This feature also has the potential of endangering those drivers. If I were a driver I'd definitely not opt in to a function like this.

ITT: Men who don't understand the dangers of living as a woman.

I'm a passing trans woman. I presented as a man for decades of my life and have lived the last handful as a woman. But the amount of times I've been groped, harassed, chased or made to feel worried about my physical safety just for existing in the world has skyrocketed. Truly, I know what it's like to experience society both ways and without question it is worse for women.

I've had men sit next to me at the theater, put their hand on my knee and try to feel me up. Ive had men smirk as they "accidently" bump in to me at the grocery to squeeze my breasts. I've been followed to my car by men asking what I was doing tonight, who then started yelling and only left because I had pepper spray.

Like, srsly. Every single one of you saying this is discrimination have no clue what it's like to worry that any interaction with a man you don't know can quickly turn scary. Getting in to some random guys lyft who will then know where I live, while he has the ability to lock the doors is honestly a super vulnerable position to put yourself in situation.

Yes, mens wages will be harmed, but women are physically being harmed right now. Tell lyft to pay their drivers an hourly wage like they should anyways and STFU about a safety feature.

What would stop me, a man, from claiming this status and requesting female drivers? While this policy was undoubtably made with good intentions, it is ripe for abuse.

I understand the reasoning and positivity behind this and I do believe it comes from a really good place, it may even be beneficial to customers, but it is gender discrimination in the workplace, whether it leads to mostly positive outcomes for some people or not.

If your employees bring in different amounts of money because you've started to split their available workloads based on gender (especially in an industry where gender has no impact on one's ability to do the job), you're now likely to decide that due to this trend over time, to discriminate further, prioritising the more popular genders over others when hiring, and when firing, and when deciding wages.

After all, if one gender brings in less profits consistently than the others - because they're stifled by company policy - why pay them as much? It makes business sense to pay them what they're worth, and they're measurably worth less than the other genders, now.

It's a slippery slope. Well intentioned, but damages equality in the workplace.

Are they going to call it Cabracadabra?

This is, quite literally, a comically bad idea. This has literally been used as a punchline in fiction.

That's a neat feature; I wonder why it's explicitly not available to men (who would prefer a male driver for whatever reason)... I guess maybe they feel that would go against the stated goal of encouraging more women to sign up as drivers, but like... why? If nothing else, men with a preference for male drivers would ensure that more women / non-binary folks could get drivers matching their gender, since as they note there's far more non-male riders than drivers.

I also wonder if it gives non-male drivers the option to only accept riders who match their gender, which it seems would be the more important facet to encouraging non-male drivers, if safety concerns are the reason they're not signing up to do so.

I have no idea why women would want a woman taxi driver.

Oh boy, can't wait until they do that for race.

What an idiotic idea.

Why not let men do the same thing?

So this feature is matching with someone of the same gender only. That's the impression this gives. So women with women, nonbinary to nonbinary. Ok. Why are men cut off if that's the case? How many more lines of code could it possibly be to just implement it for everyone instead of specifically choosing to exclude people? It would be the exact same PR if it was made available to everyone. There's zero reason this couldn't just be implemented universally. In terms of this making things safer or more comfortable, couldn't someone that is a slimeball just lie? The article says you have to choose your gender. What is actually stopping someone from misusing this?

Okay, well let me ask a question...

If a person identifies as non-binary, then what fucking business they got asking me my gender?

What's next? The "no blacks" option? I'm sure you can find studies to validate that fear too.

I'm just here for my popcorn and comment entertainment. Which did not disappoint

That's really bullshit. This result will be that every male drivers will become non binary to not be discriminated by the customers.

This is not because some suffer that it is correct to punish an entire gender for that.

Cool, now both Lyft and Uber need a "no extra conversation" option too. I don't want to talk to the driver when I use rideshares, I hate the incessant small talk they want me to be a part of. I know some people might like it or at the very least not mind it, but I absolutely can't stand it 9 times out of 10. Give me the option to specifically not have it please.

Before Covid a number of companies offering female drivers for female riders popped up.

Here one, Nash Pink Ride, that just recently started:

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/new-rideshare-company-aims-to-help-women-feel-safer-in-nashville/