Grindr’s Head of Communications Resigns: ‘I Refused to Compromise My Own Values’

Grindr may not be available for comment.

On Friday afternoon, Landen Zumwalt, Grindr’s head of communications, quit his position in an open letter to Grindr’s employees on Medium, saying that he’d no longer “compromise my own values” to work at the company.

“As an out and proud gay man madly in love with a man I don’t deserve, I refused to compromise my own values or professional integrity to defend a statement that goes against everything I am and everything I believe,” Zumwalt wrote on Medium. “While that resulted in my time at Grindr being cut short, I have absolutely no regrets. And neither should you.”

He continued by saying it has been a “privilege” to come to work every day.

Love is love.

— Landen Zumwalt (@LandenRafe) December 7, 2018

“I am — and will continue to be — immensely proud of the work we were allowed to do during my time at Grindr,” he said. “I will never forget the heart-tugging messages, emails and more that we received from the queer community as a result of our Kindr initiative. Nor will I forget being a witness firsthand to the amazing activism work Grindr for Equality is doing globally or working alongside the award-winning reporting team at INTO.”

Zumwalt’s departure follows a week after INTO first reported that Grindr’s president Scott Chen posted on his public Facebook page that he agrees with those who “believe that marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman.”

In a follow-up internal email, Chen said that the words he used “related to marriage between a man and a woman were meant to express my personal feelings about my own marriage to my wife – not to suggest that I am opposed to marriage equality.”

In a statement, Grindr said they “wish him the best in his future endeavors and appreciate his contributions to the company and the Grindr community.”