Tell Shelley Anne: An Interview with Luna Ray

Luna Ray

Luna Ray is the founder of Bloom Community, a sex-positive social and dating app. Bloom creates a safer space for queer, kink, ethically non-monogamous, and other alternative communities to connect and build community. In Bloom, you can find and join community events and meet people going or use it for your private event to help people connect before and after.

Ray serves on the board of OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-Monogamy, whose mission is to advance public acceptance and build political power for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. She’s also on the board of the Gracenter, an organization in San Francisco that helps women without resources break free from drug and alcohol addiction to create a hopeful future for themselves and others. Prior to Bloom, Luna led User Acquisition for Instagram from 700M to over a billion users, the social products team at Oculus that launched consumer VR to the world, and the Marketplace team at Faire. She has two degrees in engineering and business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied computer science at Stanford.

Ray identifies as queer and polyamorous, and her other interests include human connection and empathy, creating music, organizational effectiveness, women’s equality, hiking, and spending time with friends. She’s generally interested in all topics related to diversity, inclusion, and access and is on a mission to spread consent culture.

TGForum: Please elaborate on how the idea of forming Bloom Community came about.

Ms. Ray: When I started on this journey a couple of years ago, I had already spent five years building social software at Facebook, Instagram, and Oculus and saw firsthand how technology has an unprecedented ability to impact our culture, lives, and relationships. Yet with all of this social technology to connect us, our world has become lonelier than ever. Bloom is my attempt to answer the question “how can technology connect people authentically?” I looked for models in my life that had offered true connection and a sense of community. What experiences facilitated meeting and bonding with new friends and deepening connections with existing ones. I did not have to look far. The polyamorous and BDSM world offered an abundance of connection — at social gatherings, parties, and workshops. The queer and Burning Man scenes were other communities I knew which brought down walls between individuals through a network of trust. Immersive and experiential (aka “weird”) art communities offered it as well. What these communities had in common was they provided a regular event — a common experience to connect around, along with a shared set of values to go with it, which serve as guard rails for communities at the bleeding edge of culture. These events offered an opportunity to invest in the community as contributors — with time, resources, ideas, art, hosting, and more — rather than as mere consumers.

In the tradition of the communities I admire, I created regular events called Blooms which were initially envisioned as group dates in parks for those who share our community values – consent, communication, and respect. As we have developed Bloom, we have also co-created the app to facilitate connection at our events. Our community size eventually outgrew our ability to personally host Blooms ourselves, so we began partnering with trusted event organizers in the queer, kink, art, consciousness, and other alternative communities to host their events through our app and facilitate connection between their attendees.

TGForum: I think you are more than just an App?

Ms. Ray: Today, Bloom Community is a “town square” for members of edge-of-culture communities to gather, organize, and yes — find interpersonal connection with each other. Bloom is a great place to meet people to date, to befriend, to collaborate with. Bloom is an intentional space for finding safe, deep, vulnerable, authentic connection. Unlike other dating or social apps, Bloom is focused on getting people off-screen to in-person events where people can experience the magic of bonding over shared experiences — both platonically and romantically.

TGForum: What services do you offer transgender and non-binary folks?

Ms. Ray: Trans inclusion is very important to us at Bloom, and we have made several intentional product decisions to make our community more welcoming for trans people, and by extension, all people. Because of our partnership with queer communities, over 60% of Bloom members are queer and over 15% are trans and/or non-binary. When we designed the app, we wanted to empower our trans and non-binary members to decide for themselves which searches they wanted to show up in, rather than be limited by the searches of other people. Our trans and non-binary members have the option to select if they would like to show up in searches for “men,” “women,” “non-binary,” or any combination thereof. As an example, a trans man might want to be seen by people searching for non-binary people and men. A bi-gender individual might want to be shown in searches for “men” as well as “women.” As a result of this feature, many of our members have gotten matches they otherwise would not have. Our goal was to ensure that trans and non-binary people never missed connections because other people did not know to look for them. When we created the list of options for gender identity, we combined the lists from four apps in order to have the most inclusive list possible, which includes over 100 gender identities. We chose to make a write-in pronoun field part of our onboarding process and feature them prominently on people’s profiles. Finally, our Community Values specifically call out respecting the identities of people in our community. Repeatedly misgendering people, making transphobic comments, and other offensive statements will always result in removal from Bloom.

TGForum: What excites you most about the work you do, especially as it relates to the transgender community?

Ms. Ray: I am most excited about providing a safe space for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people to be their authentic selves and find the human connection we all deserve. I want Bloom community to be the best dating and social app for trans people. Our trans and non-binary members are consistently our happiest members, and it’s especially exciting for me to see them retain on our app at significantly higher rates month after month, when compared to our cis members.

TGForum: You serve on the board of OPEN, the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-Monogamy. What is tie-in to Bloom?

Ms. Ray: What OPEN is trying to do as a non-profit is legalizing protection in addition to public acceptance of gender, sex, and romantic minorities such as polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. We envision a world where romantic and sexual practices between consenting adults are respected, protected, and accepted, regardless of relationship structure, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other group affiliation. Bloom’s mission is to create more opportunity for interpersonal connection among these communities to flourish.

TGForum: Share a little about the political atmosphere of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy.

Ms. Ray: I want to live in a society where people are free to choose who and how they love, without social stigma and with legal protections. There is a generational shift in culture that is happening where every generation is queerer and more interested in ethical non-monogamy and polyamory than the previous. A recent YouGov poll indicated that a third of Americans believe their ideal relationship structure should be non-monogamous, driven mostly by wide acceptance among Millennials and Gen Z. I believe political and cultural power for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy will require a movement that will parallel and learn from the LGBTQA+ movement.

TGForum: What are the most important decisions you make as the founder of your organization?

Ms. Ray: Bloom is a small but dedicated team. We are in it for the community-building and because we know a better world is possible. There are thousands of things I want to do to improve the app and hundreds of cities I want to launch in, so that we can bring Bloom to as many people as possible. I get requests every week from people in places where Bloom is not a presence yet, asking me when Bloom will arrive to their city. The hardest and most important decisions I make involve prioritizing my team’s limited resources to bringing access to connection and community for as many people as possible.

TGForum: What things do you do outside of the office to help you be better at what you do?

Ms. Ray: I am passionate about fighting for equality on behalf of gender, sex, and romantic minorities. My position on the board of OPEN allows me to advocate for legal protections for polyamorous and non-monogamous people so that no one can be fired from their jobs for loving unconventionally. I enjoy learning from community leaders, and I have hosted gatherings for women and non-binary community organizers to share resources and build capacity for these broader movements.

TGForum: Can you name a person who helped you make an impact as a community leader? In what manner?

Ms. Ray: I do not think of myself as a community leader, but rather in service to the community leaders around me. I am lucky to have known countless community educators and organizers who do great work in bringing people together. As an example, Lexie Peters is a community organizer we have partnered with recently and I have been both inspired by her presence online and in her ability to build queer community through her events.

TGForum: Is there something about you people would find surprising?

Ms. Ray: I love tinkering and I am always the handiest person in my friend group. I know my way around power tools, and I am always in charge of fixing things around the house. One of my earliest DIY projects was constructing a loom from scratch, and I still use it for weaving projects sometimes.

TGForum: What is the best way for TGForum readers to learn more about the services you provide?

Ms. Ray: Check out the Bloom Community website and download the app to try it out. When creating a new account, you can use the referral code – tgforum. If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out to [email protected].

Tags: BDSM, featured, kink, polyamory

Category: Interview