lives.”

A Wolf in Women’s Clothing

Holly’s experience echoes the recent case of Canadian Influencer Adea Danielle, 22,who decided to be trans after watching a YouTube video (do we have a link for that video?—ed). Despite finally being comfortable in his body, the ‘model’ – who has over 138,000 followers on Instagram – says he often chooses not to disclose the fact he’s transgender to men, which is often met with backlash.

“It’s my past and you’re not going to meet someone and tell them everything that happened in your past,” he said.

But Holly disagrees with the influencer’s opinion. “If Sam had been up front perhaps we could’ve been friends. The whole experience has made me want to go back to being alone.”

And while Holly waits for her employer to conduct a full investigation into her alleged transphobia, she says that she’s warning others about the dangers of Internet dating.

“If the Trans don’t like it, then they can make their own platform,” suggests Gelman. “Or change the settings so that anyone who wants to grind with the gender benders can. Stop wasting straight, sane people’s time.”