Twitch Under Fire For Banning These Popular Trans Streamers

For virtually the entirety of its existence, Twitch has been the leading platform when it comes to live streaming. Nowadays, the streaming platform is owned by multinational giant Amazon and has held a vice grip on the streaming market for years, with only occasional opponents in the form of short-lived platforms like Mixer. Despite its success, Twitch hasn't always had the best reputation and has often shown its shady side, particularly when it comes to banning users. Now, it's coming under fire yet again for banning popular transgender streamers, seemingly for little reason.

With each passing year, it seems that Twitch's terms of service becomes more and more vague. This had led to bogus bans in the past for frivolous or otherwise ridiculous reasons. Controversial Twitch user Amouranth has been banned countless times for seemingly innocuous reasons, while Dr Disrespect's infamous ban in 2020 is still shrouded in mystery, despite the two parties recently settling the dispute outside of court. However, these pale in comparison to the recent bans against certain trans users on the Twitch, which have put the company under fire.

On July 18, trans Twitch streamer Clara "Keffals" Sorrenti posted on Twitter that she had been banned from Twitch after being raided by a large group of viewers — allegedly fans of controversial streamer Destiny — who proceeded to hurl hate speech in her direction and mass report her. Apparently, Keffals' response, where she read some of the insults on stream, is what led to the ban. This prompted certain high-profile supporters such as Alejandra Caraballo to come out in support of Keffals and condemn Twitch for its ban.

Two days later, a similar incident occurred in which Ian Alexander — a trans actor and streamer known for their role on "Star Trek: Discovery" — said they had been banned by Twitch after dealing with a brigade of trolls. The actor said that they told the trolls to "touch grass" — a term typically used as a way of saying "go outside" and off the internet — only to have their stream shut down while it was still live. Alexander's Twitch channel was quickly reinstated and the actor also received an apology. However, as of the writing of this article, it seems that Keffals is still banned, which has sparked even further anger from the gaming community.