Lyft partners with trans woman to promote new feature connecting female, nonbinary drivers with riders

Popular rideshare app Lyft is using a transgender woman to promote its new Women+ Connect feature, an option that lets women and nonbinary drivers connect with women and nonbinary passengers. 

The app's new feature will allow any driver who identifies as a woman to be connected with nonbinary or female passengers. Conversely, it will also allow passengers to choose whether they want a nonbinary or female driver to pick them up. 

The company entered into a paid partnership with an Oregon-based transgender woman, David, or "Davie" Felton, 55, on TikTok to promote the new feature in late February. 

Felton, a TikTok influencer with nearly a million followers, identifies as "genderqueer," according to a GoFundMe page intended to raise money to provide free clothing for people in the Central Oregon transgender community.

"This feature offers more control over the driving experience for women and non-binary people, allowing them to feel more confident in the car," Felton said in a post on TikTok. 

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Lyft has had thousands of sexual assaults occur during rideshares between 2017 and 2019. (Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket )

Some of Felton's other TikTok content includes teaching other transgender women how to "tuck," a term used to hide male genitals beneath clothing or swimwear. Another video shows Felton going to the DMV.

Last month, Lyft expanded its Women+ Connect feature nationwide after it was made available at only five locations in September 2023. According to the company's press release: "Women+ Connect offers more control over the rideshare experience for women and nonbinary riders and drivers." 

"If no women or nonbinary riders are nearby, drivers with the preference on will still be matched with men as Women+ Connect is a preference feature, not a guarantee," a company spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

The company also said it operates with an "always-on safety focus" and that both riders and drivers who violate its safety policies will be removed from the platform.

Over the last few years, both Lyft and Uber — which have nearly replaced the taxicab industry — have faced hefty lawsuits where passengers have alleged sexual assault, kidnapping and harassment. The company did not say in its announcement whether Women+ Connect was created to address safety, but rather to "build an equitable platform where women and nonbinary people can thrive."

"We’re always working on new ways to empower drivers and riders," the company stated.

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Florida's Tabatha Means is suing Lyft after she says a driver repeatedly raped her in 2019 and she became pregnant, resulting in the birth of a child.  (Peiffer Wolf/Kelly Sullivan)

Over the weekend, the company posted an ad on TikTok with the caption, "did this one for the gillies," showcasing the gender options on the Women+ Connect feature. 

"When rideshare is better for women and nonbinary people, rideshare is better for everyone. We’re proud to bring the comfort and camaraderie of Women+ Connect to millions across the country", Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement.

"This has gone so incredibly far beyond the realm of common sense and will be such an insufficient –  if not aggravating –  circumstance."

— Sarah Perry, legal fellow at Heritage Action Foundation

Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday that "to say Lyft is woke is an understatement," and that the Women+ Connect feature is "pouring kerosene on an already smoldering fire."

"The nefariousness, the mendacity, runs both ways," Perry said. "You have a passenger who could identify as a woman and you have a driver that could identify as a woman — the mind reels at the possibilities for misconduct and criminal activity."

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A Florida DMV office in Miami and a person holding a transgender flag. Florida has issued a policy change no longer allowing gender changes on drivers' licenses. (Monique O. Madan/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images/Reuters/Demetrius Freeman)

Perry said if Lyft wanted to make a concerted effort to address safety on the app, "they would have provided a singularly nonbinary option."

"For example, a passenger who identifies as nonbinary requesting a driver that also identifies as nonbinary, and then keep a biologically separate category for female passengers and drivers," she said.

"This has gone so incredibly far beyond the realm of common sense and will be such an insufficient, if not aggravating circumstance," Perry went on. 

Lyft released data showing more than 4,000 sexual assaults were reported on its app between 2017 and 2019. Fox News Digital requested an updated report from the company on Tuesday. 

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In February, a Connecticut judge rejected Lyft's request to throw out a lawsuit filed by an unidentified 14-year old girl's family that alleges she was driven out of state by one of the app's drivers and sexually assaulted in New York. 

And earlier this year, a Florida woman sued the company after she claimed a male driver raped her and got her pregnant. Her lawsuit alleged that "Lyft failed to take reasonable precautions to protect its vulnerable female passengers … from the foreseeable and known risk of assault."

Fox News Digital reached out to Felton for comment but did not hear back by press time.