Furious debate rages over straight, cisgender allies using LGBTQIA+ Twitch streamer tag

An Apple iPhone 11 smartphone with the Twitch video streaming app logo on screen. (Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty) Imagine you’re searching through Twitch looking specifically for LGBT+ streamers. You click the LGBTQIA+ Twitch tag expecting to find those identities represented. Yet many of the resulting streamers are actually straight allies. This is, for the most part, well intentioned. Cis het streamers want to ensure their streams are a safe space for LGBT+ viewers. By using the tag, though, they are inadvertently erasing the voices of queer content creators. It’s a long-running issue that has once again surfaced online, with LGBT+ Twitch streamers asking allies not to use the tag in their streams. Do y’all realize how frustrating it is to go down the list of streamers streaming to the lgbtqia+ tag and having the first TWENTY be cishet?? — Dagonmar 🏳️‍🌈 (@dagonmartv) March 10, 2021 Who is the LGBTQIA+ Twitch tag for? Much of the confusion lies with Twitch itself. In their list of tag definitions, they note the tag is for “streams in which the streamer chooses to identify as a member or ally of the LGBTQIA+ community”. By definition, then, the tag includes allies. What’s more, some…
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