Looking for an LGBT roomie? There’s an app for that!

Finding a good roommate can be difficult for anyone but finding a roommate who is part of the LGBT community, or is an ally, can be an even bigger hurdle.

Wei Fan, a recent graduate of the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, witnessed this common struggle for LGBT people firsthand when she was assigned a straight roommate for her grad school housing.

“We barely talked,” Fan recalled. “I came out to her because I didn’t want to hide it and I wanted to decorate my living room with the rainbow flag and everything. But everything felt weird. She hung out with her friends and I barely talked to her.”

Fan looked back on her experience, as well as those of her LGBT friends, and became inspired to create TUTUroomii, a social app designed to help LGBT people find roommates.

The app first asks how you identify yourself – gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or ally – and then asks which identifications you would like to live with. Then, you can choose a location and view potential roommates and houses within your specifications.

Although the app is available globally, there’s currently only an English version and most of the registered users are in the United States, with the highest concentration in San Diego.

Fan decided to name the app TUTUroomii, which is a combination of “tutu,” the Chinese word for rabbit, and a playful spelling of “roomie.” She explained that rabbits commonly symbolize a relationship between a couple in the LGBT community in China, which is based on the story of Mulan.

“As the famous writing goes at the end of the story, ‘When two rabbits are running side by side, you can’t tell which is male, which is female,’” Fan said. “So the rabbit or bunny somehow stands for unisex or suggests that there’s no difference in sex. That’s probably why in China we have a god who is in charge of the relationship between men that also has the image of a rabbit and we call him the Tu God.”

She chose to spell roomii with two i’s to symbolize two people.

Now that the app is live, Fan is working on promotion and getting more people registered on the app. Since they don’t have a budget for online advertising, she is relying on organic, word-of-mouth marketing throughout the LGBT community.

“We got The San Diego LGBT Community Center’s support and they are willing to help us spread the word and we went to all the schools,” Fan said.

So far, there have been around 1,000 downloads but Fan hopes to see that number expand quickly.

“We have a lot of downloads but not many people are registered and listed,” Fan said. “We’re figuring out how to bring more people in.”

The inspiration behind TUTUroomii

Growing up in China, Fan knew from an early age that she liked girls but found few resources in China to help her better understand herself and the rest of the LGBT world. When she moved to San Diego to pursue a masters in finance at UCSD in September 2014, she found a more welcoming LGBT community. Between the Internet and programs at the university, she was able to learn more about other people like her.

She decided to create a resource for LGBT people in China on WeChat, which is a popular web platform in the country. Beginning in March 2015, she started to share articles about different sexual orientations and real stories of people’s journeys to self-identification. She recruited a friend from her undergraduate university in China to create cartoons based on this information and the online group quickly grew to thousands of followers.

“The self-identification here in the U.S. is deeper, and people do explore their own identification and people are very OK to talk about it, and I can easily find information online or at the LGBT Resource Center,” Fan said. “But in China, we don’t really talk about it, and the information is not convenient for us to get.”

For example, Fan explained that the concept of being transgender isn’t openly discussed in China so she created a cartoon based on the life of someone who is transgender to share with her followers on WeChat. She also mentioned the stereotypes that exist even among the LGBT community in China, such as that lesbian couples should have “one butch and one lipstick.” She created another cartoon to depict the relationship between two butch women as an alternative to the stereotype.

When Fan traveled back to China last year, she met with her friend, the cartoonist, and learned about the difficulty of finding a safe and welcoming place to live for LGBT people in China. Although her friend, who is a lesbian too, was lucky to find an accepting roommate, another lesbian friend in the same building didn’t fare as well. She moved in with a straight couple who didn’t treat her well after she told them that she was a lesbian.

“There are dating apps and social apps for lesbians and I wondered if there was a way to use those channels (to find a roommate) but they’re more for finding friends or friends with benefits,” Fan said. “It’s hard to find (LGBT friendly) roommates and that’s what inspired me.”

Fan returned to the United States and began to consider creating an app specifically for helping LGBTQ people find a fun, safe living environment.

“There is a need because it makes sense that we want to live with someone that we’re not afraid to hide ourselves and we can be good friends because we understand more about each other,” said Fan. “People who you live with will definitely influence your life quality.”

She started to spread the word about the app around the business school at UCSD, which offers resources and encouragement for start-ups. After she joined an entrepreneur challenge at the university, she formed a team to help get the app started. She created a prototype in June and by late July development of the app was underway. Two months later, the app was live.

The future of TUTUroomii

There’s more to the app than just finding a roommate though. A handy chat feature makes it easy to connect with people in your community and possibly find new friends too.

“When people who have initial chemistry start to chat with one another, they could eventually become roommates and if not, hopefully they can also become friends,” said Fan. “We welcome all good outcomes of using our app to connect people in the LGBTQ community.”

TUTUroomii officially launched in the Apple Store in September and although it is currently only available for iPhones, there are plans to create web and Android versions in the near future. They are also currently collecting feedback to help them decide which features are most helpful.

“As our ultimate goal, we aspire to create an app that can make roomie finding in the LGBTQ community as easy and fun as possible,” said Fan. “As our logo goes: ‘Better and colorful life at TUTUroomii.’” tuturoomii.com