LOS ANGELES – It seems before the ink on Steven Grooby’s open letter even had a chance to dry, IAFD had welcomed its offer of assistance in recategorizing trans performers on IAFD.com.
The two companies put out a joint statement today announcing IAFD is already in the process of recategorizing, with assistance from Grooby.
“Trans women will be listed as ‘actresses,’ and trans men will be listed as ‘actors,’ with the additional option of allowing performers to self-identify via the submission form,” according to the statement.
From the sound of it, IAFD wasn’t just receptive to Grooby’s offer, but eager to act on it, as well.
“We are very appreciative for Steven reaching out and helping us see how important this issue is and that most importantly demonstrating it doesn’t need to be a difficult fix,” IAFD webmaster Jeff Vanzetti said.
As it turns out, IAFD’s dilemma concerning how to fix its handling of trans performer listings was the result of overthinking the problem.
“In our internal discussions, our desire to ‘get it right the first time’ tied us in knots as we debated and tried to solve for every edge case and in doing so, paralyzed ourselves,” Vanzetti said. “We didn’t want to ‘get it wrong’ so we didn’t do anything; but we realize, paradoxically, that in not acting at all, our current position ‘gets it wrong.’ With what turned out to be only minor tweaks to our underlying data tables – not the complete revamp as we feared – we are able to provide a solution that we hope treats everyone with the respect they deserve.”
The companies will work together first to identify performers who were listed incorrectly and misgendered on the site, then move them into the appropriate category. Trans performers will also be able to click on the “submit corrections” button on their profile to let IAFD know how they’d like to be identified. IAFD estimates most of the changes will be implemented before the end of the year.
“We’re really happy that we were able to take action and work with Jeff and the IAFD on this,” added Steven Grooby. “I reached out to them immediately after the open letter and am happy to report that they recognize the problem and are allowing us to work with them. The first fix we will be doing is to ensure that IAFD has everyone in the correct gender category. Once that is done, we’re going to look into giving them more details on specific performers and what content they may have appeared in.”
Vanzetti said IAFD is “ready to start migrating profiles as soon as the list is compiled or as the requests from the performers come in.”
“We hope to have the lion’s share of the work done before the new year,” Vanzetti said. Mistakes have been made, and since we’re human we cannot claim that they won’t be made again along the way, but rest assured our goal is not to belittle or marginalize performers who share so much of themselves – amidst great risk – for our pleasure.”
Grooby said the collaboration between his company and IAFD is “a great example of how with just a little work, we can make fixes in the industry which become a win-win for the websites and the community.”
“We look forward to getting this accomplished as quickly as possible,” Grooby said. “If any other companies or websites are looking for advice, as always, Kristel [Penn] is always available for you and one of the leading lights in the industry.”
