Today marks the start of Women’s History Month, or maybe “Womxn’s History Month,” depending on who’s talking. The month just started, but the person running the Twitch Twitter account is already having a bad time.
Twitch is no stranger to advocacy; it’s often used its platform to give a voice to marginalized peoples and causes. For example, in light of the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Twitch spoke out against hate speech and hate crimes directed against Asian people.
Many people applaud Twitch’s efforts to be inclusive and give a platform to transgender streamers like FaZe Ewok. On the other hand, with their most recent Tweet in honor of Women’s/Womxn’s History Month, some people have found Twitch’s efforts at inclusivity to be a little more silly than helpful. Earlier today, the official Twitch Twitter account sent out a tweet, which has since been deleted, “celebrating and supporting all the Womxn creating their own worlds, building their communities, and leading the way on Twitch.” What people found odd is the use of the term “Womxn” rather than “women.”
“Womxn” was coined as an alternative spelling of “woman/women.” It was originally coined to get around perceived sexism of the word woman, which derives from the word “man.” It would later be used as a more inclusive alternative for “women,” meant to include both cisgender women and transgender women.
On the other hand, the term was clearly not garnering the reaction Twitch was hoping for. Trans people aren’t always portrayed well in gaming culture as a whole, so many are sensitive to exclusionary terms. Many trans women find the term “womxn” othering. Many women actually replied in the comments to the tweet how the term makes them feel like they aren’t considered “real women” by a society that gives them their own word. Some were even more offended, claiming the word was exclusionary by design and primarily used by TERFs. It was this immense backlash that likely lead to Twitter deleting the tweet.
To be fair to Twitch, it clearly meant the tweet in good faith, and not everyone was offended. Its blog post that went along with the tweet explained why it used the term “womxn” and how it wanted to make an inclusive space for cis women and trans women alike. Which is a stark contrast to some of its more popular streamers, like Ninja, who still refuses to stream with women. It may strike some as rude to gang up on a company that was trying its best to be inclusive.
Source: Dexerto
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